Current solar films are typically manufactured using expensive and slow manufacturing methods which rely on high-temperature, high-vacuum processes to coat support surfaces with a thin layer of anti-reflective silicon nitrate. High production costs combined with high installation costs have been major stumbling blocks to the mass adoption of solar energy.
So it’s no surprise that solar technology innovators are racing to produce cheaper and easier to install solar cells.
New Energy Technologies, the same company that introduced harvesting energy from roadways, announced that they’ve reached the next development stage of a process for spraying transparent solar cells and their related components onto any glass surface. The product is still awaiting patent and is in the early stages. If this approach works, it will provide significant commercial production advantages over today's thin-films and significantly change the Building Integrated Photo Voltaic (BIPV) marketplace.
One of the main transparency-related obstacles facing the company in developing their SolarWindow™ technology is the presence of metal, an opaque material which blocks visibility and prevents light from passing through glass. Eliminating metal has proved especially challenging since the metal component acts as the negative 'polar contact' - an important function in collecting the electricity generated from solar cells on the surface of the glass.
Their recent breakthrough replaces this 'visibility-blocking' metal with environmentally-friendly and more transparent compounds. These compounds now function as the negative polar contact and collect electricity from New Energy's SolarWindow™.
The production of solar-generated electricity on glass is made possible by the world's tiniest working solar cells measuring less than 1/4 the size of a grain of rice which are fabricated using environmentally-friendly materials.
Unique performance properties of New Energy's ultra-small solar cells enable development of an ultra-thin film, only 1/1000th the thickness of a human hair, or 1/10th of a micrometer. In contrast, conventional thin films are exponentially thicker, measuring several micrometers thick and inhibiting transparency. In photovoltaic applications such as see-thru windows, where transparency is a primary concern, today's thin film solar cells simply cannot be utilized to produce a transparent solar window for application in homes, offices, and commercial buildings.
There are nearly 5 million commercial buildings in America, according to the Energy Information Administration, and more than 80 million single detached homes. New Energy's SolarWindow™ technology is under development for commercial application in such buildings.
In commercial terms, this new spray technology could translate into important manufacturing advantages for the development of a see-thru window that can generate electricity, including significant cost-savings, high-speed production, and room-temperature coating application, which have been the common barriers to commercial success for innovative solar technologies.