XunLight

About XunLight

Xunlight Corporation was a technology company focused on developing and manufacturing high-performance, flexible, and lightweight solar modules. The company was originally established as Midwest Optoelectronics, LLC (MWOE) in January 2002 by Xunming Deng, a physics professor at the University of Toledo, and his wife, Liwei Xu. Deng, born in Nanchang, China in 1963, pursued a PhD in amorphous silicon and photovoltaics at the University of Chicago and later worked at Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., building roll-to-roll PV production lines before joining the University of Toledo in 1996. His extensive background in thin-film silicon photovoltaics was foundational to the company's technology.

Xunlight was officially formed in April 2006, reorganizing all MWOE operations. The company licensed technology developed at the University of Toledo's Thin Film Silicon Photovoltaic Laboratory. The business centered on a high-speed, roll-to-roll manufacturing process to create thin-film silicon-based photovoltaic solutions on flexible stainless steel substrates. This process allowed for the production of lightweight and adaptable solar panels suitable for various applications, including residential, industrial, and curved roofs. The product line included a range of solar modules, such as single-junction and multi-junction thin-film silicon solar cells.

The company's business model included manufacturing and marketing these photovoltaic modules and also offering manufacturing equipment solutions to customers. This enabled partners to produce their own PV modules with a relatively minimal capital investment. Xunlight secured significant funding, including a $7 million Series A round in May 2007 and a $33 million Series B round in April 2008, in addition to various government grants and loans. Key milestones include moving to a 122,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in 2007 and demonstrating its first solar cell deposition on a 2MW roll-to-roll pilot line in 2008. The first shipment of its solar modules was delivered to the University of Toledo in September 2009. Xunlight also established a factory in Kunshan, China, in 2009 to manufacture flexible thin-film solar panels and foldable solar chargers. Despite its early successes and raising a total of $46.3 million, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2014.