A ‘solar tree’ designed to provide unintrusive photovoltaic installations has entered accelerated development ahead of planned commercial production by the end of the year.

Start-up SolarBotanic Trees will work alongside the Central Research Laboratory (CRL) in Hayes, west London, to develop the first commercial prototype of its device, after it was selected by CRL to participate in its 2023 Accelerator Programme.

Product designers from CRL and the SolarBotanic team will work alongside the design engineering and prototyping team from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) at the University of Sheffield, which has been working on the industrial design and developing the full-scale field prototype.

The solar trees are designed for ‘aesthetically sensitive’ locations such as car parks at airports, shopping centres, sports stadiums, and exhibition centres. They will have domes made up of photovoltaic (PV) ‘leaves’, which SolarBotanic says will harness enough solar energy to power individual homes or rapidly charge electric vehicles (EVs).

The system will include an AI-driven energy storage and power management system (PMS), linking trees to form local grids or feeding into the national grid.

The CRL project will also start initial beta testing of dedicated AI software, which will use real data from the field demonstration prototype to simulate how the trees will perform during a range of weather conditions.

Chris Shelley, CEO of SolarBotanic Trees, said: “Working with CRL team members with a strong track record in industrial design is a huge boost to the project from a product perspective. It will add further momentum by bringing in the skills and experience of rapidly bringing products to market. The design team will complement the industrial engineering excellence being provided by the AMRC, as we move closer to the design freeze to move to the next stage of production.”

SolarBotanic Trees will begin a crowdfunding round in early April to build on initial seed investment.

The CRL Accelerator programme is partially funded by the European Regional Development Fund, and the Research England Development Fund.

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