New Energy is a developer of see-through solar window coatings which generate electricity on glass and flexible plastics. Its new SolarWindow measures over 232 square centimetres, an improvement upon previous achievements by the company at NREL. As with the company’s other products, the window features the highly-uniform coloured tints preferred by window manufacturers for installation on skyscrapers worldwide.
The SolarWindow is over 35 percent larger than the company’s previous fabrication measuring 170 square centimetres, which was already 14 times larger than the then-previous largest-area organic photovoltaic (OPV) module ever fabricated at NREL. It was developed by New Energy’s principal scientist, Dr Scott Hammon, in collaborations with NREL researchers Dr. Maikel van Hest, Dr. Dana C. Olson, and Dr. Scott Mauger. The company is hoping that it will now be able to advance towards development of larger, commercial-scale windows while maintaining the uniform neutral colours and scalable power.
NREL and New Energy have been working through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to advance the Company's SolarWindow technology for generating electricity on glass windows. The new window is capable of operating in both direct, diffuse and shaded sunlight conditions, thereby providing a significant advantage over conventional solar PV systems which suffer large efficiency losses under such conditions. The window also generates electricity from artificial light sources such as fluorescent, light emitting diodes (LED) and incandescent lights in offices.
“Among the most important criteria for developing SolarWindow applications for today's skyscrapers is providing a set of neutral colours that remain see-through and are uniform in fabrication” said John A. Conklin, President and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. “We've revealed a record-breaking, largest-area see-through, organic photovoltaic (OPV) SolarWindow array that addresses tall-tower and commercial building glass requirements. They also bear the promise of facile scale-up capabilities and unparalleled manufacturability.”
Architecturally neutral colours and scalable power are important to achieving the company’s aims of developing of electricity-generating windows that can be deployed on all four sides of tall towers. The aim is to develop installations that can contribute to the goal of self-powered skyscrapers. Unlike traditional building-applied photovoltaic (PV) systems, restricted to use in direct sunlight on very limited skyscraper rooftop space, the SolarWindow has been designed to operate in sunlight and shaded conditions on the many thousands of square feet of glass surfaces common to today's high-rise towers.
The company is hoping to deploy the window on more than five million commercial buildings as well as an estimated 80 million detached houses across the US.
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