Verde Technologies, a 2021 I-Corps alumni company from the University of Vermont, is developing a lightweight and flexible way to capture solar energy using perovskite.
This January, Verde Technologies was awarded a $500,000 Perovskite Startup Prize through American Made Solar’s first Liftoff Contest, along with a $100,000 technical support voucher to continue their commercialization process.
The team is based in Burlington but is working with labs and researchers around the United States to develop their lightweight solar technology, a thin film called Verde Slot Coating that enables rapid scaling from labs to commercial manufacturing. The ability to quickly scale their product allows Verde to translate their technology in way that will have a timely impact on the efforts against climate change.
Verde Technologies founder Randall Headrick and president Chad Miller led the company’s customer discovery process during their time with I-Corps. The customer discovery process was “critical” to the team’s decision to commercialize, Miller said.
Miller explained that the primary benefit from their customer discovery interviews was not what one would expect.
“I have yet to meet anyone who needs to be motivated by solar technology. Now that it’s cheaper than traditional energy sources, everyone is on board with solar,” he said. “What is more important is determining the requirements needed to produce a minimum viable product.”
Meeting with developers, installers, and energy companies gave Verde insight into what evaluative criteria potential customers used when deciding to adopt new technology.
The Liftoff Contest Award was divided into two categories: the $500,000 prize money, and the $100,000 technical support voucher. The bulk of Verde’s award will go towards advancing their technology into assembling cells into full solar modules.
“It’s a lot more complicated than just wiring a bunch of solar cells together,” said Headrick about their next steps.
Verde plans to put the technical voucher towards evaluating the viability of their current roadmap compared to other forms of perovskite and producing an initial prototype with a verified third party. Finally, the voucher will aid the team in testing their device and verification at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Verde Technologies has an exciting journey ahead of them, and their innovations have the potential to improve world of sustainable energy.
Learn more about I-Corps regional and national programs here.