Website www.onyxsolar.com Founded 1 January 2009 | Headquarters Ávila, Spain Type of business Privately held company | |
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Founders Alvaro Beltran, Teodosio del Caño Key Key people Alvaro Beltran, CEO Diego Cuevas, Vice President, Teodosio del Caño, CTO | ||
Onyx Solar is a solar energy company with a global presence, which was founded in Ávila, Spain in 2009 by Alvaro Beltran and Teodosio del Caño. This company is a world leading manufacturer of Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and is known for its combination of energy preservation optimization and photovoltaic energy production in its implementations. They are actively cooperating with several universities, including Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Barcelona.
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Research and Development
Onyx Solar has been involved with several solar energy research projects across the world. These projects include HERB, the retrofitting of residential buildings, in cooperation with the University of Nottingham and PVSITES, a project aimed to reduce market barriers for the large scale implementation of BIPV.
This company has also been involved with several solar energy research projects, any several of these projects have been in partnership with the European Commission. One example of an ongoing project with the European Commission is the ArtESun project, which seeks to bring new OPV (organic photovoltaic technologies) technologies to the thin-film PV market.
Projects
In March 2016, Onyx Solar signaled its completion of the installation of photovolatic glass at the entrance of the American Airlines Arena by announcing that its project had received the LEED Gold certification, which is the highest certificate for building sustainability. This project utilized around 300 crystalline silicon PV glass units, which were deployed in 14 circular skylights. This implementation allows American Airlines Arena to produce 34,500 kWh of solar power per year for on-site consumption.
In June 2016, Apple announced that it will be fitting its retail stores in San Francisco with walkable solar glass floors for the purpose of generating electricity. The integration of solar power directly into its retail stores has been used as an example of Apple's focus on renewable technology. These walkways will be constructed with Thin-film solar cell technology.
Onyx Solar also documents all of its projects in its professional experience book. This book includes details about its involvement with the construction of the Dubai Frame and its ongoing (as of September 2016) work on the Tanjong Pagar building in Singapore (which will become the largest skyscraper in Singapore upon completion).
Awards
On June 30, 2015, Glass Magazine named Onyx Solar 2015's "Most Innovative Glass Product" for its Low-E Photovoltaic Glass. The reasons behind this award include the ability of this product's layers to filter out 95% of ultraviolet radiation and 85% of infrared radiation as well as its solar heat coefficient (from 10 to 40%). Onyx Solar claims that passive properties of its Low-E Photovoltaic Glass are at least on par with the most advanced conventional low-emissive glass.
Several of the projects that Onyx Solar has participated in have also received awards. In 2014, the Novartis headquarters in the United States received the "Best Sustainable Project in New York" award from Engineering News-Record.