ClearVue lands first home market order to supply solar glass facade for new building

Australian solar window maker ClearVue has taken its first home-grown commercial order to supply its PV integrated glass units for the facade of an education and wellness centre for the Construction, Forestry, Maritime and Employees Union’s (CFMEU), in Melbourne.

The Australian order follows the news ClearVue has signed up its first licensee in Australia, after achieving success in overseas market like the US, where it landed a bumper $A250,000 deal with a greenhouse company in October.

The ASX-listed company’s says the order from CFMEU for its Generation 2 solar windows – which will generate around 5kWh a day – coincides with the company’s commercial launch at home, but adds that revenue from the project “will not be significant”.

“Our solar glass windows generate the highest energy of any comparable solar glass on the market, with strong insulation and thermal performance which reduces heating and cooling loads, and is able to be mass produced on a standard unmodified production line,” he says. 

“We are excited that Hayball and the CFMEU recognised ClearVue’s potential as the best available clear BIPV [building integrated photovoltaics] technology from the project’s inception. To have our IGU system written into the specifications is a true showcase for the viability of integrating solar power directly into new builds and retrofits.”

Slow and steady

ClearVue has been making steady progress with its technology both in Australia and abroad since making its debut on the stock exchange in 2018, and its first commercial demonstration in 2019 – a solar glass atrium at the entrance to a suburban Perth shopping centre.

Two days ago, the company said it secured its first licensee in Australia, Victoria-based Safety Glass, which gives MS Glass exclusive manufacturing and distribution rights for ClearVue’s integrated clear solar glass units (IGUs) in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland, and the ACT.

It has since lined up orders in August 2021 to supply a greenhouse at a high-profile eco-tourism and “wellness” project in Japan, and then in October last year with Greenhouse System USA.

That deal will see ClearVue’s single glazing laminate integrated into an existing greenhouse structure, to provide around 82kW of solar power – or an estimated 107,000 kWh per year.

That laminate was designed with research partner D2Solar in California which means it was eligible for Inflation Reduction Act incentives, ClearVue said at the time. 

Building a data bank

Murdoch University data from ClearVue’s demonstration clear solar glass greenhouse, installed in Western Australia in 2021, showed the technology to cut the facility’s energy use by roughly 40 per cent, compared to a conventionally glazed alternative.

As well as a “significant offset of facility energy consumption,” the results of the study, published in peer-reviewed paper in MDPI’s Technologies journal, also reveal remarkably consistent energy generation by the solar greenhouse.

Last year, the company commissioned modelling to demonstrate how its solar glass can boost a building’s energy efficiency and thermal efficiency standards to world-leading levels – as well as supply a good chunk of its electricity.

The modelling was based on an “archetype” six-storey office building located in in Canada, named ‘ClearZero,’ developed by energy efficiency and sustainability specialists, Footprint, using ClearVue’s solar glazing as the primary façade material.

This year, ClearVue has turned its focus to bringing manufacturing of its core technology onshore, with a grant of up to $2 million to establish a WA-based Photovoltaic (PV) and Nanoparticle Components Manufacturing Facility.

And in May, the company unveiled improvements to both its patented solar glass technology and solar façades which will reduce fabrication time and costs while also boosting energy output for its solar façade solutions.