National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Breakthrough   

The energy department funded research and development, a group of National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists that created headlines in renewable energy windows. The scientists created solar windows that use thermochromism. This is the property of substances that alter color through the change in temperature. This changes from transparent to tinted and alters sunlight to electricity in a tinted form.
 

Newest Creation

The innovation, named SwitchGlaze, could be the next commercial successes from Energy Department national laboratory research. The SwitchGlaze team located the market capabitlity of their new technology through Technology-to-Market’s Energy I-Corps.

This is a training program to speed the process along the off take of DOE technologies. With support from the Building Technologies Office (BTO), the researchers learned the landscape for renewable energy windows, and evaluated how to ideally transition their technology to the market. 

While this gives something fresh and dynamic in the market, renewable energy windows have been around for decades. This was followed by semi-transparent designs when thin film clean energy technology took hold. The latest technologies included fully-transparent, infrared light-absorbing designs. Below are a few facts about solar windows and it’s innovation.
 

Renewable Energy Window

It looks like an ordinary window. They appear ordinary, but the technology absorbs some sunlight as it’s transmitted through the window and converts into electricity. The windows acts like solar cells to give a flexible solution for modern building design. 

It “switches” with changes in temperature. The windows are created to tint  at warmer temperatures. After the switch to a tinted state occurs, it absorb and convert sunlight into electricity the same way conventional rooftop solar panels do. A switchable solar window has the potential for higher efficiency because it switches to be darker.

It’s thermochromic. It uses temperature-triggered thermochromic tinting. This permits partial absorption of sunlight and transforms the windows into efficient cells. It converts sunlight into electricity at efficiency of 11.3%. Conventional rooftop solar panels are about 20% efficient, with a theoretical maximum of 32%. 

It’s economical. Adding SwitchGlaze solar cell layers to regular windows is expected to be a fraction of the cost that could be cancelled out by solar energy payback. Because of their ability to tint, it could save on building cooling bills in the summer. It’s an evolving technology. Building design is evolving from static to dynamic. This technology responds to sunlight to improve building efficiency and give on-site energy generation.

Buildings of the future will be more energy-efficient, comfortable, and durable as dynamic technologies are integrated. SwitchGlaze is in the proof-of-concept stage before it will be commercially available.  Click here if you’d like more information. 

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