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16-09-2021

A Journey in Colorful Solar, Ep. 2 – Getting down to business

This is the second episode of my weekly article series. You can find the first article here.

I don’t know much yet about solar-powered energy, but I am learning a bit every day. For now, I know that solar panels generate direct current (DC), but the electrical grid transports alternate current (AC), so an inverter is needed to transform DC into AC and allow the energy to get to other devices in the form of electricity. It turns out, however, that most of our devices run on DC power, which is why your laptop has a little inverter in the charger to transform the AC back to DC. Having a background in humanities, this already sounds like science-fiction to my ears, but it did help me spot the irony of this situation. Apparently, it all has to do with some feud between Nikola Tesla (DC power) and Thomas Edison (AC power) a long time ago. I also got to know that, since solar panels produce less energy above 25°C, cooler days can actually be good for the performance, which is a great consolation if you are living in the Netherlands!

Back to that bit on Tesla vs. Edison, here’s a great article published in History Magazine to read. And if you are interested to deepen your knowledge even more about this topic, there is also a documentary by National Geographic (American Genius, season 1 episode 8, 2015) and the movie  “The Current War”, 2017, directed by  Alfonso Gómez-Rejón, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison. You might just find that documentary on YouTube with a bit of creative googling 😉

What I really like about working here so far is that communication is easy and quite spontaneous among employees, and people share their own ideas freely with each other. Just by breaking down those communication barriers and business superstructures that are not only unnecessary, but also hinder the final goal of mutual comprehension and collaboration. During the “Core Team meeting”, while maintaining an informal attitude, practical problems are tackled or even anticipated to optimize internal processes, then there is an open discussion about the upcoming projects and the goals to achieve to make them successful.

A recent highlight is definitely that Guust and Kevin will both be giving lectures at Solar Solutions, an important trade show on solar energy. Let me know if you want to attend so I can get you tickets, the lectures are in the afternoon on 30th September at Solar Solutions International in Expo Haarlemmermeer.

I will need some time before I can tell you about everyone in particular, but both in the office and in the factory, I perceived a strong sense of personal pride and passion for excellence and sustainability. Mutual trust and striving for the highest quality drive every employee’s inner motivation, they are ethically ambitious and know that sometimes you need to take responsibility and go the extra mile to grow from scale-up to full-blown successful business. As Richard, the Sales Manager, says, “you need to take some risks to help the company move forward with innovative projects, to push it to the next level”.

Kameleon Solar has already reached the next level with ColorBlast® and ColorBlast® Design, two products developed in-house using innovative technologies that enable solar panels to be really colorful. If you want to discover their revolutionary design potential, take a look at the Zon op Dijken project, and this video:

This week I have been focusing my marketing efforts on VIRTUe, a team of TU/e (Eindhoven University of Technology) students that are building the sustainable house of the future, using our ColorBlast® panels for the façade. They will participate in the Solar Decathlon Europe 2021-2022, a student competition on solar energy which will be held in Germany next summer, and we are happy to support them in their effort to tackle energy transition in urban environments. I will tell you more about this in a subsequent blog, don’t worry.

I have heard that in business it’s all about making the right choices. I think so too, and I think I made the right decision joining Kameleon Solar. I will be busy telling the world about how our colored solar panels can be applied to many types of projects and make sustainability more beautiful, about how we create the art of solar.

More colorful days to come, stay tuned!

Martina Mori

Here are two more VIRTUe’s project pictures just for you:

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