Power Roll CEO Neil Spann and chief manufacturing officer Ross Nagle discuss and showcase the benefits of the company's solar panels.
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00:00 Ok, then, maybe we should start by asking about the benefits of the Powerwall product then.
00:05 So, here at Powerwall we've developed a completely new type of solar panel.
00:09 It is lightweight, it's low cost, it's flexible, which means it can be deployed on billions of square metres of roof space,
00:17 where current heavy panels that are made in China and the Far East can't be deployed.
00:22 It also makes clean energy affordable to everybody, including industrial customers, domestic customers and off-grid users.
00:32 Obviously it's a cost efficient product, it's also lightweight, so do you envisage taking this to the development world as well?
00:37 Yes, so our first factory is going to be here in the North East, we're really proud that we're going to have the first factory here serving the UK market.
00:44 But eventually our product will be able to be deployed in remote villages and off-grid applications across the Sunbelt,
00:52 where there are still 700 million people who don't have access to any form of electricity.
00:57 So in three years, how do you see the business growing in terms of scale of product, in terms of employment, that sort of thing?
01:03 Yes, so in three years' time our first factory will be up and running here in the North East,
01:09 we will have quadrupled our workforce here in the North East, creating apprenticeship and other opportunities.
01:15 And then globally we'd expect to have several factories around the world making our film,
01:20 deploying it in all sorts of places all over the world.
01:24 So really we want to see our Powerwall solar film just across the globe.
01:29 And how important is that to be contained about renewable sources of energy?
01:33 It's vital that we make that transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, and solar is going to be the largest element of that transition,
01:41 making up 40% of the total share.
01:43 And we believe that Powerwall solar film can make a huge impact on that transition.
01:49 But what's most important when you're making that energy transition is that you make the new energy cheaper than existing fossil fuel energy.
01:59 And that's what we can do here at Powerwall.
02:02 Very well, it's time for that.
02:04 This is the film getting fed through the machine here.
02:20 And eventually, once it's all been produced, it goes here.
02:29 And this is what the final roll actually looks like.
02:31 Well, Keir, can you explain how the solar panel works and how it differs from traditional solar panels?
02:37 So first of all, as you can see, it's very thin, it's very lightweight, it has a base plastic form,
02:43 it's got no rare earth materials in it, which I think is really important from an environmental standpoint.
02:49 Also, it effectively makes it a very low-cost product itself.
02:54 As you can see, very thin, very flexible, and can be applied to a number of surfaces.
03:00 The other advantage of our product is that if we have partial shading on any of the panels,
03:06 the unit overall still continues to perform with minimal loss by comparison to conventional solar panels.
03:15 And in terms of how it works, it's just traditionally in terms of how does it convert the energy from the sun into electricity?
03:21 So one of these panels is the equivalent of what you see in a large-scale solar panel array.
03:26 Basically, we convert the solar energy, the power, to transfer through multiple very, very microscopic grooves.
03:36 These are one microns and across.
03:38 And each of these panels has the ability to create in excess of more than 300 volts.
03:44 The infrastructure beyond that is exactly the same as current solar panel technology.
03:49 So there's no specific special inverters, et cetera, that's required.
03:54 The battery power, the battery storage, and the infrastructure is exactly the same as current conventional solar panels.