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Bright outlook for SunMan’s lightweight panels SunMan’s eArche lightweight glass fibre reinforced plastic panels are filling a niche in the market.
The Australian National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour is powered by lightweight eArche panels
34 SPRING 2019
‘THE WEIGHT IS OVER’ is not the SunMan slogan, however it’s a fitting tagline for a company that is making light-weight solar PV panels that are the answer to buildings with slender roofs and a need for rooftop PV. The potential is massive. According to SunMan which channeled a portion of the investment by ARENA and the Bank of China into market research, 40 per cent of the industrial commercial properties built in Australia 10-15 years ago were not designed to take the weight of glass panels that typically weigh 20 kilograms each. “There’s 500 MW of potential in agricultural buildings alone – structures that were not built with the weight of glass solar panels in mind,” SunMan’s Thomas Bell said. “The eArche [pronounced ‘ee-ark’, short for energy architecture] panel that weighs 3.8 kilograms per square metre installed is ideal for these applications. That is our core point of difference. Installed, our panels are 70 per cent lighter.” By his estimates each of the 4000 accredited installers in this country has had to walk away from one or more projects because of weight constraints, and eArche would fit the bill perfectly. “Our key competitive advantage is locating all those properties wanting solar PV but are held back by weight restrictions,” Bell told Smart Energy.
Instead of using racking, most panels are installed using a structural grade silicon, and in many cases are bonded directly to roofs which reduces installation time by 40 per cent. A time-saving bonus comes from installers’ ability to carry up to three panels at once.
Compelling characteristics eArche modules offer the same durability and performance as standard glass modules with crystalline silicon cells. In addition to the protective layers on the front and rear sides, the panels are laminated on both sides of the solar cells with multiple layers of waterproof polymer composites and offer a conversion efficiency of around 18 per cent. The composite material used in eArche has its roots in the aviation industry; the inside of a plane’s window is made from a plastic composite fibreglass reinforced material. SunMan was the first to market with this composite material. “It’s been extensively used in the aviation industry for decades but solar pioneer Dr Zhengrong Shi (best known as the founder of Suntech, the world’s largest module manufacturer) repurposed that material and built a manufacturing base around it,” Bell explained. When Dr Zhengrong Shi established SunMan in 2014 he recruited his long-term colleague Thomas Bell – who worked
