Aaron Thurlow serves as Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Caelux® leading global commercialization and revenue growth. Caelux® is a Los-Angeles based manufacturer of perovskite technology that provides a step-function improvement for solar energy. The company’s proprietary Active Glass technology transforms conventional silicon solar modules into tandem solar modules, increasing power and boosting performance while driving costs down.

Aaron is an experienced global leader and innovator in the clean energy sector, building and scaling businesses in the solar and renewable energy industry over the past two decades. As an executive focused on commercialization, he has led teams to drive revenue growth and market expansion, established leading brands, and created and launched new technology categories. His work has been transformational at both start-ups and publicly traded companies; including SunPower, National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments), Silevo (now Tesla), Omnidian, and LONGi Solar amongst others. Aaron is passionate about fostering innovation and collaboration in the clean energy transition. He serves in advisory roles, regularly shares his insights and knowledge at conferences, participates in Department of Energy mentorship programs, and has served on industry association boards.

Caelux is built on five core principles: Safety, Execution, Teaching, Teamwork, and Honesty. Safety is the cornerstone.

Currently, Aaron leads commercialization efforts at Caelux to convert the solar industry to tandem solar via the company’s Active Glass Perovskite technology. As the company approaches RE+ 2025 and recently announced the completion of its first commercial customer order shipment to a leading U.S. solar developer’s project, Aaron shares his insights on the next steps towards Caelux’s commercial launch, market rollout and where the industry is headed towards 2026.

Please tell us about your background and what motivated you to join Caelux in your new leadership role in 2025?

My entire career has focused on helping make solar a significant part of the global energy supply. The technology has advanced dramatically since I started working in the industry. In 2024, it was the most abundant source of new energy added to the grid in more than two decades.

I’ve been fortunate to bring new technologies to market that have allowed solar power to proliferate, driving the consumer and utility adoption of solar power.

At Caelux, I see an opportunity to propel that progress even further. Caelux’s perovskite technology substantially increases the power density of solar energy, so panels can produce more power per square foot, making every solar panel more efficient and effective. This drives down the overall cost of solar electricity cementing it as the lowest cost of energy generation further driving the expanding global market for solar power from consumers to utility power producers.

I’m excited to work alongside the Caelux team in this effort to amplify solar.

The overall energy industry is a hot topic in business, what are some recent conferences you attended and insights you observed from other attendees and speakers?

This part of the year is a busy one with many conferences for our industry.

The theme in the US this year is policy, in terms of navigating through recent changes and adapting. The industry is no stranger to adapting to an ever-changing policy landscape and has historically been very resilient. The power demands from AI both in the short and long-term will be a driving force for solar’s expansion.

Solar is the fastest way to bring new power online (even faster than natural gas), and surging energy demand will require bringing more utility-scale power online very quickly.

The technology Caelux has developed, perovskites, is also becoming noticed for obvious reasons. Our CEO, Scott Graybeal, spoke recently at Solar Summit on how we will be commercializing the technology. Perovskite technology is being cited in multiple presentations at conferences these days and Caelux is a global leader in making the technology a reality. We are also attending RE+ in September.

What economic drivers are shaping how the solar industry can innovate?

Every time the cost of solar falls, the market expands as it outcompetes other forms of power generation. The specific economics and drivers differ slightly by region, as one might expect. In the US, where the industry is investing in domestic production, costs are higher. Therefore, maintaining incentives is necessary to ensure long-term success. Caelux, like other domestic manufacturers, will be able to scale manufacturing in the US due to the 45X credits that exist.

On the deployment side of the equation outside of incentives, the single biggest lever to drive down cost is through increasing module efficiency – in other words being able to generate more power per a given area. This allows you to divide your fixed costs; land, labor, steel mounting structures, wiring, etc. over more power generation capacity so your cost per unit of power generation capacity is lower.

Today, in the laboratory, tandem solar technologies that combine a perovskite layer and a silicon layer are achieving much higher efficiencies than traditional silicon solar modules. Caelux is at the forefront of this technology which will provide a step-function increase in solar module efficiency.

As a leading manufacturer, what are your company’s key pillars to empower your workforce and focus on safety?

Caelux is built on five core principles: Safety, Execution, Teaching, Teamwork, and Honesty.

Safety is the cornerstone.

Practically, this means that safety has to underpin all our operations. People need to feel empowered to create a culture where every single employee feels ownership over their safety and the safety of their colleagues.

This year, we were awarded the Vector Solutions Gold Seal for Excellence in Workforce Safety. Being recognized by Vector Solutions really validated our efforts and proved that our safety-first culture is a genuine and successful part of how we operate.

How has your team tapped AI and machine learning to advance your solution?

Perovskite solar cell technology is still emerging and scaling it to market is complex.

We’re leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to accelerate the R&D and manufacturing process. Specifically, we’ve designed a system that tracks panels across the production line, capturing high-resolution data on numerous process variables.

As a result, we better understand each product’s lifecycle and the factors that influence its performance.

We’re also pairing AI and ML technologies with Machine Vision to identify and flag manufacturing defects, drastically reducing inspection time and increasing consistency.

How does the technology that your company builds amplify the ROI of solar investments?

Caelux enables a tandem solar module where we incorporate two power generation layers in one package that we call Hybrid Tandem. We achieve this with our Active Glass technology, which turns the top piece of glass used in a solar module into a power generation layer.

When our Active Glass is used to build a conventional silicon solar module, the power density increases by up to 30%. When you use Caelux-enabled Hybrid Tandem solar modules on a solar project, this translates to up to 20% more power generation and up to 20% lower costs.

This lowers the cost per unit of solar electricity (solar kWh) and dramatically changes a project’s return on investment. Critically, the technology is compatible with any silicon cell type and does not change the basic ways in which a solar project is built nor add any significant changes to the solar module manufacturing process.

As you look at the remainder of 2025 and the year ahead, what are some goals that you have for commercialization?

As we commercialize Caelux’s technology, we are going to focus on the requirements of our customers and the industry. This may sound simple, but new technologies are often brought to market without ample consideration of these requirements. We will also engage with key stakeholders and educate people on the benefits of the technology.

One of the great things about Caelux’s approach and technology is that it will integrate into standard manufacturing and installation processes. We want to make it as easy as possible for customers to adopt our technology and realize the benefits as early as possible.

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