{"id":114866,"date":"2020-10-22T04:23:19","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T11:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/smart-windows-darken-and-become-solar-cells-when-heated"},"modified":"2020-10-22T04:23:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T11:23:19","slug":"smart-windows-darken-and-become-solar-cells-when-heated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/smart-windows-darken-and-become-solar-cells-when-heated","title":{"rendered":"Smart windows darken and become solar cells when heated"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows are great for letting in light, but in summer months that comes with an unwanted side order of heat, causing many people to run the air conditioning non-stop. Now, researchers have developed windows that can change color automatically when heated by sunlight, to keep buildings cool \u2013 and to top it off, they\u2019re solar panels as well.<\/p>\n

Color-changing glass has been around for a long time, most commonly as transition lenses for eyeglasses that tint automatically under bright light. More recent developments have made it electronic<\/a> and switchable on demand<\/a>, and scaled it up to window size<\/a>. At the same time, transparent<\/a> (or semi-transparent<\/a>) solar cells<\/a> are getting more efficient, to the point where they can be fitted into windows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the new study, researchers at the US Department of Energy\u2019s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has combined the two technologies into one window. The \u201cthermochromic photovoltaic\u201d tech, as they call it, can switch colors when heated up by sunlight to block glare and reduce the need for cooling, and when it does it also starts harvesting energy from that light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Windows are great for letting in light, but in summer months that comes with an unwanted side order of heat, causing many people to run the air conditioning non-stop. Now, researchers have developed windows that can change color automatically when heated by sunlight, to keep buildings cool \u2013 and to top it off, they\u2019re solar [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}