Scientists develop glass windows with the potential to generate solar energy and replace traditional solar panels

Solar energy technologies keep advancing and, now, North American scientists have developed transparent solar panels that can be used in various projects.

The proliferation of solar energy panels are a sustainable and revolutionary alternative for the issue of energy generation, however there are still some barriers to their use. Now, scientists at the University of Michigan, USA, have created a technology that can facilitate the use of solar energy. Researchers have developed a process that could make it feasible to create transparent solar panels that can efficiently generate energy from sunlight.

Glass and transparent solar panels have efficiency revealed by scientists 

The technology will make possible the use of new surfaces for energy generation, which currently depends on silicon based solar panels which are completely opaque. These types of solar energy panels they work perfectly within a context of solar farms, but it is difficult to use them in urban space and could never be used as a window.

Scientists managed to develop a new category of transparent and organic solar panels, with an energy absorbing power that uses a kind of plastic, of up to 2m x 2m, in addition to creating processes that make it possible to scale their production to make it commercially viable. .

Historically, transparent solar panels using this technology have great limitations in terms of efficiency and durability, making their installation difficult. Recently, however, scientists managed to expand the efficiency in the laboratory to an unprecedented level of 10% and raise their estimate of use time to 30 years.

The team University of Michigan, then, had the mission of developing means to allow the use of transparent solar panels on a scale. For this, scientists had to deeply rethink the way of production.

Challenges in the production of glass solar panels

The production of this type of solar energy it has a big challenge, which is the micrometric electrical connections between the cells. The use of lasers to engrave patterns can cause damage to solar energy absorbers, which are essential for solar energy panels to function.

Instead of lasers, the scientists developed a layered model capable of solving this challenge and still achieving the desired micron-scale resolution.

For this, very thin plastic films were deposited, with ultra-thin strips. The next part was to apply the organic and metallic layers so that ultimately the strips would be removed, which would develop the electrical interconnections between the cells.

Transparent solar panels can deliver even greater efficiency

The result of the scientists' research was positive: it became possible to connect eight cells, all of them measuring 4 cm by 0,4 cm, separated by connections 200 micrometers thick, which generated a module of 13 cm².

In addition, the researchers were able to achieve an energy conversion efficiency of 7,3%, which is maintained despite being a meter scale, with a transparency of 50% and a greenish tint that would make it suitable for use in commercial buildings. 

The researchers also claim that greater transparency, which would be necessary for application in ordinary homes, is also feasible if the same process is used. The expectation is that the transparent solar panels be applied between two layers of glass when commercially available.

However, it is still necessary to go through some challenges to reach a level of commercialization. However, the researchers hope to achieve greater efficiency, which can be around 10% and 15%, which is possible to do in the next two years, with the advancement of technology.

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