Solar Window Panes

Val42K writes "Now, those windows that allow glare onto your computer screen can be useful. They will provide power to your computer, air conditioning and other useful necessities. Energy conversion rates are 'way more than 50 percent'."

Comments

what about the dark?

[jr87]

well I kinda wondered about how it would work so well in NY cuz some buildings or in the shadow of others. Second, if this gets implemented and than a couple days of no sun pop up wouldn't it stress out the grid a bit more than normal

Re:what about the dark?

[Frymaster]

many places get weeks and even months without significant lighting at some point in the year

and many places aren't suitable for hydro generation. and many more places lack fossil fuels. so?

when it comes to alternative energies, we aren't looking for one silver bullet. a solid energy programme will rely on a diversity of generation methods as well as consumer and industrial-level conservation measures. when it's windy, use wind. when it's sunny, use solar. when neither is available, fall back on hydro or (god forbid) coal. and, of course, conserve, conserve, conserve.

the last time we had a grand-unified-energy-solution it was "too cheap to meter" nuclear power.

oops.

Just be careful

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure you don't buy Microsoft Solar Windows. Criminals have an easy time breaking in with Microsoft Windows installed.

How much electricity?

[wmspringer]

This looks pretty cool, but reading through the article I don't really see exactly how much eletricity these will produce per window. Will they make a significant dent in the power costs for a typical household? The cells may only be a quarter each, but how much will it cost to embed them in the windows and collect the power?

Windows inside....

[Theory of Everything]

Let the jokes about windows powered computers begin.... I'll start: I want to be the first to have a "linux box powered by windows".

Amazing

[rritterson]

I'm a little skeptical of the technology. It seems like they are just repositioning solar panels in a novel way so that they are integrated into the existing decor. However, the best common solar panels today are only 20% efficient and the common ones you see on houses are only 10% efficient. For the researcher to generally state 'way more than 50%' rings alarm bells in my head.

Does anyone know why these would be so much better than existing tech?

Re:Amazing

[kaan]

> For the researcher to generally state 'way more than 50%' rings alarm bells in my head.

I'm with you on this one, as it seems highly suspicious that this group has been able to produce ultra-efficient solar cells. Beyond that, I don't see the point of integrating these panels into a window - that just seems complex, unnecessary, and certainly has to be more expensive than a regular window paired with a stand-alone solar cell.

My take is that this idea will not succeed. Nobody will be willing to spend the money to replace the windows in existing buildings, and future construction will probably not be interested in spending more money for integrated solar-window things without some reality to back up these efficiency claims.

Bullhoey(energy conversion rates)

[SuperBanana]

Energy conversion rates are 'way more than 50 percent'

Bullshit. Current conversion rates are about 18%, and haven't changed much in 20 years or more; they've slowly managed to squeek out more and more power getting up to the current 18-20%, but nowhere near 50%. Let's put this in perspective- it would be like someone claiming they could get 100mpg in their car, and "easily 200mpg".

The bullshit-o-meter goes off the scale at the claim they can get "100%"- and there's one very simple, indisputable reason; the glass itself blocks a significant amount of energy- ESPECIALLY at a low angle of incidence, where the outer glass is going to reflect a large percentage of the light hitting it. The modules inside the window may pivot, but the outer glass doesn't.

The bullshit-o-meter EXPLODES at the nice little bit about how they won't discuss specific energy conversion rates in detail. It doesn't help that this is being published in Science for People Who Think They're Trendy(aka Wired). Ring me when she's published results in Nature or (gasp) a professional journal.

Oh, and if I wasn't pessimistic enough :-)...if this actually DOES pan out...just wait until you see the price tag on 'em, because I'm sure she's going to patent absolutely everything out to wazoo, and one company will get exclusive rights. It'll also be years before we see 'em, as said company will want to protect its investment on current solar panel technology...

Re:Employees might become sick

[catbutt]

Sunlight without energy is usually referred to as "darkness"

Total Vaporware

[blueandwhiteg3]

I've done a great deal of research on the topic of solar energy and have a pretty good understanding of physics. To the average person, this article sounds wonderful - super efficient solar panels, a total breakthrough! To me, it's pretty easy to see this article either grossly misquotes the researcher or the researcher is completely crazy.

From the article: "Ultimately, Dyson is confident her team's solar cells can reach nearly 100 percent efficiency -- compared with typical solar panels' conversion rate of less than 20 percent."

100% sounds great. Except they forgot that glass absorbs/reflects a minimum of 10% of the light, much more at non-direct angles. And that getting any semiconductor (solar panel) surface to absorb all light hasn't yet been possible - assume another 15% is lost here. And of course, to be able to actually see through the cells (they're "translucent"), we'll assume 20% light transmission. Then you need to think about things like entropy and expect a nice loss in this process, we'll be generous and figure 10% loss.

Just adding the percentages shows 55% efficiency by simple addition. And this is with everything ideal. And now consider that the _best_ solar experiments have approached, under super-controlled situations, 40% efficiency.

And top all this off with no demonstration of the product itself and no details on their technology, it's another vaporware article.

Re:Translucent?

[YouHaveSnail]

Both. Take a look at the pictures that go with the article. It looks like each 'solar chip' has a largish fresnel lens that focuses sunlight onto the chip. The lens/chip assemblies appear to track the sun, and you can look past these and still have a relatively clear view as long as you're not looking in the general direction of the sun (which you're not supposed to do anyway). The lenses provide shade by focusing sunlight onto the chips, but they also allow ambient light to enter, so a room fitted with these solar windows would still get plenty of light.

Cool.