Our company is developing solar photovoltaic panels that use molecules extracted from plants to collect sunlight and convert it into electricity. These panels promise to combine low price with high efficiency, relative to current semiconductor-based panels on the market. Our panels have the potential to transform the global solar energy market, reduce carbon emissions and help save the climate from global warming.
Solar energy has the greatest potential to supply the increasing electricity demand of humanity, while at the same time being entirely sustainable and non-polluting. In fact, as sunlight provides 1000 times more energy than humanity needs, it is possible to generate all of the energy we need from sunlight. So why isn't humanity already using solar photovoltaics on a large scale? Because, unfortunately, current technologies remain too expensive or inefficient.
The Synthisol Ltd, approach to solar electricity generation is based on photosynthesis. This is the process that plants use to capture the energy of sunlight and power the construction of new molecules from the simple building blocks of carbon dioxide and water. We will use some of the key molecules involved in photosynthesis to collect sunlight and convert this into electricity.
This figure illustrates the key stages in our process:
Our solar panels promise to be much more efficient and cheaper to produce than current widely available panels. For example, monocrystalline silicon solar panels have efficiencies around 17% (this is how much light gets converted into electricity by the panel, under standardised conditions), but our panels are predicted to have an efficiency around 30%. Our product would revolutionise the solar energy market and enable solar to finally become a realistic mass-market electricity generating technology.
Using leaves to make solar panels will literally be the ultimate green energy technology.
Synthisol Ltd is a small group of scientists and businesspeople based in Oxford and London, in the UK. The inventor and company founder, Dr Graham Harrod, was a bioscience researcher in Oxford University for several years before starting the company. Scientific advice comes from a world leader in photosynthesis research. Key business input is provided by a leader in the Oxford biotechnology area, who has worked for 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry in a range of senior business positions, before becoming CEO of a local biotech' company.
As is often the case with early stage companies, getting funding is a challenge. While engaging in the traditional methods of raising capital, by applying for grants and approaching investors, I was struck by a simple idea:
We are offering people the chance to help to develop a radical green energy technology and demonstrating that a large number of very small contributions CAN benefit the environment. We don't have to wait for multinational companies or governments to act. You help us to develop a radical new green energy technology and together we help the biosphere.
Your money will pay for some of the essential research needed to develop our new product. Research and development tends to be expensive. Examples of the goods and services we need: laboratory equipment and rent, chemicals, salary, patent lawyer fees, etc. For some more details about costs please read the Costs page.
What do you receive in return for your donation?
*limited to one panel per customer. Only available once we have finished development and begun manufacture. For more detail see the terms and conditions page.
Our Project
