Merlin Solar bets twisty panels will help it land on rooftops everywhere
The startup uses standard silicon solar cells but connects them using bendy materials, giving them better durability and more flexibility.
Solar panels are just about everywhere. There’s a good chance one of your neighbors has them on their roof, as does the big box store down the street. As you drive there, you might see a field of them posted up alongside the road. With that kind of ubiquity, you’d be forgiven if you thought there wasn’t room for improvement.
#merlinsolar #technology #solarcells #panels #energy #newsonleo
Venkatesan Murali would like to prove you wrong.
Murali, founder and CTO of Merlin Solar, has been working a new angle on solar for nearly a decade. He founded the company in 2016, after Solyndra’s spectacular implosion in 2011 and as Chinese manufacturers were driving panels down a vertiginous cost curve. But Murali remained fixated, though he did take a lesson from the debacle.
“Don’t scare the heck out of people with something new,” he told TechCrunch. “No new molecules, no new physics.”
Instead, Merlin Solar turned to an existing and widely used solar technology, monocrystalline silicon. Solar cells made with the stuff are inexpensive but fragile; to prevent fractures, companies usually sandwich monocrystalline silicon within two panels of glass bordered by a metal frame. That makes panels heavy, and it limits where they can be installed.
Murali wanted flexible solar panels, but using monocrystalline silicon posed a challenge. “Everything crystalline will eventually crack,” Murali said. “Can we make sure every electron will find its way, even if a bullet went through?”
To answer that, the company changed the way cells are connected within a panel. Merlin beefed up the number of connections front and back and, between cells, made the interconnects springy so they could bounce back after being bent.
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“To boldly go where no solar panel has gone before.”
Merlin Solar Technologies, like many of its Silicon Valley compatriots, was founded in a garage. The founders set out to fundamentally rethink the way solar panels were engineered with the goal of ubiquitous deployment. "To boldly go where no solar panel has gone before” remains the mantra of our company, having successfully deployed solar panels in some of the harshest environments.
With panels in war zones, Norwegian fjords, class 8 trucks, RVs, disaster recovery vehicles, autonomous ocean going drones, O&G Storage tanks, tensioned fabric canopies – in addition to traditional deployments – we seek to conquer new horizons.
The Merlin Advantage
At the core of Merlin’s patented technology is an innovative pair of metal grids that serve as intra-cell and inter-cell interconnects. By fundamentally addressing mono-cSi cell micro-cracking and fatigue induced inter-cell interconnect failure, Merlin has enabled ubiquitous deployment of solar in the most challenging of applications.
Simply put, Merlin has extricated mono-cSi cells from a coffin of glass & aluminum, enabling our customers to implement solutions that were previously considered impossible. Merlin™ glass & non-glass panels have the proven performance and reliability of mono-crystalline silicon technology together with the advantages of being flexible, light weight, and enable peel & stick deployments.
Merlin™ Panels vs Standard Panels
Lightweight
80% Lighter
Than Glass Systems
High Energy Output
20% More Energy
In Real World Conditions
Rugged
Flexible Panels that are 50x
More Durable vs. Standard Panels
Issued Patents
US Patent 8,916,038 Free-standing metallic article for semiconductors
US Patent 8,936,709 Adaptable free-standing metallic article for semiconductors
US Patent 8,940,998 Free-standing metallic article for semiconductors
US Patent 8,569,096 Free-standing metallic article for semiconductors
US Patent 9,054,238 Semiconductor with silver patterns having pattern segments
US Patent 9,573,214 Solder application method and apparatus
US Patent 9,685,568 Photovoltaic Module with Flexible Circuit
US Patent 9,842,945 Photovoltaic Module with Flexible Circuit
US Patent 10,181,542 Photovoltaic Cell having a Coupled Expanded Metal Article
US Patent 10,411,152 Solar Cell Bonding
US Patent 10,672,927 Photovoltaic Cell having a Coupled Expanded Metal Article
US Patent 10,886,424 Method for Blackening a Metallic Article
US Patent 11,349,040 Photovoltaic Cell Having a Coupled Expanded Metal Article
US Patent 11,558,010 Method for Blackening an Electrical Conduit
US Patent 11,588,064 Method for Blackening a Metallic Article
Empower Your Fleet, Supercharge Deliveries, Slash Expenses, and Drive Profits with Merlin Solar
Built to withstand tough conditions without compromising integrity, Merlin™ panels are designed for longevity, delivering customer advantages in the realm of commercial transportation.
https://www.merlinsolar.com/
U.S. crystalline silicon technology startup Merlin Solar is ready for the traditional solar market
When exploring the expanding field of U.S. crystalline silicon solar panel manufacturers, Merlin Solar is often overlooked. Even though the innovative Silicon Valley company has over 50 worldwide patents and offers UL-certified products — including hurricane resistant ground-mount panels, adhesive Class A fire-rated rooftop panels and flexible panels for metal roofs — the ruggedness of these panels, along with their light weight and ease of installation, has lent Merlin to first focus on challenging and non-traditional solar applications like the transportation, portable and military markets.
