Pasadena Solar Company Receives $12 Million Investment From Multinational Conglomerate Based in India

A Pasadena-based company working to lower installed costs of solar energy has obtained a $12 million investment to produce crystalline solar modules more efficiently and cost effectively.

In late September, Reliance New Energy Ltd. (RNEL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd., a multinational conglomerate company in India, signed definitive agreements to invest in Caelux Corporation, the Pasadena company engaged in the development of perovskite-based solar technology.

Reliance Industries is India’s largest private sector company, with a consolidated revenue of $104.6 billion for the year ended March 31, 2022. 

With the investment, RNEL acquires a 20 percent stake in Caelux, a company statement said. The investment will accelerate product and technology development for Caelux, including construction of its pilot line in the United States. The statement added RNEL and Caelux have also entered into a strategic partnership agreement for technical collaboration and commercialization of Caelux’s technology, which will lead to putting up production sites across the United States, Asia, and Latin America.

“The investment in Caelux aligns with our strategy to create the most advanced green energy manufacturing ecosystem, backed by world-class talent and built on the pillars of technological innovation achieved through strategic partnerships,” Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Ltd., said. “We believe Caelux’s proprietary perovskite based solar technology provides us with access to next leg of innovation in crystalline solar modules. We will work along with team at Caelux to accelerate its product development and commercialization of its technology.”

The statement said Reliance Industries is setting up a global-scale integrated photovoltaic Giga factory at Jamnagar, in India’s western Gujarat state. Through this investment and collaboration, Reliance said it will be able to produce more powerful and lower cost solar modules leveraging Caelux’s products.

Caelux Corporation CEO Scott Graybeal said they’re looking forward to bringing solar manufacturing back to the United States and particularly the Los Angeles metro area.

“Our factory will be here and we’re excited to get started,” he said. “I think that we’re big believers in solar and the ability of solar energy to transform our current electricity generation ecosystem, and we’re excited to be a part of that story.”

Caelux, founded in 2014 as a spin-out of Caltech, has over the years been developing solar energy technology that costs lower to install but produces more clean power compared to traditional solar cells. The technology can improve the performance of solar modules by more than 30 percent, and uses special nano materials called “perovskites,” enabling lower-cost more powerful solar that’s much more efficient in converting sunlight to clean electricity.

University of Berlin mineralogist Gustavus Rose discovered perovskite in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1839. He named the substance after Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski.

Caelux Corporation’s innovative product, called Caelux One, integrates seamlessly into existing module manufacturing processes, boosting performance, reducing installed costs, and accelerating the proliferation of solar.

Graybeal said they’re targeting the end of 2024 to release Caelux One.

“That product will help improve the performance of the solar modules, any given solar module, by about 20 percent over the course of the project’s life, which is typically 25 years,” he said. “We also sell it at a price point so that the module company can make money, and the developer who’s building the project can make money, and hopefully pass some savings onto the consumer who pays the electric bill. And so we try to create a multi-dimensional win scenario, where we make money, the module company makes money, the developer makes money, and we as consumers get to save some money, too.”

Graybeal also stressed their new perovskites-based technology can be assembled in the same manufacturing plants that put out conventional solar cells, leveraging readily available capital equipment.

“We’ve kind of addressed a lot of the challenges that previous generations of thin film have had by approaching a scalable manufacturer product architecture,” he continued. “So I think that you have the potential of seeing solar panels being less than 10 cents a watt in the future. And I think that’s where the industry needs to go. And I think perovskites are that gateway in order to enable that future.”

The company statement said Caelux’s technology does not require any rare earth minerals but rather uses abundant, low-cost precursors, low temperature production methods and readily available equipment in its localized manufacturing process.

Caelux will be constructing its pilot plant and building out a community-based workforce in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area to demonstrate the feasibility of scaling perovskites.

To learn more about Caelux Corporation, visit www.caelux.com.