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Yet electronic gizmos on “standby” mode are a big consumer of energy: at least 8% of overall demand, according to government figures.
That’s roughly equal to the output of Drax, the coal-fired power plant in Yorkshire that is the single biggest source of pollution in western Europe.
Bob Hertzberg, a bluff, cigar-chomping former politician from California, believes he has got the answer. “Standby power is our killer app,” he said. “We’ve been at this a long time but the technology is finally ready.”
Hertzberg is the co-founder of G24 Innovations, a solar power firm based in Wales that has developed organic dyes that generate electric currents when exposed to light. Critically, they generate enough power, even when indoors and in low-light, to drive some electronic gadgets.
Texas Instruments, the American electronics group, said G24’s solar strips are the world’s most efficient at harvesting indoor light energy and has signed a year-long strategic partnership with the firm.
G24 is also close to cementing a deal with a large computer maker to integrate the technology into wireless keyboards, mouses and other kit that today rely on power wired in from the computer or from batteries.
The deal has been several years and $120m (£74m) in the making. With partner Ed Stevenson, Hertzberg formed G24 in 2004 — two years after he stepped down as the Democrat speaker of California’s state senate.
The men churned tens of millions of the cash they had made from their previous company, Solar Integrated, a power producer in Los Angeles.
Casting about for their next opportunity, they came across the organic dye technology, which was developed in 1998 by Michael Graetzel, a Swiss chemist. It was promising but had its limits. The dye was only half as efficient as traditional solar cells but the big difference was that, as a liquid, it didn’t need to be housed in rigid panels like most solar systems.
Lured by the City of London’s expertise in funding early-stage renewable companies, Hertzberg and Stevenson set up their company in Britain.
They hired a UK management team to run the firm — they both stayed in California but come back often to check on progress.
They also brought in other investors. The private equity arm of Morgan Stanley, the investment bank; 4Rae, a Luxembourg venture capitalist; and Renewable Capital, based in Las Vegas, all put money into G24, making it one of the most well-funded technology start-ups in Britain.
The company used the cash to build a state-of-the-art assembly line in Cardiff, which injects dyes into kilometre-long strips of foil that can be cut into any shape and size.
For most of its life, however, G24 has been a company in search of a market. It had an interesting technology with no obvious application. Previous attempts to sell shoulder bags with panels stitched in, which were capable of charging a mobile phone, fell flat.
The company has already burnt through $120m and is about to close on a financing deal for another $40m. To recoup that much cash would have meant selling many millions of phone-charging shoulder bags. By shifting the focus to the legions of power-sucking household and office gadgets, Hertzberg is convinced that G24 has found its purpose.
Or so he hopes. He and Stevenson own 73% of the company between them. “We never thought it would be this expensive but the thing is, this stuff is really hard to get right,” Hertzberg said.
