Solar-Powered Home, No Panels Needed

Discovery News:

A "solar concentrator" might sound like something an evil genius comes up with to destroy the Big City in a comic book, but it's actually a way to make solar power more accessible. Engineers at in MIT's electrical engineering and computer science department recently made it possible for regular old windows to harness solar energy and power a building with it.

Marc Baldo, associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT, led a team of scientists that used special dyes to coat the windows, which helps them effectively absorb the light. The light is then successfully collected around the window edges by solar cells (see the rad photo). Baldo and his team knew solar collectors had been used in large, pricey mirror setups, and thought they could work on a smaller scale.

Read the whole story: Discovery News

Comments

[sparkey]

It won't happen for a long time. The oil controlled congress will say there has to be an enviromental impact study done. It will take 20 years to complete the study. In the meantime, the panels cannot be made.

[SolarPowerGuy]

I love this idea, but it's not ready for the public. Here's a layman-friendly summary of the technology.

Look at the photo. Four different fluorescent chemical dyes have been added to each of the four panes of glass. A fluorescent dye converts one color of light into a different color. The new light doesn't have to be parallel to the original light, it can go in any direction, including straight out to the edge of the glass. Each pane is probably also coated so as to internally reflect the color emitted by its fluorescent dye.

So if you shine white light through the stack of glass, you get concentrated light of a single color at the edges of each pane. You can build small solar cells, tuned just to this one color of light, and mount them at the edge of the glass. This saves lots of silicon, which is by far the biggest expense in solar cells.

Fluorescent chemical dyes have been around for decades. This idea isn't totally new.

Unfortunately, there is still a problem with the dyes. They "bleach." Some chemical alteration occurs to them which destroys their fluorescent properties. The current dyes only work for a few months.

Can you imagine replacing your windows that often?

[drkazmd65]

"Covalent Solar",....

I wonder how long it will be before that becomes a publicly traded company? I would love a couple (or a lot more) of shares of their stock! Not to mention their product,....

Maybe this will end my wife and my minor arguement as to whether it would be better to add solar cells or some good skylights to our old rowhouse? Two birds with one stone!

[JDOK]

I hope the next administration takes advantage of all advances in renewable energy and concentrates our efforts to make a few small American cities completely free of the current power grid. Pick-out maybe four cities. One in the South, one in the Southwest, one in the West and one in the East and using the most logical technology for the cities selected prove that we can fully replace our current system of dirty non-renewable energy.

By successfully investing in and proving that renewable clean energy technology is viable, especially if we concentrate our initial efforts, we can quickly build momentum across the country and gain confidence in our ability to replace coal and oil fired power plants.

In order to kick start the effort, we can easily take 10 billion dollars out of the bloated military budget and invest it in something that creates a long term ongoing benefits for the people of the United States.

[sheila]

unfortunately, the 2005 Energy Policy Act (written by Enron and other Friends of Cheney) has sent National Energy Policy in exactly the opposite direction, having designated a very large portion of the United States a "National Interest Electricity Transmission Corridor," which basically says the Feds can overrule all state and local decisions about point of use renewables being preferable to Big Energy monopolies, about eminent domain being too destructive to its residents, about pollution being excessive for its regions, etc. It is a pure pre-emption doctrine, designed to speed up Big Energy permitting of MASSIVE, UNNEEDED powerlines, which are crucial to Empire Building by these mercenaries.

Big Solar and Big Wind are central to this incredibly destructive process, too, so we cannot give them a "pass." They are demanding unprecedented access to federal lands, including National Parks and environmentally fragile areas with endangered species, because rooftop PV and micro-wind are proving to be so incredibly effective and they are terrified we will all hear about it.

They have lobbied extremely hard, with Sierra Club and NRDC at their side, to prevent our own money coming back to us to level the playing field for local, point of use renewables, and instead to give all our land (including our homes) and all our taxpayer/ratepayer money to Big Renewables so they can abuse us just like Big Coal and Big Oil are doing.

We gotta keep pushing back!

[Badbone]

Yet another solar technology that is "almost ready". Three, four times a year we hear about the next great breakthrough in solar that will finally make it all happen. Here's an idea: Research less, build more. Get some actual products to market, and then I'll get excited. Until then, it's just vaporware.

[sculptor]

Researching a technology is cheap compared to deploying it. In practice this means that it's vital to have the the right technology before it's deployed. If we want to help things along we need more money for both research and the deployment of the resulting technology.

Now, don't take this wrong, we need to start making better use of the current photovotaic technology we have. But, if we stop advancing the technology we'll never get vary far with in the end.

[garbovatwins]

Do you find it fascinating to discover all around you that the universe has to offer? There is no need to continue killing yourselves on your world.

[vipersdad]

HuffPost's Pick

if it can be made economical and be mandated for all new construction and retrofits, then it can have an effect.

I think the BIGGEST resistance point on any technology like this (including photovoltaic collectors and small wind generators) is that our current paradigm for providing energy in this country requires that we have large monolithic power generators and a giant transmission network.

That's the "mainframe" computer model vs. the PC/Internet "peer-to-peer" model.

