The award will fund extensive third-party testing and validation of the company’s panels, designed to be among the world’s most powerful and durable, to demonstrate their readiness for widespread deployment.
“This award accelerates our durability testing to bring us closer to delivering a new standard for clean energy and delivering high-efficiency solar that’s proven, reliable, and ready for the market,” said Colin Bailie, Founder and CTO, Tandem PV. “We’re grateful to the California Energy Commission’s leadership in investing in the technologies that will power the country’s clean energy future.”
Tandem PV’s solar panels stack a thin layer of perovskite, a powerful light-absorbing material, on top of conventional silicon solar cells. This dual-layer approach increases power output and reduces the cost of solar energy. The company’s panels currently achieve 28% efficiency and are 30 percent more powerful than the average silicon solar panel.
With this new grant funding, Tandem PV will partner with independent labs and technical institutions to rigorously assess its panels’ performance in real-world conditions, including their long-term durability, environmental resilience, and energy yield. The testing will build on the company’s internal results, which already show industry-leading efficiency and decades-worth of projected stability in the lab.
This is Tandem PV’s second major grant within a year. In late 2024, the company was awarded $5.2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to advance the manufacturing and commercialization of its tandem panels as part of the DOE’s thin-film solar initiative.
“California has long been a global leader in solar innovation, and we’re proud to be part of the next chapter,” said Scott Wharton, CEO of Tandem PV. “This support from the CEC signals strong momentum for tandem solar technology and helps ensure that the next wave of clean energy breakthroughs are developed and manufactured here in the U.S.”
