This looks like a huge breakthrough that will hit the market within the next three years. M

MIT opens new 'window' on solar energy

Cost effective devices expected on market soon

Elizabeth A. Thomson, News Office
July 10, 2008

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/solarcells-0710.html

Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun's energy that could allow just that.

The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel "solar concentrator." "Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges," explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.

As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell "by a factor of over 40," Baldo says.

Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years--even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.

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I am assuming that these special windows could also be used in cars. That would provide a hybrid extra electricity to boost gas mileage.

I just saw on CNN that there is a guy from the netherlands and his wife driving around the world in a plug in electric vehicle towing a solar panel-trailer. So the plan is around the world without one drop of petrol/gas. I'll post the story if I see it in print.

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