[ad_1]
Solar panels are found almost everywhere. There’s a good chance that one of your neighbors has it on their roof, like the big box store down the street. As you drive there, you may see a field of them spread out along the road. With this kind of ubiquity, you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s no room for improvement.
Venkatesan Murali would like to prove you wrong.
Murali, Founder and CTO of Merlin Solarhas been working with a new angle on solar energy for nearly a decade. He founded the company in 2016, after the stunning collapse of Solyndra in 2011, and while Chinese manufacturers were pushing panels up a dizzying cost curve. But Murali remained steadfast in his stance, even though he had learned a lesson from the disaster.
“Don’t scare people away with something new,” he told TechCrunch. “There are no new particles, no new physics.”
Instead, Merlin Solar turned to an existing and widely used solar technology, single-crystalline silicon. Solar cells made from this material are inexpensive but fragile; To prevent breakages, companies typically place single-crystalline silicon inside two sheets of glass bordered by a metal frame. This makes the panels heavy, and limits where they can be installed.
Murali wanted flexible solar panels, but using monocrystalline silicon was a challenge. “Everything crystalline will eventually crack,” Murali said. “Can we be sure that every electron will find its way, even if a bullet passes by?”
To answer this, the company changed the way the cells inside the panel are connected. Merlin increased the number of forward, backward, and intercellular connections, and made the interconnections springy so they could bounce back after being bent.
“Suddenly, we had a product that was not only crack-resistant, but also electrically resilient to cracking,” he said.
Merlin panels are much lighter than typical glass panels, and their flexible nature changes how and where they are installed. The boards come with adhesive on the package, so they can be attached to surfaces just like a baby poster. The flexible structure can follow the curves of various surfaces, allowing it to mount on the roof of a Winnebago Airstream trailer, for example.
Merlin says its panels can handle partial shade better than traditional panels. In a conventional panel, as soon as something like a leaf lingers in a corner of the cell, power output drops dramatically. The Merlin’s communications network allows more power to be directed around the shaded cell.
The added flexibility, light weight, and ability to handle shading have made Merlin panels a favorite among RV owners. The company has also sold panels to companies like Perdue, Daimler and Ryder for use in their trucks, allowing them to reduce idling or use fossil fuels to power on-board refrigerators.
Merlin’s modifications mean that its products cost more than typical solar panels, forcing it to get creative with the people it sells to. “We are going into spaces where we are not competing individually on cost,” Murali said. “When I reduce truck idling, I’m faced with the dirty, expensive energy that burning diesel produces. So when I experience that, my return on investment is usually within a year and a half.”
Beyond RV owners and shipping companies, the company is also eyeing the rooftop solar business, where a significant share of solar panels are installed. To expand, the company recently raised a $31 million Series B round led by Fifth Wall with participation from Saint Gobain and Ayala.
Merlin hopes Saint Gobain, one of the largest roofing materials companies, will become one of the startup’s biggest customers as its panels find their way into Saint Gobain’s solar panels, said Laura Allen, Merlin’s chief operating officer.
[ad_2]