Power Roll, headquartered in Sunderland, a developer of ultra-low-cost and lightweight flexible film for energy generation and storage, has raised £2.8m of investment to commercialise its unique solar film and capacitor technologies. The investment, supported by commercial law firm, Square One Law comprises of £2.0m equity and £0.8m of convertible loans as part of the Future Fund scheme set up by the UK Government.
Neil Spann, Managing Director, Power Roll commented “The success of our funding round and the quality of our investors reflects the global commercial potential for our technology.
“Our investors are excited about the new markets we can exploit and disrupt. There’s huge potential for solar and energy storage in a vast range of new applications including non-load-bearing rooftops, building integration, transport, off-grid and even powering Internet of Things sensors.”
Power Roll’s solar film will deliver the lowest levelised cost of electricity for any solar technology, with a projected manufactured cost of just $0.03/Watt at scale. This is a fraction of the cost of other flexible solar solutions. Power Roll’s technology simplifies manufacturing by eliminating multiple, expensive process steps that other solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies require, and uses high speed roll-to-roll production processes.
Michael Dickens, Investment Manager at Maven, said, “Power Roll’s unique, low-cost technology could be truly disruptive in the global solar power and energy storage sectors, with green energy never having been more important than it is today. This is a great opportunity for the Finance Durham Fund to support a local business that, with a strong scientific and management team at the helm, has an exciting future ahead of it.”
Power Roll is accelerating deployment of its technology by pursuing an IP licensing model with manufacturing partners. In 2019, it announced its first joint venture with Deki Electronics to manufacture capacitors and innovative storage devices for key Asian markets.
Power Roll will use the funding to construct a solar film pilot plant in County Durham, further improve cell efficiency of the solar film and commercialise its capacitor technology with Deki.
John Hammill, corporate partner said “Given Power Roll’s intellectual proper portfolio and the overall impact its solar film could have on the green economy, it comes as no surprise that it’s attracted significant investments from high-net worth investors as well as from private equity house, Maven Capital Partners.”
Neil Spann also commented “We like to work with trusted partners and John has very much been an extension of our team providing expert support and guidance. This investment will be key for our growth and development and it has been a pleasure to work with Square One Law.”
