New solar windows cost-effectively light up homes
Windows come in different shapes, sizes, colors, and types. Now solar windows are becoming almost as varied. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a solar window that will not only light up your house and electronics but your face when you get the bill.
MIT Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Marc Baldo, uses the window panes to collect and concentrate light onto solar panels lining the edges of the window.
The MIT solar concentrator involves a mixture of two or more dyes that is essentially painted onto a pane of glass or plastic. The dyes work together to absorb light across a range of wavelengths, which is then re-emitted at a different wavelength and transported across the pane to waiting solar cells at the edges.
This concentration of sunlight focused on the solar cells along the edge of the window increases the power obtained by " a factor of over 40", according to Baldo.
By limiting the number of solar cells needed, and using off the shelf dyes for the windows, these solar windows should be inexpensive to manufacture. MIT sees these windows becoming available within the next three years at an affordable cost.
Usually, concentrators are used only in large solar arrays like Sungri and eSolar. Mirrors are used to concentrate sunlight onto solar panels to increase the electrical or thermal output. Because the sunlight is so concentrated, fewer solar cells are required cutting down on the amount of area needed to get the same amount or more of solar energy. Since solar cells are the most expensive component in any solar collection system, this also saves quite a bit of money.
MIT’s new solar windows may replace bulky solar arrays on roof tops. The windows will also add more power to already installed roof arrays.
Hopefully these windows will be inexpensive enough that normal homeowners and builders will be able to afford them and install them easily. Roof top solar installations require specialized personnel to install them and hook them up properly.
Not only will these windows be useful for homes, but will possibly be useful for automobiles. Using this sort of concentrated solar system on the top of a car instead of multiple solar panels would be cheaper, more efficient and provide the same amount of power.
Three years? Hopefully sooner than that.
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July 15th, 2008
And he is an Australian: Marc Baldo B.E. (Hons) (Sydney Univ.) and University Medal 1995.