Imagine buildings that can power themselves. Imagine affordable, renewable energy for everyone. Imagine SolaBlock.
The SolaBlock Vertical Solar Solution (VSS) provides an innovative way to offset carbon and incorporate green building features into your project. With its efficient design and green energy performance benefits, incorporating Solar Masonry Units (SMUs) into your construction project can help to create a sustainable building with carbon offsetting capabilities.
SolaBlock's SMUs offer a wide range of architectural options. SolaBlock’s standard 8”x16” and 8”x 8” block sizes provide options for both new green construction projects while also having the ability to be retrofitted onto existing buildings.
Since SolaBlock’s SMUs can be integrated into various parts of a facade, this allows architects to create flexible and unique design solutions.
SolaBlock’s SMU is building embedded solar, providing renewable energy behind-the-meter and at the point of need. Our SMU not only provides green energy production, but it also provides additional insulation to the building, improving the R Value of an existing structure when used in a facade application. With our Vertical Solar Solution, one never has to worry about energy production being impacted by snow or the loss of power as experienced with legacy electrical grid infrastructure. With SolaBlock, customers can “Connect the Blocks, Power the Building, and Offset the Carbon.
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To evaluate our SMUs under real world field conditions, SolaBlock constructed a demo wall configured to power a test load through a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) battery charger. The wall utilizes 32 SMUs, which are connected in series and produce an open circuit voltage of approximately 160 Watts.
This voltage is then fed to a Morningstar MPPT battery charger, which maintains proper charge on a 24V lead acid battery. A load controller connects a test load to the battery when it approaches the fully charged state and disconnects it when approximately ¼ of full charge remains. Once the battery has been adequately discharged, the Morningstar charger draws maximum power from the SMUs to restore battery charge. The cycle repeats once the battery approaches the fully charged state. Periodically, the load is held off to allow the battery to be fully charged, ensuring long term battery health.
Live test wall data from our Chicopee, MA installation demonstrates actual operation. Voltage, current, and power produced depend on the amount of sunshine received and the battery charger’s operating state. Please note: as final UL certification hasn’t yet been received, this demo wall isn’t currently linked to the grid. Therefore, comparisons between this dump load system and future customers’ SolaBlock SMU wall systems cannot be made at this time.
The innovative SolaBlock solar panel wall system is perfect for a multitude of applications. From commercial buildings to parking garages, this product will help you save on your energy bills and reduce the environmental impact that comes from using fossil fuels.
Data centers, grow facilities, warehouses, and manufacturers consume tremendous high-cost energy and cannot afford power disruptions. Our SMUs are a natural solution, allowing the walls to be active energy producing assets while offsetting carbon.
Installing SolaBlock’s Solar Masonry Units (SMU) Solution on your commercial building can have a dramatic impact. For example, installing SMUs around the south, east, and west sides of an office complex may make it energy positive and can help save you money while reducing your carbon footprint.
SolaBlock is the perfect solution for any school district seeking to achieve Net Zero status. With many states and cities mandating carbon neutrality for new buildings, SolaBlock can be your solution. Installing SolaBlock’s Vertical Solar Solutions allows schools to produce clean energy while offsetting carbon to successfully reach Net Zero.
SolaBlock is the perfect solution to help upgrade legacy municipal structures, including city halls, municipal garages, department of public works infrastructure and/or police departments. With SolaBlock installed on these structures, local administrations can save money on existing fuel bills while transitioning to more energy efficient buildings.
With SolaBlock's innovative Solar Wall System, parking towers could not only provide energy for all of the structure's utilities but may also make it an overall net-energy positive structure.
Off-grid remote structures with battery systems can be powered by using SolaBlock's Solar Masonry Units. The solar panels on these masonry units will generate potentially enough energy to make the unit self-powered eliminating the need to run costly gas, diesel, or other hydrocarbon-burning generators.
SolaBlock has passed the rigorous product testing portion of UL certification. We are currently fundraising to establish our first assembly facility in Pittsfield Mass. Once our facility opens, we can achieve final UL approval which will allow us to begin selling and installing our Solar Masonry Units.
SolaBlock’s patented Solar Masonry Unit (SMU) is building an embedded photovoltaic masonry unit. Many older buildings were not designed or are not capable of having a solar array on the roof. Many companies cannot take advantage of community solar, due to overcapacity electrical grids or lack of land to build a solar array on their property. SolaBlock designed our SMUs to provide the energy of solar utilizing the vertical surface of a wall. Previously, a wall was a passive structure that provided shelter and support. However, SolaBlock’s SMU can “turn that wall on” and change it into an energy-producing asset.
Why settle for an ordinary wall when you can have a Vertical Solar Solution built with our SMUs?
Solar has evolved very little since it first became mainstream in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Solar Cells have gotten smaller and are much more efficient, but solar as a form factor/ array has remained relatively stable over the last 50 years.
With land at a premium and the need for renewable energy growing more and more critical every day, SolaBlock developed a new way of using solar. We use a revolutionary approach and make solar part of the building itself. By making our SMUs part of the vertical plane, we make the building part of the solution, instead of being part of a problem itself.
SolaBlock’s SMUs provide solar power, like a typical solar array. SolaBlock’s SMU can generate power in situations where solar arrays are negatively impacted (i.e. snow and rainy conditions), and complement a traditional solar array by supplementing its power. Our SMUs increase the insulation of the building to improve its heating efficiency. These advantages, combined with our SMUs longer life and our ability to become a Net Zero Building Material less than three years after its installation, make for a powerful value proposition for a Vertical Solar Solution.
