Tandem PV – a pioneering force in perovskite solar technology – recently announced it has raised an additional $6 million, bringing the total to $27 million in venture capital and government support. The company will utilize the funding to advance research and development and plans to build its first manufacturing facility.
Existing investor Planetary Technologies led this funding round. And other institutional investors participated, including new investor Uncorrelated Ventures, and executives from a variety of corporate sectors and such solar industry leaders as Tom Werner, former chairman, president and CEO of SunPower Corp.
Last summer, Tandem PV named entrepreneur Scott Wharton as CEO in a leap closer to commercialization with a focus on panels that combine high efficiency and durability. And Wharton is speaking about renewable energy at a conference complementing the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos.
Tandem PV’s design boosts the output of conventional silicon solar cells by stacking them with thin-film perovskite materials that absorb different wavelengths of sunlight. And the company is producing tandem perovskite panels with 26% efficiency – which is about 25% more powerful than the average silicon solar panel. More power at the same price per watt leads to lower labor costs for installation, lower land-acquisition costs and a lower total cost of ownership for customers.
Tandem PV demonstrated the equivalent of decades of projected durability in the lab. And the company plans to obtain independent industry-standard validation of efficiency and durability, expected to rise further this year.
Wharton joined Tandem PV from Logitech where he grew the company’s video collaboration business from $62 million to a global market leader with over $1 billion in annual revenue. And before Tandem, he led three successful startups, including two that went public, and one he founded that was sold to a Fortune 500 company.
The company was founded by its CTO Colin Bailie who published the first peer-reviewed studies on perovskite-silicon tandem solar panels as a Stanford University doctoral candidate. And Tandem co-founder Chris Eberspacher is an industry pioneer who has led technology at some of the world’s largest solar companies. Bailie and Eberspacher launched the company while at Activate (formerly Cyclotron Road), the U.S. Dept. of Energy startup accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory supporting entrepreneurial innovations with potential for global commercial impact.
KEY QUOTES:
“We have been consistently told by some of the world’s foremost solar industry experts that Tandem PV has the best combination of high efficiency and durability of any perovskite panel in commercial development. The new investments validate that leadership position in the global perovskite market and will help us bring in customer agreements to begin building our first plant.”
— Scott Wharton
“Perovskite solar panels promise the kind of powerful and cost-effective solutions we need to combat climate change. I have been impressed with Tandem PV’s team and the progress they’ve made to take their innovations out of the lab and into the market.”
— Tom Werner, former chairman, president and CEO of SunPower
