WISP: Weather Independent Solar Panel

A solar panel layered with transparent piezoelectric layer that generates electricity in any weather.

Fossil fuel use for energy need is an unquestionably huge contributor towards climate change, a phenomena of long-term transformation in temperature and weather pattern that spawned global issues, such as sea-level rise and biodiversity loss, leading to poverty, food insecurity, and ultimately poorer wellbeing. Moreover, certain types of fossil fuel such as coal and oil release toxic emissions, excruciating air pollution and invoking health problems. Consequently, the international community are driven to shift towards better energy resource.

As an equatorial country, one might expects Indonesia to become a leading country in the race for a greener, renewable energy transition especially solar power. The all-year long sunshine created a potential solar capacity of 112,000 GW/day, the largest among all other potential alternative energy source harnessed by the nation.

In reality, 90% of energy-consuming activities, from household to industrial level, still heavily rely on fossil fuel. Only 0.77 W/capita of solar power was utilized by 2021, a huge gap from other rapid developing countries within the equinoctial line such as Brazil, which produced 64 W/capita on the same year. Presently, Indonesia has the least solar power among other G20 countries.

The slow development of solar power in Indonesia has been attributed towards unattractive government policies, dominating coal-gas industry, and most of all, the common perception of a poor cost-benefit performance for its installation and maintenance. 

Nonetheless, they overshadowed a crucial element of delay: Indonesia is a tropical rainforest country with periods of heavy rain, reaching a precipitation rate of up to 60 mm each month. Moreover, growingly unpredictable weather and extreme climate prevents consistent supply of solar energy. Current models of solar panel cannot effectively provide reliable electrical energy for operations from said intermittent resource. A technological breakthrough is necessary to channel the untapped potential of Indonesia’s weather-powered energy, made challenging by the country’s natural condition as well as aberrations brought by the changing climate.

To accelerate the utilization of sustainable energies in Indonesia, WISP proposes an all-rounded solar panel that can still generate electricity even when the weather doesn’t support maximum sunlight intensity. The solar panel has a Zinc Oxide (ZnO) based piezoelectric material layer embedded on top of it.

Piezoelectric material generates charge when stresses are applied onto its surface, so WISP can generate energy when it’s raining or strong wind blows onto the surface of the panel. Since the layers are transparent, this mechanism won’t compromise the performance of the solar cells beneath. WISP only consumes the same amount of space but generates more than twice the energy as a standard solar panel. This makes WISP a reliable source of energy in uncertain weather. 

WISP requires minimum wiring as we’re incorporating Zinc Oxide nanofibers technology that functions both as a wiring and the piezoelectric material itself in the device. WISP also sources the manufacturing materials from local garbage recycling centers, making it cheaper and environmentally friendly

WISP is a hope that Indonesians need to overcome the climate change that alters the environment they live in. With a massive population and high demands of energy, Indonesian governments provide tremendous fossil-based fuel plants to fulfill the demand. WISP acts as a reliable escape from unsustainable forms of energy used in Indonesia. 

Shifting from fossil-based energy generators to WISP will reduce more than 50% fossil fuel consumption in Indonesia, improving the sustainable development index. WISP also expects a reduction of up to 40% polluting particles in the air and improving Indonesians' life, especially for those living in urban cities like Jakarta and Bandung.

The shift towards sustainable energy will drastically change how Indonesians perceive their environment. Less pollution means people can lead a healthier life and longer life expectancy. Deceleration of climate change will preserve Indonesia's rich biodiversity, keeping traditional communities that depend on it sustained. It will also protect Indonesians from poverty and food insecurity by providing cheaper energies and increased productivity of the people.

WISP innovators consists of three engineering students with different fields of expertise. Our Leader, Ms. Aisya, is a bioengineering student and renewable energy enthusiast. She is interested in exploring the possibilities of energy generation through unthought means. Lately, she engrossed with the utilization of bio-based fuel in day-to-day use, although she is open to various new topics related to the field. In WISP, she is the one in charge of our business and impact to the community we serve. She is the one to pitch for us and spread awareness to the society.

