Just west of Ames on old U.S. Highway 30, an unpretentious gray building sits next to a cornfield, sandwiched between an auto body shop and a construction company.
The building might go unnoticed except for an unusual structure situated on the front lawn, a large open-sided tent featuring flexible solar panels on the roof. This prominent display offers the first clue about the innovative and environmentally friendly work that takes place inside the building, the home of PowerFilm, Inc.
PowerFilm develops and manufactures thin, flexible solar panels based on a proprietary low-cost, roll-to-roll manufacturing process. The rolls of solar panels, which can be up to 2,400 feet long, are manufactured using an amorphous silicon sunlight absorber layer deposited on a flexible plastic substrate. PowerFilm was the first company in the world to manufacture and sell solar panels on plastic using a true roll-to-roll manufacturing process.
The first products the company developed were solar chargers for consumer electronics, but today PowerFilm has a global market for products ranging from solar panels used for charging remote seismic data collection systems to solar field shelters for the military. Product development is ongoing, with one current effort focused on integrating solar panels into building materials for use on commercial structures.
Eclipsed by a shadow of politics
Established in 1988 as Iowa Thin Film Technologies, PowerFilm is a textbook example of how an idea for a new technology develops from concept to start-up to industry leader. The company’s evolution would not have happened without people willing to take risks, according to Frank Jeffrey, PowerFilm CEO and co-founder.
The story began while Jeffrey was doing research on solar energy, specifically amorphous silicon, for his PhD in physics at Iowa State. At the time, researchers were just beginning to use amorphous silicon in the photovoltaic devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity. Jeffrey worked with Ames Lab physicist and Iowa State professor Howard Shanks, who played an active role in establishing Iowa State’s Microelectronics Research Center (MRC) and initiated the program in amorphous semiconductors.
Completing his degree in 1980, Jeffrey accepted what should have been an ideal job in Golden, Colorado, with the Solar Energy Research Institute, now the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Shifting priorities in Washington, D.C., however, brought an abrupt change in federal support for solar research.
“Within six months, our staff was cut in half,” Jeffrey recalls. “My job was saved, but the politics were so bad, you couldn’t get anything done.”
Originally from Mason City, Iowa, Jeffrey returned to the Midwest to work for 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota. His research focused on electro-photographic copying machines, which had amorphous silicon-type drums. 3M ended up selling its copying machine division, but about the same time NREL put out a call for proposals for research to support a new program focused on solar cell production.
3M received funding, and Jeffrey and his 3M colleagues began to research thin film solar energy and methods for manufacturing solar cells. With Shank’s research group in the MRC working on amorphous semiconductors, a joint program between Iowa State and 3M to extend development of the technology was planned.
“Enough progress had been made after three years that 3M had to make a decision on whether to commercialize the technology,” Jeffrey says. “3M decided it was too far from their business plan, but with the interaction and momentum already initiated, it fit well for a start-up to step in.”
Surviving the lean years
With his ties to Ames already established, Jeffrey and fellow 3M researcher and physicist Derrick Grimmer launched the new company in 1988. Vikram Dalal, who had been principal investigator on an NREL-funded program at Polaroid that paralleled 3M’s effort, joined the Iowa State electrical and computer engineering faculty about the same time.
Support from Iowa State was critical to the start-up’s survival. “Howard, along with (Iowa State vice president of business and finance) Warren Madden and Mike Crow (former director of the Institute for Physical Research and Technology and currently president of Arizona State University), decided this could be good for the university and good for the state,” Jeffrey says. “It was very impressive that they had enough foresight to support us.”
Jeffrey and Grimmer were given incubator space at the old nuclear reactor building west of campus. They brought in a number of grants from NASA and the Department of Energy through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The funding enabled Iowa Thin Film to subcontract to the university to cover research Dalal and Shanks were doing to further develop and improve the solar cells. Funding from the Iowa Department of Economic Development, which was earmarked for capital equipment, allowed Jeffrey, Grimmer, and their growing staff to custom design and build the machinery to implement the manufacturing technology under development.
The first ten years proved to be tough for the fledgling company, but progress was made and, in 1995, Jeffrey and Grimmer moved the company into its current manufacturing facility. The first efforts to put product out, however, failed miserably, according to Jeffrey. “The yield wasn’t high enough, there was too much scrap, and economically,” he acknowledges, “it simply wasn’t going to work.”
Just as things were looking their bleakest, NREL came out with a rare solicitation for proposals from companies to conduct research to improve manufacturing technology.
“Usually, government labs support programs that are totally disconnected from the real world,” Jeffrey points out. “This one, however, was looking to solve really hard problems that posed absolute barriers to the success of solar technology.”
The company received three years of support to improve the manufacturing technology and, in 1999, finally had enough output to be able to put back into the company. Since then, PowerFilm has moved forward thanks to an innovative staff that includes graduates from all of Iowa State’s engineering departments, as well as many other Iowa State alumni.
The SBIR program has also played a big role, helping the company try new things and enter new markets. The solar field tent is a good example. “We developed and delivered a product that was ready to use,” Jeffrey explains. “It gave us a very strong reputation, and I would say now about a third of our product is for the military.”
A firm and a founder’s day in the sun
PowerFilm went public in 2006, with successful admission to trading on AIM, a market owned and operated by the London Stock Exchange. At that time, the company began a major expansion to accommodate increased production of the original 13-inch panels, as well as the addition of equipment to produce 39-inch panels. A new manufacturing facility, featuring PowerFilm’s solar integrated building products, is nearing completion west of the original building.
While today’s soaring energy costs have some people thinking solar-powered cars might help relieve the energy crunch, Jeffrey says there simply isn’t sufficient surface area on a car to collect enough energy to move it from one place to another.
Jeffrey does, however, enjoy having a solar-powered boat. “It’s a different use pattern than a car,” he explains. “It’s an old catamaran with solar panels on the canopy. I have all week long to charge the batteries, and that gives me 10 hours of running time on the weekend.
“It doesn’t go very fast,” he adds, “but I just sit in the lawn chair on the deck and enjoy it.”