Washington’s Department of Commerce awarded nearly $800,000 in grants to two Vancouver companies developing green technology.
The grants were part of $37 million awarded to 46 clean energy projects across the state. The money came from the cap-and-invest program established by the state’s Climate Commitment Act.
Technology startup DWP Energy Solutions received a $270,000 grant to develop translucent solar panels that can be used in greenhouses to grow plants while simultaneously generating electricity.
Manaflex, a California-based company that manufactures flexible printed circuits, received a $517,720 grant to develop a flexible photovoltaic prototype and production line.
“Communities all over Washington will benefit now and in the future from these strategic investments in clean energy,” Commerce Director Mike Fong said in a news release last month. “The wide range of projects funded reflect the state’s overarching climate goals to create economic opportunities and jobs, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, increase power supply reliability and resilience, reduce emissions, and strengthen the clean technology supply chain.”
The grants are being used to support research and development of new technologies that improve production, use, storage and transportation of energy.
DWP Energy Solutions was founded by former scientists and engineers from Sharp Laboratories of America, including Wei Pan, who is experienced in industrial engineering.
“We’re using existing solar technologies, like solar panels and concentrated solar. We’re looking for new areas for applications,” Pan said.
When sunlight shines onto a solar panel, energy is absorbed by photovoltaic cells in the panel. The photovoltaic cells convert the energy into a flow of electrons, which creates an electrical charge.
Typically, solar modules cannot separate or distinguish the different wavelengths of light across the sunlight spectrum, such an ultraviolet, infrared or X-rays, which have different uses.
“Conventional solar panels just block the whole spectrum. They absorb part of the spectrum but block the whole spectrum. In our case, we said, ‘Let’s see if we can more efficiently use that solar spectrum for different purposes,’” Pan said.
Crops growing in a greenhouse only need one part of the spectrum while energy production uses a different part. DWP Energy is adapting solar technology to allow plants to receive the light they need while also capturing sunlight for energy generation.
“Our innovation is not on the solar panel, per se, but on the application side,” Pan said.
Installing the solar panels in the greenhouse will also allow for better control over temperatures in the greenhouse and exposure to solar radiation, he said.
DWP Energy will be building a prototype greenhouse to test the new technology in the coming months.
