Coming to a mall near you: Power-generating windows

Solar company HelioVolt and Architectural Glass & Aluminum on Tuesday announced a partnership to produce glass windows capable of generating electricity.

HelioVolt is one of several new solar manufacturers using different materials to produce thin-film solar cells.

HelioVolt's solar cell which it will put into solar panels and embe into building materials.

(Credit: HelioVolt)

The company intends to make solar cells for rooftop panels and later get into building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), where cells are embedded onto roof shingles, blinds, awnings, or other building components.

The deal with Architectural Glass & Aluminum calls for the companies to design solar-enabled curtain walls, the glass facades on the outside of buildings, or architectural glass in the interior of buildings.

Citing a Department of Energy study, HelioVolt said that solar cells integrated into buildings can produce about half of a building's energy usage.

Last week, another thin-film solar producer, Global Solar Energy, announced a partnership with Dow to make solar shingles.

Another company doing solar-enabled roofing is DRI Energy, a division of a construction company that has developed roof shingles and solar cells that glue onto flat roofs of commercial buildings.

In its coverage, Greentech Media pointed out that BIPV has a number of technical challenges, making the days of power-generating windows a few years away.

Specifically, solar cells typically have a shorter warranty--at 20 or 25 years--than many building materials. Thin-film cells made from CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide), as HelioVolt is making, corrode more in water than traditional silicon cells.

[bo1700]

makes perfect sense to me. I have often wondered why we dont have enrgy absorbing windows, roofs, etc that convert that energy into electricity... roofs of cars would be the next innovation.. dark, energy absorbing paint..

[applrmac]

solar cells are a fantastic idea and have been around for most of my life - however solar cells have always needed a lot of sun to produce just a trickle of power. I was shopping in IKEA and they have a desklamp that is based on solar panel technology to work and has no trailing lead or plug. Great idea; however demonstrating it in an IKEA store where there are no windows, little direct light and positioned near non-solared lights showed it's downfall... it just isn't powerful enough. The electric curtains website http://www.electriccurtainrailstracks.co.uk/ looked at selling electric curtains that gained it's power from solar panels, to close the curtains at night automatically, but the power required to keep a timer switched on all the time was too much. I know the panels have improved, but until they can provide a source for our power hungry electric lives it will take another 30 years before we see a consumer takeup.