TechCrunch: Look out Putin — Ukrainian woman invents ‘solar for balconies’ to wean Europe off Russian gas

Ukrainian woman tech entrepreneur has come up with a way to allow ordinary Europeans to fight Russia, by easily installing solar panels on their numerous balconies.

• We Do Solar, launched in February 2022 (the month Russia invaded Ukraine) and says it has so far received “thousand of orders” for its “vertical solar power” panels, which are specifically designed to be mounted, with weatherproof straps, onto to balconies by non-tech-savvy users.
• The startup was founded by Karolina Attspodina, a Ukrainian-born serial entrepreneur and Qian Qin, a hardware engineer, serial entrepreneur and a former managing director of BSH Digital Ventures GmbH. The startup has been backed by Angel backers, but no institutional investors, as yet.
• Users can also track the energy generation of their solar panels and the amount of CO2 saved in an app, which converts the metrics into language such as “60 phone charges” or 600 kg of yearly CO2 reduction equaling a “1,000 m2 forest.”
• Focusing on EU markets, the eight-panel set costs €1,299 EUR or comes as a free rental model for electric vehicle owners in exchange for CO2 certificates.