Transparent transistors fuel solar energy breakthrough
- TAGS:Hewlett-Packard, HP, solar, transparent transistors, Xtreme Energetics
- IT TOPICS:Development, Emerging Technology, Hardware
I wrote here that Green IT "won't save the world." True. But advanced information technology may make the world much, much greener.
Today Hewlett-Packard is announcing a licensing deal with a Livermore, Calif. company called Xtreme Energetics Inc. Dan Croft, director of intellectual property at HP, says his company has agreed to license its transparent transistor technology to Xtreme for the purposes of using it in solar panels.
Croft says Xtreme will layer HP's transparent transistors over its solar panels. These transistors, through which light passes, focus the energy from the sun "like a magnifying glass" onto the black solar panels, says Croft.
They also are used to keep the panels in line with the transit of the sun across the sky, eliminating the need for clunky, expensive and prone-to-breakdown motors and gears that move solar panels today.
Colin Williams, CEO of Xtreme, says that the company's solar panels' transparency lets you add artistic patterns behind them to blend in with a building's look.
Williams says the panels, which should begin shipping in 2010, will cost "about the same as traditional silicon solar panels but will produce twice the energy or more."
This is good news for all of us. (Well, except for the climate-change skeptics behind Carbon Belch Day.)
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