Distributed power generation could well be the MOST economical alternative. In that paradigm, advancements like this (and anything that can inexpensively generate power on a micro/macro/mega) level will contribute power to the house, the office, or pump excess into the grid.

We have to stop waiting for the "one silver bullet" solution that we can plug in to our existing coal/oil/hydroelectric/nuclear power model and start thinking of a new model.

Why create a giant solar farm when you can equip every rooftop in America with Solar? Why a giant wind farm when you can put small generators on the roofs of any building in areas where there are 5 mph prevailing winds? We are willing to spend Billions of dollars per new power plant but not billions of dollars on one distributed power generation capability.

One last thing - in the model where we distribute electrical power generation - we have a TON more fault-tolerance. The liklihood of a "regional blackout" is all but eliminated.

[Peteyman]

My friend's dad was a nuclear engineer, and had this idea: A solar/nuclear energy system.

As we know, it takes a LOT of energy to power an entire city like NY or LA. Since nuclear energy has been proven to produce 2x as much energy as coal and natural gas plants, it makes sense to go nuclear power with big cities. We can also use nuclear energy to charge electric cars.

As for solar energy, it does not produce energy at a constant rate. It's rate is completely dependent on how much sunlight there is. But since the sun shines constantly, there is still energy that can power homes. We could use old car batteries to divert some of the sun for night time energy.

The downside is that building nuclear powerplants is EXTREMELY expensive, but the reward is that it is easier and cheaper to maintain and produces 2x as much power as coal.

[sheila]

I will try not to seem bitter that you are Huffpost's "pick" when I have been SHOUTING this exact thing for a year now! haha. just kidding.

Far from bitter, i am completely delighted to see so many other intelligent posters saying this exact same thing. I have been working soooo hard in the state of CA to implement changes on the state, local and federal level, and man, it's one thing to have Big Energy workin' against ya, but it cuts to the bone when NRDC and Sierra Club turn out to be fighting you really hard, too. They are under some delusion that by permanently killing off our wilderness, they are preserving our wilderness. As i just mentioned on another comment, who needs global warming when Big Solar will kill the ecosystem for ya directly?

I just submitted my comments to the CEC, in fact which is holding "workshops" on Feed In Tariffs (helloo? 37 nations running successful programs already, including the ridiculously successful German, Spanish and Japanese programs). How this state ever faked their rep as "Green" leaders is beyond me, and especially that governor. whew!

Thanks, vipersdad, for keeping this message alive, well, and elegantly articulated. Long may you reign as Huffpo's Pick!!!

[OgreDaddy]

Big Energy will go kicking and screaming and litigating with all their might to prevent individuals from cutting the umbilical cord.

The last thing they want is truly independent .... energy independence.

I strongly believe that innovative technology will make it possible for each home and each small business to operate self contained, affordable, clean and renewable energy sources, without
the need for the controls of Big Energy.

[sustainable]

power to the people!

[SolarPowerGuy]

Bravo. I too have touted the two-way power grid as a critical piece to solving our energy problems. And I am already there: I have a grid-tied solar photovoltaic system on my home.

[markie1111]

this is a cool development.

[rextrek]

Germany is Leading the way in Solar panel Research and Developement......they are Very close to coming up with a way to USE every form of the Light color spectrum.....saw it on Sci Channel...

[KillTheMessenger]

Every solar cell uses basically all photons with energies above the bandgap. Only the efficiency goes down since the difference between the photon and the bandgap energy is converted to heat. Triple junction cells which have three different material combinations with three different bandgaps have achieved efficiencies above 40% for years. Concentrator cells which use non-linear two-photon processes in the material can further increase efficiency. None of this is new. But none of this is economically advantageous compare to the single junction cell with less than 20% system efficiency, either.

If one wants to use all of the spectrum, thermal solar works fine and can achieve up to 60% efficiency. It just does not fit on the roof.

[ibsteve2u]

"Baldo reports that solar collectors increase the amount of electricity a solar cell can harness by a factor of over 40, and they can make existing solar panel systems 50 percent more efficient. "

Good news, I have to admit...production/sales cost vs. electrical output being the barrier that it is.

(lolll...and the pic makes a cool background on my second display...)

[KillTheMessenger]

Whatever Baldo reports sounds cool until you actually understand what these numbers really means. For all practical purposes they amount to very little. The concept has been around for decades. It, kind of, works, but is limited to rather small technical gains.

The amount of electricity that can be harnessed does not grow by a factor of forty. Only the area of the actual solar cell decreases by that amount. You pay for that with a very low area efficiency, which means you have to cover way more area with these glass or plastic panels to get the same amount of electricity.

The 50% improvement in efficiency can be achieved more readily with dual and triple junction cells which are also long term stable, which these dies are usually not.

[BBackSoon]

OK, so this is not the silver bullet but it is cool and if they keep working on it perhaps it will be part of the solution.

It would be advantageous to we as citizens if our government would offer us real tax incentives to put solar panels on our homes or sponsor other types of renewable energy but we are too busy giving money to Big Energy so they can keep us on a Carbon fed energy system.

Personally I would be more than happy to pay BP or Shell or Union Electric a reasonable monthly payment to keep me in renewable energy. But until they figure out how to make the same massive profits they are capable of now we are screwed.