by Every six seconds, in a factory on the northern edge of Stockholm, a high-resolution printer is churning out sheets worth thousands of euros each. Each contains 108 mini solar cells that will soon find their way into everyday gadgets – from keyboards to headphones – that will fundamentally change the way we interact with technology. According to their creator, they will even force us to rethink our relationship with light.
Sweden may be an unlikely location for a solar revolution, but the lack of light during the winter months was one of the reasons why Exeger co-founder Giovanni Fili looked beyond the Sun as the only source of power for a photovoltaic cell. His company’s breakthrough technology can harvest electricity from almost any light source, from direct sunlight to candlelight. It can even generate a charge from moonlight, although it would take some time to get much use out of it.
“Like the algae at the bottom of the ocean where it’s almost pitch black, we can make efficient use of very few photons,” says Fili The Independent. The t-shirt he wears describes his company’s technology as “world-changing”, able to address both the global need for energy and some of the world’s greatest environmental challenges. at our planet.
Indoor solar panels have been around for years. Solar-powered calculators were first introduced in the 1970s, but the limitations of the amorphous silicon cells they rely on mean they are too low-power, fragile and difficult to integrate into other products.
The latest innovation stems from the 1988 discovery of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). A pair of scientists from UC Berkeley in California created a low-cost, high-efficiency cell that was both semi-flexible and semi-transparent, paving the way for the technology’s commercial development.
A little over 20 years later, Fili and Exeger co-founder Henrik Lindström came up with a new electrode material that offered 1,000 times better conductivity. The breakthrough was the basis of their Powerfoyle cells which are now being produced on a commercial scale.
Exeger’s Powerfoyle solar cells offer a radical departure from traditional glass-encased panels, eliminating the need for the silver lines you see on them that act as conductors. They are also not sensitive to partial shading, which greatly reduces the efficiency of photovoltaic panels.
The patented skin-like material can even be transformed into almost any material to allow seamless integration into a huge range of products, while still being waterproof, dustproof and shockproof.
“It works in any light condition, it’s more durable than any other solar cell in the world, it’s easy to manufacture, and it can mimic any surface – leather, carbon fiber, wood, brushed steel. It’s also beautiful,” says Fili. “So we can integrate it into products that are already selling in the billions of units a year.”
Exeger’s Stockholm facility has the capacity to produce 2.5 million square meters of solar cells annually, making it the largest factory of its kind in Europe. Speaking at the opening of the factory in 2021, Fili predicted that Exeger technology will “touch the lives of a billion people by 2030”
The Powerfoyle solar cells have already been found in seven products on the shelf – including headphones, wireless speakers and a bicycle helmet – and six more have been announced. Customers include Adidas, Phillips and 3M, and they are also said to be in talks with LogiTech and Apple.
A battery-free future
Exeger is one of several startups at the forefront of commercializing indoor solar panels, with the promise of endless clean power attracting researchers and entrepreneurs alike.
US-based Ambient Photonics was drawn into the space by the “magical” potential of the smart home, as well as the hope that it could eliminate the need for disposable batteries.
“The scale at which smart electronics can be deployed is limited by battery life and the use of traditional batteries, which require constant charging, stagnant product design, and have negative environmental consequences,” Bates Marshall, co-founder and CEO. Ambient Photonics, said The Independent.
TV remote controls alone are responsible for throwing away 3.1 billion disposable batteries each year, according to estimates from Samsung. The Korean electronics giant has prioritized a switch from alkaline batteries to photovoltaic energy to meet sustainability targets, claiming it could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by around 6,000 tonnes a year.
“Each advance in the power density of our product brings us closer to a future where the need for disposable batteries is significantly reduced, if not completely eliminated,” says Marshall.
Ambient Photonics DSSCs are integrated into remote controls, although limits to the amount of heat and light they can expose mean the technology is currently limited to indoor applications.
The versatility and durability of Exerger’s Powerfoyle means that the only limits are energy-intensive devices like laptops and smartphones – although they can significantly boost their battery life by 50-100 percent. Exeger is also exploring a solar-powered tablet cover that could provide enough power for casual users that they never need to charge.
“Our grandchildren will laugh that we had cables,” says Fili.
One trend that Fili has noticed is that users of Powerfoyle products are much more aware of their surroundings and the presence of light in their lives. “We’re making people aware of light,” he says, “because light is power.”
Fili is driven by the belief that the Powerfoyle is era-defining technology. Exeger is the first to commercialize the technology on this scale, although it is relatively new since Fili sees everyone on the planet as a potential user. Others appear confident in his claims, with Forbes comparing him to figures like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
The technology behind Exeger solar cells, like the printers that produce them, is a closely guarded secret. Even the public does not yet know the purpose of the thousands of Powerfoyles that are being printed every minute in the Stockholm factory. (The elongated shape strongly suggests that they will be used in a product that most of us use every day – one on which this article is being typed.)
“This is really big,” says Fili. “We’ve secured a contract with the world’s largest supplier of keyboards and mice, and we’ve already partnered with some of the world’s biggest companies and brands. This technology will dominate the world.”
