posted by
martyb
on Sunday August 24 2014, @10:55AM
from the do-the-windows-shine-when-you-run-it-backwards? dept.
from the do-the-windows-shine-when-you-run-it-backwards? dept.
Luminescent solar concentrators convert electromagnetic energy from one wavelength to another by absorbing the energy and then glowing in a different wavelength. Researchers at Michigan State have developed a material that can absorb ultra-violet and re-radiate infra-red, which is then collected at the edges and converted into electricity. This means that within a few years, after efficiency is boosted considerably, we might just have solar collecting windows.
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Transparent Solar Collectors Could Mean Energy Producing Windows
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:29AM
While the development of technology is always a good thing I do not think this is as good as it sounds. The UV light that reaches the lower parts of atmosphere does not comprise the bigger chunk of the spectrum energy. Visible does. Still in the UV spectrum, only the long UV actually gets down. The shorter frequency bands are thankfully filtered by the thick layer of atmosphere above us.
The second comment I have is, out of this low energy budget available form UV radiation they have a UV-Infrared-Electricity conversion efficiency of 5%(Their best projection). Compared with the expensive optics necessary to achieve band pass and splitting on a regular window , the energy and Euro savings over the lifetime of the product might be difficult to justify in economic terms.
On a final note, I do believe that research into solar luminescence might be really important to be able to achieve viable solar concentrators in diffuse sun light.
(Score: 1) by richtopia on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:13PM
You should not look at this as solar panels. You should look at these as tinted windows which generate some electricity and allow visible light through.
Here in Phoenix, tinting windows really gives a benefit to keeping your cooling costs down. There are already technologies on the market that allow visible light through but target IR and UV light. I figure this can be viewed as an extension of those.
Now, cost is another issue. Traditional solar panels are installed southern facing (norther hemisphere) with an inclination to optimize collection for your latitude, and yet their payback period is still tens of years. If we think these windows as less efficient panels that are not positioned optimally, I doubt they will ever pay themselves off.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday August 25 2014, @12:04AM
This concept seems to fit well with hydroponic and greenhouse agriculture.
If your hydroponics garden is located in a desert area, you may use your greenhouse to optimize conditions for your plants, using windows which selectively pass wavelengths your plants like and absorb/convert to electricity wavelengths useless ( or destructive ) to the plants.
And you now have a source of electrical energy to do things like power environmental supervisory controllers and circulating pumps.
Go for it!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:33AM
I always felt that ideas like this, no matter how interesting they are, are just absurd. Solar collecting windows. Right up there with chocolate flavored toilet paper. Hell, I'd buy it. It's definitely an improvement, just not the one that you expect, and not really tethered by logic so much.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:51PM
You *do* know that there's more to light than just what's visible, right? If it turns everything *except* visible light into electricity, thats a net gain, even moreso if it reduces interior heating by absorbing UV and IR, reducing the amount of energy spent on cooling.
(Score: 2) by d on Sunday August 24 2014, @12:43PM
Something tells me that we might end up with the traditional windows being banned and the solar ones being the only option if you want any windows in your home at all. They'll cost 10x as much and the light coming through these will be different than the one the traditional windows gave you. Maybe it's a government plot to get us all depressed and make the next generation forget what the light used to look like unless they take a leap of faith, walk out the door and realize how hot it still is, even though we spent all our energy trying to fix it, actually just bending over to ecoterrorists who deny any science.
Thanks, I'm feeling better now.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:52PM
Something tells me that we might end up with the traditional windows being banned and the solar ones being the only option if you want any windows in your home at all.
I was thinking exactly the opposite. With the way the power co fights any attempts at self sufficient power capabilities, I wouldn't be surprised if the scientists end up dead in a pasture. It will be ruled the damndest case of group suicide they've ever seen.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:54PM
Its gets even stranger when as a total lifetime system cost its immensely cheaper to install a big screen TV and a webcam than a window. Even just upfront capital costs I believe per sq foot its cheaper to install a TV/webcam than a window, and every heating/cooling season you'll save a small stack of cash.
So we're rapidly moving from an era where our houses have sheets of glass we look thru while heating/cooling the neighborhood (terrible thermal insulator) toward a future where we have big glass screens on the wall that show camera views while big glass sheets outdoors collect electrons to power it all.
Overall, its a good time to be a glass mfgr.
Another aspect that is interesting WRT big screen webcam instead of a window is you pick which big screen to watch. Maybe some city on the other side of the planet or a national park high res webcam or 24x7 pr0n.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:54PM
I've heard some crazy conspiracy theories before, and this one is right up there near the top, right next to TimeCube.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:26PM
Converting high energy UV-light that will readily knock electrons out of orbit and transform this into infrared which is then converted into electricity seems like a big waste of power.
Electricity generating windows is likely a good idea. This incarnation is probably a bad idea.