Solaroad Group’s Cubetube and Electrawall are indoor and outdoor solutions for powering up your community, home or gadgets with solar power.  Both of these products look identical but are meant for different environments.

Solaroad Group is a Maryland based company that is applying new and “proprietary technologies” to such diverse areas as outdoor solar harvesting from the Electrawall round solar collectors/inverters to a futuristic Solarfilm that can be sprayed on houses, roadways and cars.  In between is the Cubetube that harvests energy from indoor lighting to run your gadgets and computers.

The company’s technology appears to be a blend of rollable solar panels combined with energy storage and “capacitance capabilities”.  What this means is that the entire solar collection process from collecting the energy to storing it and then converting it to usable electricity is contained within each Electrawall and Cubetube unit.

The Electrawall units can be mounted onto just about any surface from walls to light poles to roofs.  The company envisions the Electrawall being mounted on concrete barrier walls along the highway and parking garage roofs.  Electrawall is seen as part of a “national alternative energy system”.

These self-contained units work “day or night, rain or shine”.  The technology used in the Electrawall and the Cubetube is a combination of amorphous silicon solar cells and thermionic material which collect light and heat and turn them into electricity.

The Cubetube is similar in shape and has been developed for use inside to generate electricity from “wasted energy” from your indoor lighting fixtures or light coming in the window.  Cubetubes are mountable on office cubicles or indoor window sills.

To determine how much Cubetube you need, the website suggests that you do an “energy audit” adding up the amount of watts each piece of hardware or gadgetry requires and then ordering the correct length of Cubetube.  Each Cubetube supposedly produce 100 watts of energy per foot.  No figures are given for the Electrawall.

Most computers, monitors and accessories have stickers that tell the amount of wattage required.  Just add it all up, and order the correct footage of Cubetube to distribute around your work cubicle/office or home office area.

Cubetube and Electrawall use lithium ion polymer batteries contained within each product.  These batteries are smaller and hold more electricity than comparable lead acid batteries.  Another green feature is that both of these systems are made from recycled products.

The actual cost for the Electrawall and the Cubetube are unknown but the website does describe both as inexpensive and says that the Cubetube cost should be about $.05 per KWH.  There is no discussion of the comparative cost of the Electrawall.

Currently, pilot projects are underway in Maryland using both the Cubetube and Electrawall.  This year, Electrawall units are going to be added to the highway barriers and sound walls along the Maryland highway system.

Who knows when these products will become commercially available.  Right now they are looking for investors and partners neither of which translates into the average consumer.

Maybe Google will through a little money Solaroad’s way and we might see these products early in the next decade.

Related:

Entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 5:53 pm under Green Technology, Science and technology.

Read more entries by Susan Wilson.
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