Open Access Government — nanomaterials for green energy innovations on glass

Transparent solar panels seen from below

20.08.2020

The company is featured in the Open Access Government publication, a site with a large following among national government and EU officials as well as academics and private corporations.

The article describes how nanomaterials are applied to glass so that a window or a greenhouse pane becomes a power producing surface without going dark.

More coverage is collected under press; the technology itself is described on the project page.

What the crop sees

Plants do not use the solar spectrum evenly. Photosynthesis draws mostly on the blue and red bands, leaving other wavelengths comparatively idle from the plant's point of view. That unevenness is the opening semi-transparent photovoltaics work in.

A cell tuned to absorb where the crop is least sensitive takes energy the plant was not going to use. The result is not free — some loss is unavoidable — but it is far smaller than the shading an opaque panel of the same area would cast.

From cell to building product

A working solar cell is only the beginning. To become glazing it has to be laminated between sheets of architectural glass, sealed at the edges, and made to survive decades of thermal cycling, humidity and hail while keeping its optical properties.

It also has to be installable by the people who build greenhouses today, using the profiles and methods they already use. A product that demands a new trade to install it will not spread, whatever its performance on paper.