Welsh city Cardiff opened a renewable energy factory on July 12 that will use wind energy for power generation to produce solar cells. G24 Innovations (G24i) founder Robert Hertzberg said, “It’s a grand vision which we share with the Welsh and UK governments and it has all the elements of a truly sustainable business environment.”
Powered by a 120-meter tall, 2.3 MW wind turbine, the plant produces enough energy to power the entire 23 acre site and will save more than 2,500 tons of carbon emissions each year. There were many challenges that cropped up including the economic downturn and new technology that had yet to be commercialized. Hertzberg explained that as a result of this, the company had to re-invent its machines several times. “The good news is we have very ingenious engineers here who have built all our machines on site and there is nobody else in the world who can do this.”
The solar cells were originally designed to help people in Africa without access to the grid. Hertzberg said, “We found this more difficult than we had anticipated since people and governments didn’t have a great deal of money. Governments and other companies, mainly from China, were selling inexpensive solar chargers that didn’t work very well and presented us with competition that was difficult to match.” So G24i shifted its focus to more indoor solar energy appliances like smoke detectors, keyboards, and phone chargers.
Interestingly, Hertzberg is an American, but opted to operate in the UK. He told the New York Times, “California does have this great image [regarding renewable energy], but Europe is still much greener than anywhere in the US.”
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