photovoltaic window glass.
Credit: Solaria; Solar Window Technologies

Imagine if every building in the world had solar power windows that could generate a small amount of electricity from the sun. The technology exists. It has been tested and it is ready for production. In Manhattan alone, there are 47,000 buildings with over 10,700,000 windows, according to a 2013 estimate from The New York Times.

Transparency Versus Efficiency

The first challenge for researchers is to make the solar power windows transparent. “No one wants to sit behind colored glass,” Richard Lunt, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University. “It makes for a very colorful environment, like working in a disco.”

Lunt and his team have developed a new type of transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC) that creates solar energy when it is placed over a window. MSU’s technology can not only be used on windows for building but also on cell phones and any other device that has a clear, uncolored surface. “We take an approach where we actually […]