tenKsolar designs, manufactures and markets unique photovoltaic systems which provide the highest kilowatt hour production per unit area at the lowest cost per kilowatt hour. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, tenKsolar has announced its RAIS™ Wave system which combines PV modules, reflectors and racking configured in a repeating wave pattern to provide the highest density energy producing system for flat roof or ground mount systems.
tenKsolar PV Technology
Joel Cannon | tenKsolar
What are the key things about TKS technology that are different?
The TKS RAIS™ module has been completely redesigned to eliminate serial dependencies within the module. Each module is optimized to the cell level, making the RAIS™ module remarkably shade tolerant. Moreover, the cell optimized design allows the panel to make use of inexpensive, reflected light. Increasing energy density and reducing cost.
How do these advances change the way developers and installers work with PV?
TKS RAIS™ module has a built in safety circuit, it will not make energy until fully connected. The system voltage never exceeds 60V DC. The result is a much safer installation. The TKS system eliminates conventional racking altogether, eliminates the need for roof penetrations and minimizes ballast. The overall result is a much less expensive installation.
Where did the ideas for TKS come from?
Dallas Meyer, PhD, is Founder and President and is responsible for the creation of much of the intellectual property. However we have a large team of talented people who have all contributed to making the product the best it can be.
What market segment is TKS focusing on?
Commercial flat rooftop. We chose this segment first as being the fastest growing PV segment with the most significant need for product improvement and differentiation over what is available with conventional solar.
Are you finding the market to be growing at the present time?
We are a new company with a new technology that is a significant improvement over what is available we are finding that we cannot make enough product to satisfy demand.
Why does TKS feel it has a business model that will prevail in the highly competitive solar space?
The cell independent nature of our design renders obsolete many expensive steps in conventional solar including cell binning and testing on expensive sun simulators, so production is much less expensive to setup. Also, we have a relationship with a large, global contract manufacturer with deep experience in solar, so we can scale rapidly.
What’s next for TKS?
We have both a product and sales/marketing roadmap that will keep us quite busy over the next few years opening up new markets and offering variations on the product to fill specific market needs.
Dr. Dallas Meyer: Founder, President, CTO
Dallas has held various leadership positions in engineering and operations at several technology companies. Most recently at Seagate, he led the enterprise disc drive team to a greater than 65% market share by developing and delivering multiple leading-edge products characterized by best-in-class reliability and performance. While at Finisar, he transitioned the operations from a prototype scale to a world-class operations team based in Malaysia, and today one of the world’s largest and most successful photonics factories. Dallas holds over 80 patents in the areas of magnetic recording, optical communications, MEMS and solar technology, many of them focused on integrating materials, electronics, mechanics and optics to deliver product performance and low-cost in highly scalable products. Dallas holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics and Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MS in Structural Engineering from the University of Nebraska
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