The company took its first steps with a small capital and in just two years it had a turnover of $ 2.29 billion, thanks to the sale of mobile solar energy solutions. Its sole owner plans to turn it into a unicorn in three years.
Source:CleanLight by ButlerCorp
Attack the North American market. That is the slogan of the Chilean startup CleanLight, specialized in mobile solutions based on solar energy, which has just raised US $ 5 million, in its first round of financing, through a Chilean fund that requested that its name be reserved.
In just two years and with an initial budget of $ 5 million, the plan of this “cleantech” is to offer solar generators to companies and individuals at low cost. “We started a little over two years ago and it was because we saw that there was a gap between solar technology, industry and homeowners, who did not have the opportunity to take advantage of it,” says Jordan Butler, CEO and founder of CleanLight, and He adds: “I started this alone, without partners, and with very little capital, and the first year went quite well, since we sold $ 690 million and in 2020, $ 1.6 billion.”
They have two product lines, one is focused on a more industrial segment, for areas such as construction anywhere, such as a mining site, road construction or hospitals that need lighting or temporary mobile electricity. The other line is a plug & play solar generator, which is sold through retail to have solar energy in houses and includes solar panels.
The idea is to start operations in the United States, and for this they are going to attack some states such as Florida, Texas and California, in addition to the rest of Latin America. “We are seeking to generate a benefit to people who do not have access to electricity, or who do not have access to clean electricity,” says the CEO.
With regard to the commitment of the entrepreneurial world to the clean energy industry, Butler believes that “startups are at the must in that market, we must be more disruptive and think about how we are going to change the reality of energy worldwide. There are good initiatives, but we still don’t do something that has an impact, something like Tesla or Cornershop ”.
Butler expects the company to become a unicorn (to be valued at more than $ 1 billion), in the next three years. “In this process of raising capital, not only did investors appear with whom we closed, but we already have a lot of conversation about the following rounds. Soon, in a few more years, a series A financing round is coming that will be of many more millions of dollars ”, he assured.
What is a solar panel?
Source:Auto Solar Energy Solutions SLU
A solar panel is a device that harnesses the sun’s energy to generate heat or electricity. According to these two purposes, we can distinguish between solar collectors, which produce hot water (generally for domestic use) using solar thermal energy, and photovoltaic panels, which generate electricity from the solar radiation that falls on the photovoltaic cells of the panel.
In the solar collector or collector there is a liquid that absorbs solar radiation in the form of heat, this liquid subsequently passes to a heat storage compartment. The panels consist of a receiving plate and some conduits through which said liquid circulates. The hot liquid is passed to a heat exchanger, where it gives up its heat, heating the water for subsequent domestic use. When it leaves the heat exchanger the liquid is cold and is recirculated back to the solar collector.
Photovoltaic solar panels consist of a multitude of cells, called photovoltaic cells, that convert solar radiation into electricity. Electricity is generated due to the ‘photovoltaic effect’ caused by solar energy (photons), generating positive and negative charges in two nearby semiconductors of different types, which generates an electric field that will produce electric current.
The most commonly used materials to manufacture these cells are gallium arsenide (GaAs), which is used in other complex electronic devices, and silicon (Si), which is cheaper and is also used in the microelectronics industry.
Silicon cells are the most common and most widely used. The performance of photovoltaic cells depends on the internal three-dimensional structure that these silicon sheets have. According to this structure we can classify them as follows:
- Monocrystalline silicon cells: made up of a single large crystal that is cut into thin sheets, generally of uniform blue. They are the most advanced, the cost of manufacturing is higher and they provide superior performance under certain conditions.
- Polycrystalline silicon cells: they are made up of several crystals, they have a non-uniform blue color, although the latest manufacturing techniques already provide greater uniformity to the appearance of the cell.
- Amorphous silicon cells: it is not made up of crystals. It is the cheapest but also the ones that offer the lowest yields, they are used, for example, in devices such as calculators or watches and have the peculiarity that they can produce electricity (in a small amount) even if they are not directly exposed to solar radiation in a perpendicular way. .
