Ep. 55 | Ubiquitous Energy’s Susan Stone Intends to Power Our Cities with Invisible Solar Panels

Business for Good Podcast

We may hear a lot about solar power and renewable energy, but sadly, our civilization is still voraciously addicted to fossil fuels. Even in a technologically advanced country like America, nearly all — about 90 percent — of the energy we use still comes from non-renewable sources. This not only causes serious environmental damage to extract from the earth, but also is a leading cause of climate change that’s driving countless species to extinction, including possibly own our species if we don’t get our act together.

The effort to collect energy from the sun’s rays has come a long way, but it’s still largely dependent on finding roofspace or large tracts of land to put unappealing blue-grey solar panels. But what if we could collect solar energy through crystal clear film that we could affix to virtually any surface, including the windows of skyscrapers?

By making it possible to invisibly turn outdoor objects like windows into solar energy-collecting devices, we could transform the ways our cities and homes get their power.

That’s exactly what Ubiquitous Energy is seeking to do. The start-up has raised $30 million to commercialize technology that began in an MIT lab that uses invisible film placed on windows to harvest solar energy. And we’ve got their CEO, Susan Stone, on this episode to tell us all about it.

It doesn’t look like humanity’s energy needs are going to subside any time soon. If anything, we’re going to need more power, not less. And that’s why innovations like Ubiquitous Energy’s are so important: since they allow us to have our energy and eat it too, or maybe have our energy, and heat our homes, too.

Discussed in this episode

• Our past episode on Ornilux bird-friendly glass
• Statistics about solar and other renewable energy in the U.S.
• Our recent episode with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market
• Susan recommends Play Bigger by Al Ramadan
• Susan recommends a Fast Company story by Andrea Kayal about how to hire nice people

More About Susan Stone

Susan Stone is CEO at Ubiquitous Energy. She has been a longtime board member and investor in the company. Prior to joining Ubiquitous, she was the founder and CEO of Sierra Wasatch Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, and managed early stage investing for Riverhorse Investments, Inc. Susan has also worked at JPMorgan in New York and Houlihan Lokey in Los Angeles as an investment banker focused on mergers & acquisitions. Stone holds an MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.