--This project is inactive--

The Dow Chemical Company, under the BOS-X funding opportunity, has launched a transformational product in the building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) industry: the Dow POWERHOUSE Solar Shingle.

Approach

Dow has assembled a team of partners with unique expertise in tackling tough technical challenges across the entire value chain, including large companies and start-ups, national labs, universities, and trade associations to develop a revolutionary new BIPV system with a breakthrough, low total installed price of $2 per watt in a residential application without subsidies.

Dow is engineering a second-generation BIPV product using ultra-high-efficiency PV cells in a design that fully integrates with residential asphalt shingle roofing. These design elements are expected to result in an aesthetically pleasing, cost-effective product that is capable of achieving all the SunShot residential cost targets.

Innovation

This project incorporates:

• A revolutionary new cell technology (thin-film, single-crystal gallium arsenide [GaAs]) and a new interconnect scheme allowing for high power density in an optimal form factor
• A best-in-class PV shingle with power density greater than 200 Wp per square meter of installed roof area
• A novel and robust GaAs cell and interconnect method yielding a lifetime estimate higher than 25 years.