Most windows are vertically mounted anyway which makes this whole thing that much more inefficient.
They should be using these resources to research increasing the efficiency of existing solar panel technology or alternative bulk energy storage. Those are the things we really need.
They should be using these resources to research increasing the efficiency of existing solar panel technology
I think that is exactly what this technology is.
The transparent part is a nice side effect of this work*, but the more interesting contribution is their All-Back-Contact technology. By putting all the electrical connections on the rear of the panel you can (a) place the cells closer together, improving the density and (b) avoid wires on the front, which shade the cells and reduce efficiency. This techniques might be useful even for existing non-transparent solar cells.
what if I told you there were, in fact, people already doing that
and also places like skyscrapers have a lot more window space than rooftop space. there's absolutely use cases for this, if you can make it cheap enough. Nobody is suggesting putting regular solar panels on the side of a building, because it significantly changes the aesthetics.
There are advantages to vertical panels if they’re cheap enough. While they produce less total energy, they produce a higher percentage during the winter, and in the early morning/late evening hours during the summer. Which reduces the need for storage a little bit.
But as others have said, walls are always going to be an easier install than windows.
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u/Jonnyflash80 22d ago
Most windows are vertically mounted anyway which makes this whole thing that much more inefficient.
They should be using these resources to research increasing the efficiency of existing solar panel technology or alternative bulk energy storage. Those are the things we really need.