How about a life free from charging cables and batteries? With Exeger’s new solar cell innovation Powerfoyle, used in the world’s first self-charging headphones, this could be the start of a new era in consumer electronics. And now the manufacturing company is scaling up with a new factory right here in Kista.
The Urbanista Los Angeles headphone was the first product that, with the help of Powerfoyle, promised its users they would never need to use a cord charger. A bike helmet from POC and a tracking product for dogs are other examples of self-charging products also powered by the solar cell material.
Sound too good to be true? We thought so too until we delved deeper into exciting articles about the revolutionary solar cell material. Powerfoyle can be bent and shaped around any consumer electronics product and, as if by magic, the material can seamlessly integrate into products. That’s because Powerfoyle can imitate more than 100 materials, from leather to wood to rubber to brushed steel.
The vision is to build Sweden's next big industry
So how does the charging work?
Well, simply leave the product laying around and it will charge itself using any available light. Powerfoyle harvests light energy, whether from indoor or outdoor light, and converts it into the electricity needed to charge electronic equipment. It does this in a process Exeger itself calls artificial photosynthesis. Impressive, huh?
Joining Europe's largest ICT cluster
Exeger has gone from lab stage to full-scale production in just over a decade. To play alongside the really big tech giants however, the company must move from its premises at KTH's campus in the city. There, production is already at its capacity of 250,000 square meters of solar cell area per year. With its location along the E4, between the city and Arlanda, Kista presented itself as a smart place for the company to lay new foundations, not to mention the chance to become part of Europe's largest ICT cluster ?
Ambitions to be Sweden's next big industry
Giovanni Fili, Exeger's founder and CEO, revealed to news site Dagens Industri that his vision is to build Sweden's next big industry. One step towards this goal is to build Europe's largest solar cell factory. The factory will be housed in existing premises in Kista and have a production capacity of up to 2.5 million square meters of solar cells per year – ten times the capacity of its previous facility, and with emissions so low they can’t be measured.
Winner of the Grand Award of Design
In 2020, Exeger won the Grand Award of Design (Stora Designpriset) for Powerfoyle, awarded by the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries in collaboration with the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation (SVID) and Swedish Form. The prize aims to highlight innovative design as a significant factor behind competitiveness and profitability.
