Painting solar Bloo

A small team in Sacramento, California that has been working stealthily for three years has joined the fray of companies applying nanotechnology to help make solar photovoltaics more efficient.

Bloo Solar [ed.: spelled correct] plans to use billions of nano-structured photovoltaic cells to capture light and boost the overall daily power output of solar modules.

By increasing the amount of light captured using vertical nano structures it calls "bristles," Bloo plans to enable modules to generate twice as much power as they do over an entire day today, at dramatically lower materials and systems costs.

While Bloo says its technology allows for 90 percent thinner substrates, it claims to not be dependent on any specific material.

"What we have is a brand new substrate, materials system-neutral," said CEO Larry Bawden to the Cleantech Group, suggesting the company could make nano bristles out of virtually any photovoltaic compound.

Initially, the company has picked cadmium telluride (CdTe) to commercialize. "We're very similar to First Solar. We picked that one [cadmium telluride] for the ability to have very low cost manufacturing capabilities," said Bawden.

The company claims its 10 million nano-bristles per square centimeter have set a world's record for light capture. And while that, in theory, should translate into substantially more power per module, Bloo's Bawden was reluctant to share exact figures.

"We're not publicizing efficiencies yet. We'd don't want it out in our financing."

Bloo is not the first to be investigating nano applications in solar.

• Researchers at General Electric, Harvard and RPI have been applying the light amplification capability of nanostructures for some time, as has Khosla Ventures-backed Stion, formerly NStructures
• A company called NewCyte is bringing to market light amplification nanotube technology from Georgia Tech (see the Cleantech Group's 3D solar cells boost efficiency, reduce size)
• Innovative Thin Films of Toledo, Ohio (see Cool companies at Cleantech 2007) is using nanotech to help keep conventional modules cleaner
• And just last week a University of California Santa Cruz researcher revealed nanotech innovations that appear to boost the efficiency of solar applications (see the Cleantech Group's Challenging silicon's grip on solar)

But Bloo claims it will be the first to achieve high light gathering for solar applications, regardless of substrate type, at an all-time low dollar per watt.

And that should translate into good levels of power output at much lower cost, according to the company.

"We want to get the same performance as a flat planel with dual axis tracking, but with no moving parts," said Bawden.

The company is forecasting commercialization of its technology at the beginning of 2010, envisioning an initial 25-30 megawatt fab in California with as-yet unnamed partners helping scale manufacturing.

Last week, it secured the intellectual property to its innovations in a royalty-based licensing deal with the University of California at Davis, where Bloo co-founders Ruxandra Vidu, Brian Argo and John Argo developed the technology with professors Pieter Stroeve and Saif Islam.

Bawden joined Bloo as CEO in August of last year. Previously, he was a founder and former president and CEO of Jadoo Power Systems, a leading portable fuel cell company.

As to the name Bloo, to those who might speculate he only works for companies with a double-o at the end of their names (until last month, Bloo was called Q1 NanoSystems), Bawden says the name Bloo has two meanings.

"We think we've got a solid chance of taking solar somewhere it's never been before, kind of like how the deep blue ocean is largely unexplored. It also evokes the blue light spectrum that we magnify."

The company is in the process of raising an A round from investors.