California-based perovskite solar startup Caelux has closed US$12 million in Series A3 financing to support its factory expansion in Baldwin Park, California, research and development (R&D) and eventual product launch.
The funding was led by global investment fund Temasek with additional contributions from Reliance New Energy Limited – which owns a 20% stake in Caelux – Khosla Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan and Fine Structure Ventures. The Series A raise has now closed US$24 million.
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A spin-out from the California Institute of Technology, Caelux is building a manufacturing facility in Baldwin Park, California which it says will ramp up to 100MW annual production of its perovskite-coated solar glass. The company’s technology deposits perovskite on solar glass which is then transferable to module manufacturers’ products and, according to Caelux, can increase their revenues and efficiency and pave the way for tandem modules with efficiencies greater than 30%.
In a blog on its website, Caelux says that its products can be incorporated into module production with minimal changes and can provide benefits across the solar value chain. For example, it claims that a 23% efficiency module could reach 26% with the addition of its glass.
When it acquired its 20% stake in Caelux, Reliance Industries said that the perovskite-on-glass innovation “provides us with access to next leg of innovation in crystalline solar modules”.
Scott Graybeal, CEO of Caelux said: “Our advances in perovskite technology represent a seismic shift in the solar energy industry, providing more powerful, efficient, and cost-effective solar solutions.
“This investment will support our mission to usher in the next generation of solar innovation, including our production of full-size perovskite sub-modules. We are excited to have attracted visionary, global investors to help us on our journey to multi-gigawatt scale.”
The company has stated its aim to be producing at GW scale by 2025.
Commercially viable and scalable perovskite solar products could be nurtured in the US, as discussed in a PV Tech Premium feature earlier this year. Fellow US startup Cubic PV has received funding from the US Department of Energy to support its R&D efforts to make durable, reproducible and scalable perovskite cells and modules. Elsewhere, conversion efficiencies for tandem modules have continued to increase but commercial products are yet to emerge.
