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Two companies covered by CleanTechnica recently have made the news this week. ClearPower announced the performance of its solar windows has been verified by six months of independent testing at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and MIT spinoff Electrified Thermal Solutions announced it has received a $19 million investment from several industrial companies.
ClearPower Wins Award From Architectural Record Magazine
Stellaris Corporation, the manufacturer of ClearPower electricity generating inserts for insulated glass windows, announced this week that it had been selected as an Editor’s Pick by Architectural Record Magazine as part of its 2024 Products of the Year competition. That competition heralds the leading building materials and furnishings introduced to the North American market in the past year. They range from high-performance facade systems to eco-friendly and ethically produced ceilings and wall coverings, and more. Winners of the competition are determined by an independent jury of five professionals who select the best products based on innovation, usefulness, and aesthetics.
Stellaris’s ClearPower insert is the only transparent building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) technology that produces power comparable to conventional solar panels. Yesterday, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released the results of a six month test of a ClearPower PV insert which showed it performed virtually the same as a Kyocera KC40T solar panel used as a reference.
As we reported in our original story about ClearPower, there are millions upon millions of windows in the world. If they were replaced with ClearPower inserts, they could generate electricity for our homes and office buildings to help run air conditioners and heating equipment, power elevators, or cook our food. All of that electricity would be 100% emissions free as well. Solar windows can help democratize electricity so that we have more control over our own energy usage while reducing the burden we place on the planet when we generate electricity by burning fossil fuels.
Solar Windows & Economics
Most solar windows have one serious drawback — they barely generate enough electricity to pay for themselves. Many have an energy efficiency of 2% or less. They also tend to block the view, which defeats the purpose of having windows in the first place. ClearPower does things differently by orienting its solar modules horizontally rather than vertically, which allows them to harvest sunlight reflected upwards from below as well as directly from above. This orientation allows them to block some sunlight in warmer months when the sun is high overhead but to allow more sunlight in during colder months when a little solar heating is welcome. Heating and air conditioning costs are a major concern for all building owners. ClearPower windows can help control those costs while they generate electricity.
Above is a graph showing the observed output of the ClearPower insert and the reference solar panel during the most recent testing. Now that the NREL testing has confirmed the ClearPower solar insert has nearly the same performance as the Kyocera solar panel used as a reference in the testing and has gotten the award from Architecture Record Magazine, the company is ready to begin supplying its products for new construction or for replacing existing windows in the built environment.
The ClearPower window leverages the encapsulation of multi-pane insulated glass windows and is inexpensive to manufacture, which keeps the cost of the windows lower than other BIPV technologies. The result is a fully transparent, powerful BIPV window that annually harvests 68 to 75 percent of the energy of high efficiency conventional PV modules in the same orientation. By having the economic benefit from both PV-generated electricity and reduced heating and cooling loads, the payback is short enough to make widespread adoption affordable. The ClearPower windows are now at that inflection point where the best technology is available at precisely the time it is needed most.
Electrified Thermal Systems Scores Major Investment
In June, we reported on Electrified Thermal Solutions, an MIT spinoff that is manufacturing fire bricks that can be heated with electricity. On its website, the company says its Joule Hive thermal battery has two characteristics with profound implications for decarbonizing industry globally. The first is that the electrically conductive fire bricks are the first heating element that can convert electricity to temperatures up to 1,800°C and can scale to electrify the highest-temperature, hardest-to-abate industries, such as steel, cement, glass, and chemicals. The second is that these high temperatures correlate to unprecedented energy density, which enables the cost effective storage of that thermal energy with >95% efficiency. Therefore, cheap off-peak electricity can be used to bring the cost of decarbonizing below or close to parity with existing fossil fuel sources.
The Joule Hive thermal battery is a stack of electrically conductive firebricks in an insulated steel container connected to a supply of electricity. The Joule Hive thermal battery is charged by passing electricity directly through the bricks to heat them to as much as 1800°C. The thermal energy is stored at that temperature and then the system is discharged by running air or another gas through the brick channels to provide heat to any furnace, boiler, turbine, or kiln.
One of Electrified Thermal Solutions’ biggest champions is MIT nuclear engineering research scientist Charles Forsberg, Stack’s former thesis advisor and an advisor to the company. “I have no doubt that this is going to go commercial,” Forsberg told Inside Climate News. “I’m 77. It’s just sort of an intuitive feel of 50 years in the game.” Fosberg, Stack, Kabel, and MIT are all joint owners of the patent for electrified firebricks.
On December 11, 2024, the company announced it had raised $19 million to accelerate the commercial demonstration and growth of it Joule Hive Thermal Battery (JHTB) system. The round is backed by world leaders in cement, mining, metals, building materials, and energy sectors, such as cement producer Holcim, mining leader Vale, and renewable energy developer EDP. These industries account for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions but lack cost-effective options for decarbonization today.
Electrified Thermals’ innovative solution leverages renewable electricity sources to generate zero-carbon heat at unprecedented temperatures. Its patented brick technology is the first thermal energy storage system to reliably deliver ultra-high temperatures reaching up to 1,800°C/3,275°F. This breakthrough enables cost efficient electrification across industrial sectors and applications by providing zero-carbon heat generation that matches the flame temperatures industrial processes require.
“The world demands technology solutions that can do the job of fossil fuels affordably, scalably, and without carbon emissions,” said Daniel Stack, co-founder and CEO of Electrified Thermal. “Mining, metals, cement, chemicals — the foundations of our built environment — are the most energy intensive and stubborn industries to decarbonize. With the backing of these investors, our upcoming commercial demonstration will showcase the unmatched capabilities of the Joule Hive Thermal Battery at industrial scale, accelerating deployment across all heating applications, from boilers to dryers to furnaces in every industry.”
Nollaig Forrest, Chief Sustainability Officer for Holcim, said, “The team at Electrified Thermal Solutions has developed an innovative technology that turns bricks into batteries. With our investment, we look forward to scaling up this clean energy solution across our operations to accelerate the shift to sustainable building at scale.”
“With the mission to lead the energy transition, EDP is already at the forefront of decarbonizing industrial processes by offering electrification solutions to its clients. EDP Ventures’ investment in Electrified Thermal Solutions reinforces this commitment, making it more competitive and achievable for industrials to shift to renewable sources and to reach net zero,” said Luís Castro Henriques, General Partner of EDP Ventures.
This funding keeps Electrified Thermal Solutions on course to have its first commercial demonstration operational in 2025 — a critical next step in decarbonizing industry. The investment will help Electrified Thermal lay the foundation for scaling manufacturing and support efforts to expand its industrial customer base and secure contracts. Electrified Thermal’s 2025 JHTB demonstration will propel it forward on its mission to deploy 2 gigawatts of thermal power capacity by 2030.
The Takeaway
That’s two announcements just this week that make the path to a low-carbon future both possible and also affordable. Each is impressive in its own way. The world can’t wait for every drop of oil, molecule of methane, and lump of coal to be burned before we transition to clean energy solutions for people, businesses, and industries. Despite political headwinds ahead, especially in the United States, we need to celebrate the good news in cleantech where we find it.
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