The World’s Most Powerful Low-Light Energy Harvesting Solar PV Cells

The proliferation of connected devices promises to revolutionize consumer, commercial and industrial applications with greater convenience, lower operational costs and data-driven performance improvements. Already consumers have fallen in love with smart home advances, while many businesses have begun to reap the benefits of connected device-driven efficiency gains such as electronic shelf labels and occupancy sensors.

Giga scale applications for these technologies are around the corner: the potential exists for billions of wireless sensors to be installed during the coming decade, with nearly half located inside buildings. However, the challenge of reliably and affordably powering these devices has continued to limit mass scale.

Connected electronics require continuous power, which until now has meant batteries that must be periodically replaced or recharged. Legacy solar technologies like amorphous silicon cells long used on solar calculators and children’s toys don’t yield sufficient power in the real-world, low-light operational conditions for most connected device sensors. At the same time, the exorbitant price tag for high performance, low-light solar technologies like gallium arsenide cells has made them suitable only for space satellite and research applications, not mass-market electronics.

Ambient has solved both the low power density and high cost problems of legacy low light PV technologies and created the world’s most powerful low light energy harvesting solar cells — making endless power for connected devices a reality for the first time.

LLI and LLI Bifacial Solar Cell Options

Ambient offers both a single-sided LLI (low-light indoor) solar cell, and a new, first-of-its-kind LLI Bifacial solar cell that harvests energy from the front and back side of the solar cell simultaneously.

Ambient’s LLI Bifacial solar cells are made with optically clear glass, enabling them to gather energy from both sides, greatly boosting overall cell efficiency. They allow electronics manufacturers to leverage even more energy from a smaller footprint of our proven LLI DSSC (dye sensitized solar cell) technology.

Both LLI and  LLI Bifacial empower connected device manufacturers to create devices with greater functionality, higher sustainability and better industrial design. However,  LLI Bifacial cells are a particularly compelling option for devices like remote controls that may be placed “upside-down” or wall-mounted sensors that benefit from harvesting energy from both sides of the device simultaneously. Other devices, such as keyboards, can be designed so that additional light is collected and reflected to the “back side” of the cell to maximize energy harvesting.