The need for energy is ever increasing as new industries, establishments and businesses are blooming all over the world. In addition, the increase in population has added to the number of homes in an area therefore, increasing the energy demand. Further, the national resources are depleting and are on the verge of being exhausted all thanks to the unplanned exploitation as well as the greed of humans pushing us towards higher levels of global warming, pollution of all sorts and disrupting the natural ecosystem of flora and fauna as well as humans. Therefore, it's high time that we focused our demand on renewable energy aspects as they are clean, readily available all across the world, and are reliable in the long run.
Today the renewable energy population has increased in higher percentages than its initial stages of discovery and usage. The efforts of humanitarians, environmentalists, and all other supporting people and organizations have contributed to this growth. And further is being established with the initiative from various multinational as well as national companies all over the world. Moreover, with the effective contribution of the citizens of the world along with their complete cooperation and support the world could be entirely dependent on renewable energy.
Nowadays there are numerous efficient technologies as well as innovations available with regards to renewable energy production. Solar energy is one of the primary contributors to the production of renewable energy and today you can see almost all the new buildings, as well as establishments that have been built, would have solar panels on top as an initiative to be self-sufficient up until a certain level. Solar cell windows are another innovation that has been developed recently. Let's understand what solar cell windows are and how they can be an efficient solution that revolutionizes the renewable energy production of the world.
What are Solar cell windows?
Windows are an excellent solution in a building to add up to bring sunlight and for air passage, and will act as a medium to see what is outside for the buildings. Today the houses that are being built have several windows as the people are keen on obtaining natural light rather than using electric bulbs, and lamps. Solar windows are specially crafted windows that are similar to the conventional ones but hold the capability of power generation just as normal solar panels. In addition, just as the normal windows these solar windows are also transparent and provide you with the same feeling as a normal window.
How is it possible?
This question may have popped up to you but you must have heard about the technology. There are windows to the conventional ones as mentioned earlier but will allow you to generate energy when sunlight passes through it. Solar technology functions in the way that it must absorb the sunlight for energy generation. This is the same in all forms of solar energy generations. So how does a solar window work and how is it possible for it to function as a window as well as a solar energy production unit.
The principle of operation solar windows is that it only absorb a part of the sunlight which passes through. There by leaving a major position of the visible light to be passed through without absorption allowing sunlight into your offices, homes, or the facility that the solar window has installed in. This was done with the help of Translucent Luminescent Solar Concentrator - TLSC technology. Which is one of the advanced materials being used for energy absorption. The TLSC is manufactured using organic salts which have the property of absorbing light or energy only of a specific wavelength. Whereas a normal solar panel uses Photovoltaic cells which convert the major portion of light it gets hit into energy.
How efficient are solar cell windows?
Whenever discussing the aspects of solar energy power generation the main question that pops up will be of the efficiency aspects. This is because solar panels and their power generation components are of high cost and considering a common citizen what he/she will be thinking would be that upon installation will it be beneficial and will help him/her save money spent on energy usage. The Philanthropist in him or her only gets awake after this questions.
As mentioned earlier the solar window cells will only absorb a small percentage of the sunlight that it is hit by and there goes the efficiency as is reduced at the initial stage itself. Moreover, the power generation efficiency of these panels will be only around 10 percent. In the initial instances, you may think the efficiency of these solar cells is low. However, compared to the conventional solar panel which has an efficiency of up to 20 percent it's just half of it. In addition, these cells are transparent and have the highest power generation efficiency compared to all other transparent solar cells available today. Moreover, this can be installed in almost all buildings and be used efficiently in cities and urban areas.
Although the efficiency of these solar window cells is low it can be an added advantage to the power generation aspects in the urban as well as the rural areas of the world. Moreover, as they provide dual functionality in operations to provide you with the usage of a conventional window as it helps you to be self-sustainable in the energy usage aspects it can be considered as one of the best innovations regarding solar power generation.