Local business works to revolutionize solar energy industry

Eight years ago, local chemistry professor Osbert Cheung became interested in updating the 30-year-old solar panel technology widely used around the globe.

The then stay-at-home dad discovered that it is possible to make solar panels without glass, making them more lightweight and easier to adjust and install for multiple uses, he said.

Now Cheung's design is the only Underwriters Laboratories approved non-glass, rigid, crystalline silicon photovoltaic solar panel module in the world and he has started SBM Solar in Concord to manufacturer the panels.

Underwriters Laboratories is an independent product safety certification organization that has tested products and written standards for safety for electrical products since 1894. The UL evaluates more than 19,000 types of products, components, materials and systems annually with 20 billion UL marks appearing on 66,000 manufacturers' products each year.

Getting the UL certification is a big deal, Cheung said, and helped him move forward with plans to develop his business locally.

Cheung, who is originally from Beijing, China, came to the United States in 1980 with his family and lived in California for several years before meeting his wife and moving to the East Coast.

Cheung earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the State University of California in Sacramento. He earned his doctorate of chemistry at Temple University in Philadelphia and has taught at several universities and colleges in Texas and North Carolina including most recently Rowan-Cabarrus Community College.

Cheung also held several positions at Aerojet, a major space and defense contractor specializing in space and missile propulsion, and worked for DuPont for a short time.

Cheung moved to Concord with his wife Catherine, an anesthesiologist, when she took a job at CMC NorthEast. Cheung stayed at home with their then daughter 3-year-old daughter Amanda, who is now 12 and in the sixth grade at Cannon School.

Now Cheung works fulltime on his solar panel business, which is located at 379 Central Drive in Concord. Cheung said he had originally planned to develop a large manufacturing facility locally that would have generated about 40 jobs locally.

SBM Solar received a $100,000 grant from the state to help produce solar roofing for commercial and residential buildings and petitioned the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners for an economic development grant totaling $20,885 over a three-year period on the company's $1.3 million investment. The local grant was not approved and so SBM Solar has adjusted its plan, Cheung said.

The company now is developing solar panel modules to fit with the needs of existing manufacturers of roofing and other products and then licensing those manufacturers to reproduce the panels. The company is also manufacturing a small number of panels locally. It recently completed panels for a local bank's roof.

Cheung said his design is a breakthrough for renewable energy generation for residential and commercial roofing, marine, military, industrial and transportation-related applications.

Cheung said a big difference between using glass and crystalline silicon is weight. The non-glass panels weigh about 40 percent less than the glass ones, he said.

Another benefit of using crystalline silicon, he said, is the design flexibility of the product.

"We can easily customize the panels for another product for a different company," Cheung said.

The benefit of using solar power, Cheung said, is that businesses or residential electricity customers can add solar panels to structures and generate electricity. Typically, power companies will buy back the power the panels create for a home or business, generating a smaller electric bill for the solar panel owner.

There's also the potential to go completely off the traditional power grid, but that requires more panels and back up systems. Most businesses and residential customers are using the solar panels as supplemental energy to lower bills and reduce their negative impact on the environment.

The top solar energy user in the world is Germany. Globally last year, solar technology generated 8 gigawatts of electricity. A gigawatt is equal to a billion watts of electricity. Germany generates 3.9 gigawatts per year while the United States produces .7 gigawatts. About 50 percent of the U.S. solar energy production is generated in California.

SBM Solar officials say they hope the products they can produce will help create more solar uses in the United States.

"We really want to change what the solar industry does," Chief Marketing Officer Jay Rao said.

To learn more about SBM Solar, visit www.sbmsolar.com.