Solar Window - a complete power game changer or vaporware?

[Bulletdodger]

Hi guys,

I dont know if you heard, but there is a company called Solar Window, which (for some time now) promises transparent electricity generating windows,
with (take a breath) 50 times more electricity generated on the same surface then standard solar panels (if I'm right) and turnaround time of 1 year.
http://solarwindow.com/

Sounds way too good to be true, if you ask me,
but is there merit to these claims? This basically means free electricity after the ROI, which is exceptionally short.

Anybody more familiar with them?

[1714927607]

1714927607

[Bulletdodger]

no comments?
anybody know anything about them?

[JaredKaragen]

seeing how solar has historically evolved....

I think this will end up like all of the solar companies that have lead up to today....


falling short of expectations, and more importantly, being way too expensive for what it is;  never truly making it to the cost-effective realm of a product and ultimately failing and closing down as a company.


Just a hunch.  A rather big one based on lots of history.

[yrk1957]

no comments?
anybody know anything about them?

Just reading a bit. It appears that there 50x claim is based upon a 50 storey building. A tall building will have a tiny roof for traditional solar, when compared to the large glass surfaces on the side, hence the possible claim.

[skablast]

A little comment, if you really need it:

there are two  actually.

The solar energy that reach the ground is average 1 KW/h / SM
The amount of energy you can capt is cos (fi)* Energy/SM.

fi its simply the angle between the incoming light and the surface that's capting it.

In order to maximize cos(fi) being closer as possible to 1 that is the maximum, you normally have to "rotate" the panel in order for it to " follow" the sun path in order to always face it( Sunflower anyone ?). And you need also to change the inclination of your roof as well. As alternative you need to use paraboloid mirror/lenses in order to do so.

Fact is that windows are vertical in 99% of the cases, and mostly fixed so Cos fi can't be close to 1 but most likely in the 0.2 range . Also  windows are supposed to have visible light passing through them.
Instead, the best color for capting is Black , while white its the worst. I don't even know where is in the scale the "transparency"

As the actual best solar conversion for PV is around 18 % I find hard to believe they can achieve 3 times that rates.

Actually, if you go in the solar thermodinamic direction, you may be able to capt  a lot of more energy than the standard PV that mostly use only visibile light by capting also Infrared . Actually its the safest bet right now.

hope that I explained myself clearly.

I haven't wrote any conclusion intentionally as I haven't even open their website, so it will not be fair.

You can judge by yourself by comparing what they said with what I wrote above

[puwaha]

You would have to have southern facing windows (for northern hemisphere homes) with no eaves or overhangs on those windows for the best possible scenario for these solar windows.  That means that three quarters of your house are practically unusable based on orientation alone.  That's on top of the points that skablast mentions.

[JaredKaragen]

... 50 times more electricity ...

No more need to be said to figure out the validity of this nonsense....


Maybe they started this company in hopes that another solar handout by the govt will happen... so they can silently spend it all and fold like everyone else did....

[skablast]

Actually Solyndra concept, probably the biggest backed by US that folded, was technically great.

Their solution was able to sort out most of the problem above mentioned.

They "forgot" the mirror  concentration and being an Hybryd PV/heat system that was the natural direction, but mostly they they fold because they were unable to produce silicon cheap enough  in that cilindrical shape.