Mr. Roman is our innovator. He is the one creating innovations and incorporating frontier technologies into our product. He is a mechanical engineering student with an extensive experience in chemistry and material science. He is currently having a deep interest in photonic and electronic materials, especially in piezoelectric materials and metamaterials. Currently, he also has an ongoing personal project with piezoelectric materials application in public transportation in Singapore. He likes to read journals and visit various energy generators across Java in his journey to understand the principles in energy generations from various sources. Living in Semarang, he often sees how climate change brings regular floods into his city.

Mr. Tamami is our feasibility analyst. He handles how we manufacture our product and analyzes and testing the feasibility of the design of our product before it’s produced. He is also a mechanical engineering student with interest in energy and environment. He is all about earth and how to save it. His fondness in science and clean technology brings a lot of aid into the team. His knowledge about manufacturing and utilization help WISP accomplish its intended impact flawlessly.

All WISP innovators live on the island of Java, the most densely populated island in the world. They experience how the increasing demands on electricity in Java forces the government to instate massive power plants that generate pollution in urban areas and accelerate global warming. They are affected by the negative impact unsustainable technologies bring to their communities. 

Within the past few years, they saw an emerging urge for Indonesia to shift from fossil-based fuels into more sustainable options. With their competence and collaboration, the development of WISP can save millions of Indonesians from the danger of unsustainable energies.

WISP has already surveyed more than 1200 urban Indonesians about the energy and environmental concerns they face living in the city, particularly about pollution level and climate change. 87% of them voiced concern about their health being compromised by the pollution. 

A big portion is also concerning the drastic climate change experienced in many parts of Indonesia. There is a consensus that Indonesia experiences longer wet months and extreme heat waves during the summer. Some Indonesians living close to the Indian Ocean also report increasing frequency of storms and strong winds.

When asked about the potential of sustainable energies that can be used to deplete pollution in Indonesia, almost 30% answer solar energy as the most feasible option. These arguments are supported with the abundance of sunlight as Indonesia is located on the equator.

WISP also conducted a study in the Cirata solar power plant, where we find the fluctuation of energy generated throughout the year. Their data showed only 2460 kW energy generated per day on average during wet season, while 4350kW energy generated per day in dry season. This showed us how undependable solar energy is in Indonesia and innovation such as WISP is urgent to develop solar energy in Indonesia.

WISP provides a different approach to tackle the problem displayed. Instead of keeping solar panels protected from weather fluctuations, WISP tries to take advantage of such problems and increase the effectiveness of the solar panel. 

WISP can be a pioneer in the utilization of rain as an energy generator, with a big market in tropical and coastal countries where rain is abundant. We really hope WISP can be an inspiration for people around the world to celebrate what we have and convert it into something beneficial to the community. As well as a revolution in producing clean and renewable energy.

Within next year, we’re expecting to finish the prototyping stage and advance towards the piloting stage. We’re planning to launch WISP in Bandung, where the solar energy demand is the highest. We expected about 50 units to be installed and will be monitored closely.

Hopefully, WISP can be the lead as a reliable energy source in Indonesia and improve energy sustainability in Indonesia. Furthermore, we also wish to work with the Indonesian government to install WISP into the existing solar power plants around Indonesia after the success in the piloting stage and providing service for up to 20 million Indonesians.

WISP utilizes nanomaterials and manufacturing technologies in the production of the solar panel. We’re using a piezoelectric material in the form of ZnO (Zinc Oxide) based nanofibers that also acts as a wiring to store the energy generated. Piezoelectric materials generate charges  when stresses are applied upon it. In WISP, Rain and wind will generate the stress required to generate that charge. 

To manufacture a transparent piezoelectric material, we’re using composite-based piezoelectric material so we can arrange the ZnO fibers into the appropriate opacity that allows sunlight to break through but enough fibers to generate electricity when it rains. Since we’re using scrap metals as a source of our raw materials, we’re also employing simple chemical treatment to make it ready to assemble into WISP.

As WISP is currently under ideation stage, we haven’t yet launched our product. After we finish our prototyping by next year, we’re expecting about 50 houses powered by WISP, that roughly translates to around 200 people receiving the benefit of WISP.