Solar Glass – the Future for our Windows?
When we think of solar panels, an image may spring to mind of rooves topped with dark blue silicon panels, or else rows of the panels stretching across fields. Solar power, while an effective and eco-friendly way of producing electricity, requires a large surface area and plenty of sunlight in order to generate enough juice to power your home. Not to mention it’s expensive to install and doesn’t look particularly attractive. This has meant that solar simply hasn’t been a viable option for many people, until now…
New developments in solar technology have come up with an ingenious way to tap in to the sun’s power, without having to install what looks like an alien landing pad on your rooftop. I’m talking of course about solar glass.
Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could enable any window to double as a photovoltaic cell. Forget wind power, this is window power!
Although the concept of solar glass has been around for some years, it hasn’t ever been completely transparent before. Usually solar cells make energy by absorbing sunlight, which results in some visible colours not passing through the glass. But Michigan State researchers have adapted the way light is absorbed in their solar glass so that only non-visible wavelengths of light are absorbed – ultra violet (UV) and infrared.
The invisible light rays are guided to the edge of the panel where it converted into electricity by thin strips of solar cells. Their new development is called a “transparent luminescent solar concentrator” – or TSLC. The prototype glass currently only has an efficiency of around 1%, but they say 5% should be possible once production begins. Non-transparent solar cells currently have an efficiency of 7%.
On a small scale this doesn’t equate to a lot of electricity, but if the technology is put to use on large-scale glass buildings, the potential for energy generation is massive. The technology will be able to generate electricity even in shaded areas, unlike conventional solar, which means they could be used on all sides of a building instead of just the roof.
Professor Richard Lunt, assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University, said: ‘It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way… Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.’
This exciting development combines renewable energy with practicality. Transparent solar glass could be highly beneficial to home owners, businesses and future building design and development. As we move away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, solar power is an increasingly attractive option as a means to generate electricity – with transparent solar glass our windows could become our own personal power sources!
Would you jump at the chance of having solar glass in your home? Do you think this is the future for windows? Let us know what you think on our Facebook page.