Articles
The outdoor advertising company JCDecaux has teamed up with Armor, a French firm specialising in printing technologies, to create solar-powered advertising boards.
The boards use a semi-transparent photovoltaic film called Asca, which is flexible, made from organic compounds, and weighs just 500g/m2.
It is capable of producing electricity when it is exposed to all types of light, on any surface.
Armor uses a wet roll-to-roll manufacturing system, in order to preserve the greatest possible flexibility and to ensure the right balance between formulation and processes, according to the materials to be used and the circuits to be printed.
Armor developed Asca through six years of technological partnership with some of the biggest names in the global chemical industry – including CEA-INES, CNRS-IMS, Cambrios Advanced Materials, Merck, LCPO, Amcor and ADHEX – and an investment of €40 million in research and development.
Hubert de Boisredon, chairman and chief executive of Armor, said: “This partnership is one of the first projects in which Armor is putting Asca to work to serve tomorrow’s sustainable city. Other infrastructure and building projects are currently being studied.”
Rémi Pheulpin, executive vice-president of research, production and operations at JCDecaux, said: “This partnership is enabling us to consider self-sustaining, interactive street furniture that seamlessly incorporates solar energy. In this era of smart cities, JCDecaux is positioning itself to be one of the major players in this field and is already participating in the emergence of an increasingly connected, human, open and sustainable city.
“We are actively rolling out technologies and new creative concepts to benefit cities and their residents as well as advertisers and their brands,” added Pheulpin.