'A lot more AI applications': Australian solar glass company set to revolutionise global construction
By Emma YoungMay 12, 2020 — 1.48pm
In a quiet outpost of Perth’s central business district a cutting-edge green tech company’s collaboration with Silicon Valley has achieved a game-changer for both the company and for the global construction industry.
ClearVue in West Perth has now
not only created "smart glass" that can produce power but has now has a major breakthrough in delivering a substantial boost to how much power is produced.
ClearVue founder and chief executive Victor Rosenberg with the tiny prototypes first produced. Credit:Emma Young
The product is made of ordinary glass panes coated with specialised films, sandwiched between them a clear layer of material that absorbs the sun's radiation and redirects it to solar cells at the edges.
The result is windows that can generate energy to power building processes and help cover running costs, let through less noise than ordinary glass, insulate, and run dimmers and automatic blinds without the need for cabling. They may even make blinds and curtains obsolete one day, being able to turn opaque then back to clear as needed to increase or decrease sunlight on demand.
ClearVue founder and chief executive Victor Rosenberg imagines not only commercial buildings using the technology, but home windows, doors and skylights, bus shelters and cars.
With every new home, car, apartment or office needing windows, the market for an effective and reasonably-priced product is potentially enormous, and the ASX-listed company is now celebrating a breakthrough: boosting power output on its prototype by a major 33.3 per cent after a research collaboration with California’s D2 Solar.
This really is a big breakthrough. It’s very difficult to increase the power with clear glass.
Victor Rosenberg, ClearVue founderAfter eight months of work, they worked out how to deliver a power boost from 30W of power produced per square metre, to 40W – without adding additional costs or affecting transparency.
This new prototype is now in the testing phase before the company seeks new international building certifications.
Mr Rosenberg, who has worked on his product for more than 20 years with a dream of making a major contribution to global sustainability, is overjoyed.
“It is a slow process and I am extremely thrilled. This really is a big breakthrough,” he said. “It’s very difficult to increase the power with clear glass ... it’s a major milestone.
“Whether it’s the blinds, the light control, the oxygenation ... it increases the amount of power available to support more and more of the artificial intelligence systems. This is very important.
“We can do a lot more AI applications.”
And the more power the windows generated, he said, the less time they took to repay the investment of using them.
Mr Rosenberg is keen to break into the Chinese apartment building market and has now signed a letter of intent with a large Chinese company, Beijing Jinmao Green Building Technology Co, which he said was keen to work closely with him to make this happen.
He was also working on licences in Europe, Germany and South America, particularly Brazil.
Meanwhile, ClearVue’s original panels are being used in various pilots around Perth.
The first is a solar glass atrium at Warwick Grove shopping centre in the northern suburbs, which has been constructed.
And while COVID-19 has delayed things somewhat, around September, at a demonstration home in Fremantle, people will be able to see how the glass, in combination with other technologies, helps the home produce more energy than it needs to run; and a prototype greenhouse at Murdoch University will be built that provides not only insulation but also the ability to generate energy for desalination and lighting.
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