Most current solar cell panels are made by complex processes using expensive materials. Lower costs and higher efficiencies have driven product decisions and the result is most panels are rigid, heavy, and with a dull, black appearance. As a result of their non-architectural aesthetic appearance and weight, they are primarily installed on rooftops so as to minimize the negative building appearance, and large surface areas of the buildings are not utilized for potential power generation. The team proposes to develop a new hybrid solar cell technology that is based on low cost materials and manufacturing processes; most importantly, they offer appealing visual effects, e.g. the panels can be designed to reflect or transmit desirable colors, or display colored images. They can also be made semi-transparent and can be structurally flexible for either a permanent specific shape or thin enough to be rolled and unrolled for many multiple events.
Technologies that can provide significantly improved energy efficiency are in high demand in our world today. The team hopes that the multi-functional PV technology will be of significant and transformative value to the community by providing a new way of thinking of deploying photovoltaics. The new technology can be applied to existing and new high-rise commercial buildings or residential houses. The transmissive type colored or semi-transparent panels can be used as power-generating windows or shades, and the reflective type colored panels for outdoor architectural glass walls with specific designs, or interior colored/display type furnishings, and both can provide electric energy by utilizing the absorbed portion of the light spectrum. Another potential application is for greenhouses using the technology on glass to absorb green light for electric power generation while passing through blue and red light to be absorbed by the Chlorophyll for plants' growth. The video rate large format photodetector array made based on the hybrid structure can also lead to potential application in medical imaging.
Most current solar panels are made by complex processes using expensive materials. Lower costs and higher efficiencies have driven product decisions and the result is most panels are rigid, heavy, and with a dull, black appearance. As a result of their non-architectural aesthetic appearance and weight, they are primarily installed on rooftops so as to minimize the negative building appearance, and large surface areas of the buildings are not utilized for potential power generation. Our concept is a new hybrid solar cell technology that is based on low cost materials and manufacturing processes; most importantly, they offer appealing visual effects, e.g. the panels can be designed to reflect or transmit desirable colors, or display colored images. They can also be made semi-transparent and can be structurally flexible for either a permanent specific shape or thin enough to be rolled and unrolled for many multiple events. Intellectural Merit: Our unique solution has been made possible by two key innovations in the optical and electrical design, which was the result of several years of research conducted by our team at the University of Michigan. Colors are generated not by using any colored pigment, but an intrinsic property of the thin-film solar cell structure we built. An advantage is that we can build custom-made color design patterns, such as company logos or signage, which are very difficult to achieve with the previous dye-sensitized solar cells. Bright colored images can be made, as well as semi-transparent panels that do not intrude the vision. Considering the uniquely added value proposition to solar panels by our solution, the NSF I-Corp program helped us to assess the possible price of our product, and guided us to meeting and interview over a hundred potential customers regarding our technology commercialization. Since our solution can provide custom-made color designed power-generating panels, our innovative solar energy products can satisfy a broad range of customers and will create new market that integrates various types of energy harvesting panels into people’s daily lives. Broader Impacts: the market size of green buildings in total building construction market has seen a rapid increase (source: McGraw-Hill forecasting service, as of April 2012): 60 billion dollars and about 40 % of total building construction, which is expected to surpass 100 billion dollar size and reach 50 % of total construction in 2015. As one example, there are many amusement parks worldwide, such as Disney World, Universal Studio, and Six Flags, etc., who cannot put the conventional black solar panels in the core of their parks due to the distracting appearance. However, if they can design any kind of cartoons, park logos, or seasonal decorations on solar panels using our solution, the parks can save energy cost and even boost their brand images. Moreover, solar farms with various decorative energy panels can be provided where kids (and adults) can experience and learn science. A variety of luxury resorts, we believe, would be also interested in considering our solution to show their caring for the environment and sustainability. The theme park market size, based on PricewaterhouseCoopers 2012 report, is almost 15 billion dollars in the U.S. alone, continuously increasing by average 4% annually from year 2003. In the growing markets described above, the NSF I-Corps program helped us to find the right market and application where we can apply our solution and eventually commercialize it. Since our solution could generate solar energy without compromising aesthetic value, we targeted the customers who emphasized design features in their products. Our customers range from big companies such as Samsung to small kids’ toy retailers. Within a period of six weeks, we achieved discovering one hundred customers who had interests in our transparent colored PV solution. The customer discovery is mostly composed of face-to-face meeting and discussion. With very specific value propositions of the solution, we evaluated customer needs in practical applications where especially aesthetic values are highly appreciated. We emphasized that our solution could provide undiscovered novel function of PV panels to industry that had been seeking design compatible solar energy harvesters. This intensive customer discovery process helped us to narrow down which applications our value propositions fit to. Also, the discovered customers’ needs encouraged our team to set a goal to improve the PV panels’ power performance for a future work without sacrificing color purity and optical transparency. Overall, our team learned the process of seeking commercialization of research outcomes: discovering the right customer and industry is the most important step before building a prototype. After interviewing with a hundred customers, we had to accept a hard truth that customers consider many aspects including price, efficiency, durability, and even possible alternatives. This learning process will help us to refine our research goal, which will finally benefit potential customers in the future.
