Photovoltaic panels power Times Square billboard

The curved 6,000-square-foot billboard for Ricoh office equipment glows green in New York City’s Times Square, flanked by thin film photovoltaic panels that, as the advertisement claims, ‘catch some rays.’ The billboard uses Enviroflex® printable billboard substrate by Cooley Group, Pawtucket, R.I., combined with flexible, lightweight thin-film silicone solar modules designed by Xunlight Corp., Toledo, Ohio, for bright lights, big city marketing that is 100 percent solar powered.

“These lightweight systems could be installed on some portion of the 450,000 billboards currently in the United States,” says Bryan Rose, vice president of Cooley’s Commercial Graphics business. “Each of these billboards would generate clean renewable energy to either power the billboard lighting systems or would be sold back to local utility companies through net metering feed in tariffs programs.” Cooley is currently introducing thin film photovoltaic systems for commercial roofing, outdoor advertising and military tents.”