World's first solar cell energy-harvesting textile

This result was delivered from an interdisciplinary collaboration between Sphelar Power, which uniquely developed 3-dimesional light capturing Sphelar cells, and the Industrial Technology Center of Fukui Prefecture which serves as innovative R&D hub for local textile industries.

The basic structure of the texture is composed of warp and energy generating woof: 1.2-mm Sphelar cells are aligned and connected as a thread and then it is weaven as woof with supporting warp.  The energy generating thread and the how to weave it as textile are both developed in this project. With such structure, photovoltaic module can be not only flexible, but also expandable just like textile.

Sphelar Power will continue the development in cooperation with the Industrial Technology Center of Fukui Prefecture and local companies, and ship the samples in one year.

The energy-harvesting textile technology developed here allows for a wide range of innovative designs that cannot be achieved using conventional technology, since it has the advantages of Sphelar which is less dependent on incoming light angle and enables light-through module, and the ones of textile which is light, flexible and extensible.

Sphelar Power Corporation