By Cheryl Jahn

New solar panel technology the wave of the future

Sep 11, 2024 | 2:54 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It’s a thin, black square, 1.3 millimetres in thickness with a coarse surface much like the anti-slip stripes applied to outdoor stairs. It was initially created for marine applications, Initially catamarans and created by local inventor and entrepreneur Simon Angus.

It was the dream of an avid sailor to create an all-electric catamaran. And he did.

“It sailed great, just an amazing sailing yacht, but it just wasn’t all-electric, We couldn’t get enough power to drive the system right when we weren’t sailing. The batteries were just too small. We weren’t generating enough power.”

Enter, a new solar panel.

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“Which basically is the very fragile solar cells, fully encapsulated into a fibreglass composite laminate. And it protects those cells from damage. We can do any shape anybody wants. And it’s the maximum efficiency because we use the best cells on the market.”

It has all the elements of a traditional solar panel, but it’s lighter and, more importantly, it’s way tougher.

And it’s just the beginning for Open Waters Design.

“The world is switching hybrid, the sort of all of the high net worth people who have these yachts that they all need to show that they are being more environmentally friendly. Right? These these large superyachts, they burn thousands and thousands of litres of diesel fuel just for pleasure.”

And the work has caught the eye of the Province, which has provided nearly half a million to help build a plant to make these panels.

“It’s pretty amazing. So traditionally, solar panels are quite rigid, and the solar panels that open water designs has created are quite flexible and can move. And it’s also extremely, extremely strong. And so they’re looking at using this new technology in their time applications, and the province is making a grant available to them to help them expand this work,” says Brenda Bailey, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation.

Angus plans to use the provincial funding to build a 7000-square-foot plant where the company can go from generating 250 watts a day to the equivalent of 12 kilowatts a day.

“So the production facility that we will be building in Prince George, it’ll be part lab, part robotics sort of system, will be using robots and machinery to automate the entire production. We’ll have 1,600 automated valves in the manufacturing process. So so it’s it’s like a little production facility.” Simon Angus says there are a tonne of potential uses for these.

With reefer trucks, for example, solar panels can be added to the roof to keep the contents cold, cutting 20 thousand litres of diesel annually.