JAYFORCE

Research at Michigan State University has yielded designs for a transparent solar panel capable of capturing solar energy. Professor Richard Lunt, MSU assistant professor and head of the research team, believes that the panel can be used in a variety of ways – like on tall buildings with lots of windows or mobile devices. The ultimate goal is to harvest solar energy via surfaces in such a way that people do not even notice (according to a press statement from Lunt).

Most solar panels capture visible spectrum light, letting invisible ultraviolet waves – the bigger portion of the spectrum – go to waste. The transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC) doesn’t capture visible light, but non-visible ultraviolet waves are absorbed by the device, converted, and sent to the edge of the concentrator, where photovoltaic (PV) solar cells convert light energy to electricity.

One caveat: Right now the TLSC is performing at around 1% efficiency, but the MSU team believes that 5% optimization is achievable. Currently, non-transparent luminescent concentrators (current tech) max out at 7% efficiency.

But before you get pessimistic about the low numbers, compare them to using ZERO percent of the abundant untapped energy that we are being drenched in daily!