Windows of Opportunity
If harnessing the sun’s energy for your home still isn’t enough efficiency for you, consider a new development by MIT scientists: power-generating windows.
Although the technology won’t be commercially available for about three years, it could open up whole new doors windows in renewable energy when it does hit the market. Ordinary glass or plastic is painted with a series of dyes that act as “organic solar concentrators,” which absorb some wavelengths of light while sending others through to light the room. The dyes then redirect and re-emit the absorbed light parallel to the pane toward solar cells at the window’s edges.
Not only does this let you kill two birds with one sunbeam — powering your house indirectly and lighting your room directly — but this technology concentrates the light before harnessing it, which, according to the researchers, multiplies the amount of electrical power each solar cell generates by a factor of more than 40. These windows should also be more affordable than traditional solar panels, since they don’t require mobile mirrors that follow the sun and their solar cells don’t require cooling like rooftop cells do.
Two graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow who worked on the project are starting a company, Covalent Solar, to sell the technology.
By Russell McLendon. BGM
[photo via] Donna Coveney/MIT
