Project Title: SolarSkin, Color-Match Solar Panels
Funding Opportunity: SunShot Technology to Market (Incubator 10)
SunShot Subprogram: Technology to Market
Location:  Somerville, MA
Amount Awarded: $1,000,000
Awardee Cost Share:  $250,000
Project Investigator: Senthil Balasubramanian

In this project, Sistine Solar plans to develop, test, and manufacture SolarSkin, a new, integrated component of a solar photovoltaic panel that allows for homeowners to customize the aesthetics of their panels – for example, to blend them with their roofs. This award will provide the necessary resources to properly develop a fully-tested, verified, and certified product that is ready for market deployment.

APPROACH

There are many communities around the U.S. - an estimated 13 million homes – where the perceived poor aesthetics of solar is a significant barrier to its adoption. To unlock this opportunity, Sistine Solar has created SolarSkin, a patent-pending, customizable, graphics layer within the solar panel. This novel layer can bear any image - for example, a red Spanish tile pattern – thereby transforming the solar installation from one that is strictly utilitarian to one that combines form and function. With a 98% acceptance rate, SolarSkin can not only unlock this tremendous opportunity but also satisfy a latent desire among homeowners for aesthetically-pleasing solar panels.

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INNOVATION

At the heart of Sistine’s innovation lies a patent-pending approach to integrating high-fidelity graphics into solar panels while optimizing energy generation. The result is high-efficiency solar panels of virtually any color, shade or pattern. Sistine’s vision is to similarly make solar the most attractive energy choice for residential, commercial, and architectural applications, thereby significantly increasing solar deployment and reducing the levelized cost of energy of solar.