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Covalent Solar may hold the key to increasing efficiency and cost effectiveness of solar energy. They just won the $20,000 MIT Student Team Award at the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize as well as another $10,000 the following day in the MIT $100k Business Plan Competition. Their simple, yet powerful idea is derived from concentrating sunlight onto smaller surface area rather than collecting it over a broader surface such as current solar panels. Their “Organic Solar Concentrators” look exactly like a quarter inch thick neon green piece of glass. However, the technology captures the light from the surfaces, redirects, and concentrates the light on the outer brim. The benefit comes from being able to create smaller photoelectric converters to turn the concentrated light on the brim into energy instead of large surface areas of solar panels such as the ones you are probably familiar with.

By focusing on a smaller area and device, Covalent Solar will be able to improve power conversion efficiency by 30% over the industry average. This reduces the installed cost per watt by 20% in 2014, and reduces the amortized cost of electricity to $0.12/kWh, hastening the onset of unsubsidized solar electricity competitive with the grid. Since the Organic Solar Concentrators come in sheets of transparent material, they can easily be fitted over current solar panels to increase extraction and efficiency of those devices. This breaks down an barrier to entry while enabling those with older technology to easily upgrade and improve return on investment.

The invention was conceived after 18 months of extensive analysis of technical and economic characteristics of current solar technologies and designed specifically to address those limitations and maximize potential impact. Covalent Solar is currently in the working prototype stage and is seeking to develop, commercialize, and manufacture their invention.

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