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windows into solar panels
April 2, 2020

This company wants to turn your windows into solar panels

What if every window in your house could generate electricity? One Redwood City, California-based startup thinks its technology can achieve that by transforming the way solar power is collected and harnessed.

Ubiquitous Energy has developed transparent solar cells to create its ClearView Power windows, a kind of “solar glass” that can turn sunlight into energy without needing the bluish-grey opaque panels those cells are generally associated with. The company, spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012, hopes to use that tech to turn practically any everyday glass surface into a solar cell.

“It can be applied to windows of skyscrapers; it can be applied to glass in automobiles; it can be applied to the glass on your iPhone,” Miles Barr, Ubiquitous Energy’s founder and chief technology officer, told CNN Business.

The company is looking to capitalize on the United States’ renewable energy boom, with solar and wind energy projected to surpass coal by 2021, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

While several companies are working on similar products, the technology is still in the relatively early stages. It’s one of several emerging products that harness solar energy, with others including irrigation pumps and a “solar oven” that can be used to make cement and steel. Ubiquitous Energy’s home state of California is one of the first to require that every new home incorporate some form of solar technology.

“This is great for ClearView Power because homeowners can install windows just like they would anyways, but they actually produce power to meet this requirement,” Barr said.

The core of the product is an organic dye that can be used to coat glass surfaces. The dye allows visible sunlight to pass through — just like normal windows do — but captures the invisible infrared rays from that sunlight.

Keep reading and watch the video on CNN.com

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