Solar energy has caught headlines as one of the most sustainable and clean energies that is capable of being practically implemented. That notwithstanding, the solar industry has faced many challenges which have limited this seemingly endless source of clean and power facilities. Now, we have news to share of an exciting development in this promising solar industry—Bugsy Solar! You may have guessed it—yes, this new solar power involves the use of bugs, one of our planet’s most plentiful and extremely low maintenance, i.e. non-resource-exhausting creatures.
Bugsy Solar’s mission is to “bring environmentally-sensitive solar power to an entirely new and vast cross section of the world’s population by alleviating current financial, climatic or logistical constraints.” Here is what they are saying about their cutting edge in-development technology:
Bugsy’s three main areas of focus are:
- Solar power
- Energy storage
- Biofermentation technology
Bugsy’s main solar activities involve the development of inexpensive, high efficiency “green” solar cells. They are harnessing the efficiency of microbial photosynthesis and applying it to nanotechnology to generate light-weight, low costs solar cell technologies. The strengths of its technology are:
- Improved geographic and climate tolerance,
- Significantly enhanced efficiencyCustomizable, flexible designs enables broad applications beyond traditional formats
- Energy generation 24 hours a day,
- Environmentally friendlier fabrication practices.
- Substantially lower price than current panels
Bugsy storage technologies are focused on developing non-toxic voltaic cells and “green” energy storage devices to service ever-growing market demands. The benefits of Bugsy’s approach are:
- Elimination of lead, rare earth metals and other toxic chemicals found in conventional batteries,
- Improved design features (eg., less weight) enables additional uses,
- Extended durability beyond traditional batteries.
Bugsy’s biofermentation technologies focus on the fact that in order for biofermentation to generate products such as chemicals, itself to fuel biofermentation of products. Bugsy is investigating novel applications of its “green” energy technologies to meet the ever-growing needs in manufacturing with the goal of reducing manufacturing costs, by materially increasing energy by-product capability of the overall process.
Bugsy Solar is the brainchild of Berkeley and Stanford-led grads with microbiology, chemical and electrical engineering, green lifestyle, business and law backgrounds who hope to provide all of the world’s population with clean and renewable energy. In short, Bugsy’s goal is to improve the current Energy Paradigm, as we know it. Most importantly, founders of Bugsy Solar are committed to philanthropic, as well as commercial applications. Finally, Bugsy wishes to remain true to these principles over the continuum, and therefore remains self-funded and does not have traditional investors and shareholder interests to abide by, which enables the company to strategically engage with industry leaders in a manner that does not limit the social impact mission of the Bugsy.
