I'm not the biggest fan of skyscrapers to be honest. They are grandiose (and slightly phallic) giants ruining any hope of classically beautiful buildings enduring in our architecturally "advanced" and modern world. HOWEVER, what if the predominantly glass skyscrapers were actually erected (haha, pun intended) out of transparent solar cells that were built into the windows!
That sounds pretty cool, and would definitely change my mind about the ubiquitous presence of skyscrapers in our cities.
The new solar collector developed at the University of Michigan does exactly this! They have created a transparent solar cell that does not change the colour of the glass.
Richard Lunt of the U of Mtells Science Daily:
"No one wants to sit behind colored glass,"
said Lunt, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science.
"It makes for a very colorful environment, like working in a disco. We take an approach where we actually make the luminescent active layer itself transparent
."
Here's how it works:
The photovoltaic's are not actually on the glass, instead the luminescent solar concentrators divert invisible wavelengths through waveguides to the perimeter of the window, there the photocells are located.
Like anything, there are slight issues with it right now. The Michigan State team has its prototype up to only about one-percent efficiency, which is below what is considered functional. They hope to get it up to around 5 percent. For a product like this, the market would be confined to mainly skyscrapers, however could also be used for things such as smartphones or tablets as a self charging screen.
Treehugger admits that " they are an interesting idea but fundamentally, we should be turning the opaque spandrels and space between windows into solar collectors at far higher efficiencies and reducing the amount of vision glass."
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