Making Hyper-Efficent Solar Panels a Reality
27.02.2019
Venture Kick winner Insolight SA made headlines worldwide after independent testing of its commercial solar panel design confirmed a world-record 29 percent yield. Read co-founder and CEO Laurent Coulot's vision for solar.
 Insolight's panels have undergone year-long testing
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Insolight is now preparing industrial production of its design, which combines technology made for satellites with manufacturing processes, that will allow the Lausanne-based company to serve commercial and residential customers on earth.
Confirmation of the efficiency of Insolight's panels created headlines nationally and internationally, with reports in English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.
Confirmation of the efficiency of Insolight's panels created headlines nationally and internationally, with reports in English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.
Insolight's chief executive and co-founder, Laurent Coulot, shares his vision for solar energy in our interview (below).
What is Insolight's core innovation and mission?
Insolight aims at bringing the most efficient solar module on the rooftop market, to make solar electricity more affordable. Our approach achieves high performance, versatility and cost-effectiveness by combining our patented optical system and an array of tiny space-grade photovoltaic cells, typically used in satellites. By significantly boosting the energy yield, Insolight’s panels will deliver more energy and higher investment returns compared to mainstream PV modules.
Your panels set a new standard for commercial solar, what kind of opportunities does 29 percent efficiency open?
Our team has achieved a decisive step, bringing the product from a lab prototype to full-size solar panels, installed outdoor and monitored 24/7. The modules have been extensively tested and successfully endured heat-waves, winter conditions, and storms. It is key to make such validation in real outdoor environment and it sets the stage for large-scale industrialization. The efficiency validation of 29% breaks the ceiling of mainstream photovoltaic modules, which typically have an efficiency of 17-19% in similar conditions. This performance can reduce solar electricity costs by up to 30% on rooftops.
What are your next steps to bring these panels to market?
We are starting to discuss with several solar manufacturers to license our technology. This can drastically speed up our market entry, leveraging their manufacturing capabilities and know-how. Our technology involves a few extra assembly steps, which can be integrated at the end of existing production lines. In order to convince those partners, we need to demonstrate a blueprint solution, which dilutes the technological risks. We are therefore preparing an industrialization plan and aim to demonstrate the modules assembly for large-scale production.
Venture Kick supported you in 2016, did it help you to get where you are today?
VentureKick has been instrumental in our success; the program gave us all the tools to elaborate our business case and communicate our value proposition. The Kicker Camps are especially useful, with very intense and dedicated training sessions, preparing us well for our financing round.
Insolight has received supported from European Union (H2020, Solar- ERA.Net, Eurostars, Climate KIC) and Swiss federal programs (Innosuisse, Innovaud, SPEI, FIT, Venture Leaders Technology, CleanTech Alps), as well as the European Space Agency (ESA BIC) and EPFL (Innogrant).