After being acquired by Filipino conglomerate Ayala Corporation last year, Merlin Solar now has the scale to bring its IP-protected grid interconnection technology of silicon cells to traditional solar markets.
Merlin Solar’s proprietary grid connection design.
Instead of using traditional busbars to make electrical connection points on solar cells, Merlin Solar uses a proprietary grid of interconnects. The grid lends stability to the brittle silicon cells and eliminates failures associated with busbar soldering points. The grid’s unique design enables Merlin to eliminate thermomechanical stresses that are endemic to crystalline solar technology — allowing for flexible panels when encased in polymers and lightweight, frameless panels when using thin glass.
Founder and CTO Venkatesan Murali, Ph.D., said that Merlin’s use of conventional crystalline silicon solar cells in rugged, flexible and lightweight panels has piqued the interest of solar installers looking for alternatives to traditional, framed modules and problematic flexible thin-film.
“We have chosen to attack the residential and commercial rooftop markets now, not because we didn’t have a product previously. By focusing initially on other, technically more challenging markets, we have been able to refine our product’s performance, reliability and aesthetics and now have the scale to enter these traditional markets and become a major player,” Murali said. “Our modules are getting a lot of interest from many installers looking for alternatives to the traditional glass, aluminum rail type of product.”
Merlin Solar’s FX line of flexible modules and its GX glass-based modules are adhesive and don’t require a frame or mounting equipment. The company suggests panel adhesion directly to the roof’s underlayment with roofing shingles framing the modules. Flexible thin-film panels are Merlin’s main competition in the niche transportation market, but roofs that can’t support the weight or mounting of traditional panels and want silicon’s higher performance are a great market for Merlin’s rooftop offerings.
Merlin’s GX module line.
Merlin Solar is not the first crystalline silicon panel manufacturer to get rid of BOS materials and produce a non-penetrating, adhesive module. Lumeta Solar has a 26.5-lb, frameless 60-cell monocrystalline module encased entirely in polymers that is adhered on top of shingles or a commercial roofing system. On a smaller scale, Merlin Solar’s GX36 module features 36 grid-covered cells with a traditional tempered glass front and backsheet, weighing 19.5 lbs.
While similar concepts, Merlin Solar believes its flex-tolerant form factor and grid-connection technology sets it apart. Murali said the company’s R&D department is constantly pushing for increased power and performance.
“We of course want to get more performance, and since we are cell-architecture-agnostic, we will continue to offer best-of-breed efficiency panels,” he said. “Our grid technology allows us to minimize series resistance enabling us to offer the highest fill factor panels.”
Merlin Solar started in Murali’s garage in December 2012. As veterans of technology companies, Murali and his partners wanted to disrupt solar manufacturing.
“We came up with a process that stood interconnection technology on its end,” Murali said. “We wanted to reduce silver, but by the time we finished the development, we came up with something that addressed the major problems with silicon: cell cracking and interconnection failures. We changed from thinking of connecting solar cells with wires and busbars, replacing it with an interconnect that adapted to the cell characteristics.”
Merlin’s grids, which are manufactured in a facility in Thailand, allow more than 2,000 contact points with the cell, moving current more efficiently and boosting generation in low light and scattered light conditions. The company has panel manufacturing factories in California and the Philippines. The company also has a contract with manufacturing partner Waaree Energies in India, which has a manufacturing capacity of 1.5 GW a year. Merlin Solar is focusing on the U.S. market but also has a major presence in Southeast Asia and Europe.
A metal roof installtion with FX-36L, peel-and-stick modules.
Murali said the startup company is here to stay.
“We’re one of the only companies that have crossed the chasm of R&D to manufacturing. We were not looking for transactional or immediate sales. We take the long view and instead focused on creating design wins with strategic partners,” he said.
With parent company Ayala’s financial support and patent-protected grid technology, Merlin Solar plans to take a big step into traditional solar markets this year.
“There are tons of startup companies in solar. Many companies are trying to have a breakthrough moment,” Murali said. “I think this is a year that we’re going to break through.”