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Whitfield Solar, the developer of low cost solar concentrator technology, has announced it has closed an interim funding round of approximately £1 million to enable it to complete its product development, take its solar concentrator through accreditation testing and install a grid-connected demonstration site in Spain.
Existing shareholders Carbon Trust Investments partnered with new shareholder Kilsby Ltd to make the investment.
Whitfield Solar Ltd also announced Stephen Bates will join as CEO, and that it has made a number of new hires to reinforce its board of directors, project management and engineering resources.
Jonathan Bryers, Investment Partner at Carbon Trust Investments, said: “We are delighted at the calibre of the commercial and product development team that is now in place at Whitfield to take their low cost solar concentrator product to market. We believe the market will increasingly focus on cost and simplicity within the solar sector and Whitfield is well placed to exploit this opportunity.”
Stephen Bates, CEO said: “It is with great enthusiasm and excitement that I take up this role. It is rare that one gets the opportunity to join an organisation with such potential and where the proposition is so close to market. Now we have our team in place, I am looking forward to a year of rapid progress, growth and engineering excellence.”
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Notes to Editors
As part of Whitfield’s strategy of bringing low cost solar concentrators to the market it has recently reinforced its board of directors, project management function and engineering resources with seven new joiners.
Since Whitfield is committed to bringing engineering excellence to its innovative new concentrator technology, these appointments are critical to the next phase in its planned growth.
Stephen Bates
He is a Cambridge engineer with a career grounded in the product development industry and more recently in technology strategy and new venture management.
Ian Collins
Ian’s project management experience has been gained over 15 years in the automotive sector with Rover Group and BMW. He is a graduate electronics engineer from UMIST.
Chris Lee
Chris brings over 20 years experience of engineering management and product development from the automotive sector with high profile roles at TWR, BMW and MG Rover Group.
Sylvain Chonavel
Sylvain gained his design and development experience with the 1st tier automotive supplier of motor assemblies, ArvinMeritor where, as Engineering Manager, he worked in France, S.Africa and the US.
About Whitfield Solar
The company was set up in 2004 as a vehicle to commercialise the research work of Dr George Whitfield from the University of Reading into low-cost solar concentrators. He was joined by fellow founders Dr Roger Bentley and Dr Clive Weatherby.
Whitfield Solar’s launch product is initially aimed at the high-growth market for land-based solar farms. It competes with flat-plate photovoltaic (PV) offerings on four levels. It is lower cost; lower weight; has lower embodied energy; and requires lower-tech manufacturing processes. Whitfield’s product takes the sun’s energy and concentrates it via an array of Fresnel lenses onto a fraction of the surface area of silicon solar cells that conventional PV panels require. As such it is insulated from the shortages of solar silicon and immune to shortages of solar glass which both threaten the PV industry.
Whilst using tried and tested solar silicon for its launch product, it is set up to embrace new solar cell technology when it has demonstrated the same levels of long-term reliability.
Whitfield is well-known in the solar community and has had prototypes running in Spain for the last 2 years.
Carbon Trust Investments finances emerging clean energy technology businesses that demonstrate commercial potential. It specialises in identifying and investing in early stage technologies and credible management teams with the ability to create and deliver ‘low carbon’ businesses. It is a co-investor of choice in the low carbon technology field. The Venture Capital team is strongly supported by in-house technical and strategy groups.
Kilsby is the off-shore arm of a large industrial fund with a focus on engineering businesses in the renewables sector.
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