Building integrated photovoltaics is a term describing the unique design of structures to incorporate solar panels with little to no visual impact. Diamond solar panels in skylights allow natural lighting into rooms, as well as generate clean, free solar electricity. In commercial buildings, these solar panels will reduce electricity requirements for air conditioning, heating and lighting.
Solar windows finally may be ready for primetime!
Solar skylights have been considered for some time. With these diamond solar panels in skylights, energy savings can start racking up, as well as a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. Not only less use of grid-based energy will result, but office buildings and malls no longer will need gas-based generators for back-up power.
The California-based company, EnFocus has designed diamond power panels that not only reduce the intensity of sunlight coming in through skylights, which can avoid overheating, but also uses that energy to generate electricity. The design, for commercial buildings, is comprised of weatherproof solar panels. Each panel includes a series of lenses that can concentrate sunlight 400x. This concentrated energy is directed to high efficiency photovoltaic solar cells, which track the light as it passes across the sky.
Each Diamond solar panel in skylights can generate 720 kilowatt-hours (kWH) of electricity per year. In addition, they effectively decrease the heat load of the building by about 2.1 million BTUs annually.
As for the cost? The return on investment (ROI) for these diamond solar panels in skylights is a mere 5 years!