Written by The technology world is getting newer each day. The transparent solar panel is another great invention. We have seen solar panels that are usually blue in color in most places, sometimes on our rooftops. Have you seen or heard about transparent solar panels? It is an amazing invention. This may be an answer to solve the energy crisis which the world is facing right now.
These glass like solar panels could revolutionize self power generation by buildings all around the world, reducing the energy costs of buildings by taking the energy from sunlight while still allowing you to see the sky outside. This technology had been created at Michigan State University. However, this technology won’t just be used with glass on windows. It can also be used on smartphones, calculators, and any other glass like surfaces to transform them into photo-voltaic cells.
There are other types of transparent solar cells out there, but a unique quality with this one is that it is totally transparent.
Richard Lunt and his team who led this research are very confident that the change from old style solar cells to these new transparent ones will give more opportunities to designers of products which have glass integrated into them, allowing more products to utilize the power of solar energy generation.
But how do these transparent solar cells really work?
To get a good idea of this let’s look at the previous solar cells structure. Photovoltaic cells now make energy by absorbing photons (light) and converting them into electrons.
They are made from semiconductors such as silicon, and as the light hits the semiconductor it gives the energy transferred to the electrons within the material to move and break away from their valence shells, causing a knock-on effect with other electrons generating a current. It’s this power that is harvested and used to power your devices.
However, with these new cells being transparent, they aren’t really catching the photons energy. Instead of catching the visible light, these new cells absorb ultraviolet and infrared light which humans cannot see. This gives the cell it’s transparency.
To make them transparent the scientists used a transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC). This material consists of organic salts that absorb the specific non-visible wavelengths of light. Once the light is caught, the salt creates another non-visible infrared light which is guided to the edge of the cell where thin strips of conventional solar cells are located to convert that energy gathered into electrical energy.
Michigan’s TLSC has a current efficiency of around 1%, but the team thinks they could increase this to 5%. However, current conventional solar panels convert around 7%. These aren’t huge figures, but on a large scale, a skyscraper would generate huge amounts of power which can be utilized by the building.
The researchers are very confident that this technology can be used in many different areas of business and can have a dramatic effect on how buildings generate their own renewable energy!!
Watch the below video to learn about solar panels.
My next up posts – The Photovoltaic Lithium Hybrid
I hope this article helped you to get to know more about this newest technology. Stay with me to get more tech articles.
I ‘ll end this with a good quote for you. ” Keep up your work without hesitating because of troubles. God always gives the hardest role to his best actors ….”
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Thank you and have a good day !!!
Alex
