Solar panels will keep lights twirling

Ames-based PowerFilm has a new partnership with a company that makes lighting bars and other gear for emergency vehicles.

The agreement will allow Streamlight Inc. to add PowerFilm’s 14-watt flexible solar panels as an option for emergency responders and others looking for an auxiliary source of power for the lights, computers, radios and other electrical components that are now built into vehicles.

The Streamlight deal is the second vehicle partnership announced by PowerFilm. In January, the company said it would join with Textron Co. to make solar power an option for E-Z-GO golf cars and other electric vehicles.

In a statement announcing the Streamlight venture, PowerFilm President Tim Neugent said the company’s new solar panels provide enough supplemental power to the battery of an emergency vehicle “to ensure that the vehicle will start when needed and reduce the need to idle the vehicle, saving fuel and reducing emissions.”

Streamlight President Ray Sharrah said in an email that most solar panel makers “are targeting large commercial or residential installations using thousands of square feet of panel. PowerFilm’s focus on smaller products met our needs for vehicular mobile applications and their design proved itself in a year of field trials.” He said the Iowa company’s “solar technology is unequaled and provides us with amazing versatility.”

Streamlight will begin shipping PowerFilm products next month, Sharrah said.

The potential market is substantial, he said: “In the U.S. alone there are 18,000 law enforcement agencies. There are 25,000 vehicles in service in just state police and highway patrols. American auto manufacturers sell more than 50,000 new police cars a year. When we add this to industrial and utility vehicles and look internationally, it presents a considerable market need.”