Looking beyond roof surface to make modern commercial and residential buildings energy neutral, Physee, a tech startup headquartered in the Netherlands, has developed and installed the world’s first commercial, fully transparent solar-power-generating windows.
Ferdinand Grapperhaus, co-founder and CEO of the startup and a graduate of Delft Technical University, says “Right now, we are looking for iconic projects all over the world to show that a large glass building can be made energy neutral in an aesthetic way.”
“Large commercial estates consume a lot of energy. If you want to make these buildings energy neutral, you never have enough roof surface. Therefore, activating the buildings’ facades will significantly contribute to making the buildings energy neutral.”
Physee’s PowerWindows have solar cells installed in the edges at a specific angle. The angle allows the incoming solar light to be efficiently transformed into electricity.
The company is already working on second-generation technology that will triple the efficiency of the PowerWindows. The new technology is based on the ability of thulium to transform a broad spectrum of light into near-infrared light. Grapperhaus and his classmate Willem Kesteloo discovered this ability of thulium to transform a broad spectrum of light into near-infrared light in 2014 while studying at TU Delft.
The surface of the second generation of PowerWindows will be coated with a special, thuliam-enhanced material. This material will transforms oncoming visible light into near-infrared light. The near-infrared light will then be transported towards the solar cells at the edges of the windows.
The headquarters of Rabobank, the Netherlands’ largest bank, commissioned the first installation of Physee’s PowerWindows. The installation was unveiled in June in Eindhoven, in the south of the Netherlands.
Observes Physee’s Ferdinand Grapperhaus, “Large commercial estates consume a lot of energy. If you want to make these buildings energy neutral, you never have enough roof surface. Therefore, activating the buildings’ facades will significantly contribute to making the buildings energy neutral.”
The innovative solar technology has won Physee a place on the World Economic Forum‘s Technology Pioneers 2017 list.
The WEF’s 2017 list of Technology Pioneers, announced on June 14, includes companies developing technologies including artificial intelligence, cyber security solutions and biotechnology. The pioneering companies are selected for their potential to change the world.
Physee’s presence on the list, observes Grapperhaus, shows that the world is starting to take climate change seriously:
“Ten years ago, sustainability was something that wasn’t taken very seriously — not by venture capitalists, not by many governments and neither by large corporations. What I have seen over the last three years is that corporations are becoming more and more responsible, governments are becoming more and more supportive, and venture capitalists are becoming more and more interested.”
See:
“Transparent solar power creating windows debut” | BlouinNews, 29 July 2017
“More Than a View: Windows Double as Solar Panels” | Tereza Pultarova, LiveScience, 3 July 2017
“Introducing the Technology Pioneers 2017” | World Economic Forum
Physee | Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe
“Fully tranparent solar charged PowerWindow” | Materia, 19 September 2016
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