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Dual-purpose solar panel system wins Proto Labs Cool Idea! award

Skyven's dual-purpose solar panel system simultaneously produces energy for both electrical power and heated water. [Photo credit: Skyven Technologies]

 

 

Proto Labs, a leading online and technology-enabled quick-turn manufacturer, has presented its next Cool Idea! Award to Skyven Technologies for its development of an innovative solar panel system. The manufacturing grant will help the Texas-based company further advance its Skyven Cogen System that simultaneously produces energy for both electrical power and heated water.

Since 2011, the Cool Idea! Award has provided more than $750,000 in Proto Labs prototyping and low-volume production services to entrepreneurs developing new products in the United States and Europe. Unlike other product awards that recognize products after they're in mass production and on store shelves, the Cool Idea! Award is meant to help innovative ideas come to life.

The Skyven system integrates three technologies -- traditional solar photovoltaic (PV), advanced concentrating photovoltaic (CPV), and solar water heating -- into a single, multi-tasking solar panel. A network of panels can be installed on commercial and industrial rooftops, which then provides companies, hotels, factories, and other large facilities access to more efficient electricity and water heating.

"The solar industry is growing tremendously," says Skyven founder and Ph.D. Arun Gupta. "It's expanding by double digits every year, it is a nearly $15 billion industry in the U.S. alone, and it is the No. 2 source of new energy generation in the U.S. after natural gas."

Much of that is led by increased awareness paired with the steady decrease of silicon and solar panel costs.

Gupta plans to use the Cool Idea! Award service grant on plastic and metal parts manufactured by all three of Proto Labs services. Due to the precise nature of the panels' mechanical drivetrains, 3D-printed prototypes will be built through Proto Labs' rapid stereolithography (SL) process. Panel components will also be CNC machined and injection molded as Skyven continues to develop the manufacturability of the system. Gupta and his team are working toward the completion of their pre-production version by mid-2015 with plans for a full-market launch in 2016.

For more information about the Cool Idea! Award and to apply, visit www.protolabs.com/coolidea.

Source: Proto Labs

Published January 2015

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