Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Enecsys, a spin-out from the University of Cambridge’s department of engineering, could bring solar power within the budget of ordinary households around the world.

It has raised £333k in seed funding and says it is a year away from having its first products in use. It plans to raise first round VC funding of £1.5k during 2006 to allow it to build its management team and gear up for commercialisation.

Its primary goal is to make solar energy accessible to the masses. Microgeneration is a boom industry in much of the developed world, with governments such as the German and Japanese offering attractive cash incentives for communities to generate power using green technologies like solar or wind.

A relatively recent addition to the Cambridge Science Park, Enecsys is from the same stable as well-fancied Cambridge Semiconductor, a company making real waves in the ac power conversion space. Both companies were jointly founded by Prof Gehan Amaratunga.

Enecsys has developed enabling technology to connect renewable energy sources with the National Grid. These power conditioning units (PCUs) are more efficient, last much longer, bring the cost of photovoltaics down and are much easier to install.

The technological specifics remain under wraps, but the innovation lies in breakthroughs the team has made in the semiconductors and the topology of the circuitry used to couple the renewable energy source into the grid.

Interim CEO and co-founder, Asim Mumtaz, says: “Our technology will increase the lifetime of photovoltaic systems because its power conditioning units are much more robust than existing solutions. Enecsys’ power conditioning units match the lifetime of the solar panels, unlike existing technology, which typically breaks after 10 years at the most.

“Due to the modular nature of the technology it increases system efficiency, allowing more energy to be absorbed by the system through eliminating shading losses, reducing cable losses and maximising power transfer.”

These two features, the company says, will improve the payback time of solar photovoltaics. But crucially, the technology also potentially reduces the minimum solar installation down to one panel - truly micro-generation.

Existing installations require an array of solar panels (typically 5 panels in series) whereas with Enecsys, a minimum of one panel can be installed. This reduces the minimum installation from around £10k down to £500.

Asim continued: “Our method allows solar panels to become much more of building product. It gives architects a lot more flexibility in their design without having to worry about the location or orientation of the panels and it enables the building/construction industry to install solar panels without requiring any specialist safety training. These factors change the cost equation for solar.”

In its latest funding round, the company received £83k from the University Challenge Fund and £250k from the Carbon Trust. It is talking to a number of global players in the photovoltaics industry and hopes to conduct the first field trials next year, with the first ‘on-grid product’ launched at the end of 2006.

Although solar is the company’s initial target market, the technology can be applied to a range of green energy sources, which will be targeted in due course.