New Energy Achieves Major ‘Transparency’ Breakthrough in Development of See-Thru Windows Capable of Generating Electricity

New Energy Technologies, Inc., currently developing MotionPower technologies for generating electricity from the kinetic energy of moving vehicles and SolarWindow technologies capable of generating electricity on glass windows, announced that researchers have overcome a significant scientific hurdle in creating the first-of-its-kind see-thru solar glass by replacing a visibility-blocking solid metal component with environmentally-friendly, non-metallic, transparent compounds.

“Metal materials block visibility, and are arguably the most important hindrance to developing a commercially viable solar glass window product,” said Meetesh Patel, president and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. “We have successfully replaced the metal contact component in our SolarWindow with non-metallic compounds, and in so doing, achieved significantly greater transparency, a key factor in advancing our technology along the commercial product development path. The importance of this breakthrough cannot be overstated.”

To-date, one of the biggest obstacles faced by researchers developing New Energy’s SolarWindow technology has been the presence of metal, an opaque material which blocks all visibility and prevents light from passing through glass. Eliminating metal has proved especially challenging since the metal component acts as the negative ‘polar contact’ – an important function in collecting the electricity generated from solar cells on the surface of the glass.

Today’s breakthrough replaces this visibility-blocking metal with environmentally-friendly and more transparent compounds. These compounds now function as the negative polar contact and collect electricity from New Energy’s SolarWindow.

The production of solar-generated electricity on glass is made possible by the world’s tiniest working solar cells, which have been successfully applied on to glass surfaces by researchers currently developing the company’s transparent SolarWindow technology.

These ultra-small solar cells measure less than ¼ the size of a grain of rice, are fabricated using environmentally-friendly materials, and successfully produce electricity, as demonstrated in a published peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy of the American Institute of Physics.

Unique performance properties of New Energy’s ultra-small solar cells enable development of an ultra-thin film, only 1/1000th the thickness of a human hair, or 1/10th of a micrometer. In contrast, conventional thin films are exponentially thicker, measuring several micrometers thick and inhibiting transparency. In photovoltaic applications such as see-thru windows, where transparency is a primary concern, today’s thin film solar cells simply cannot be utilized to produce a transparent solar window for application in homes, offices, and commercial buildings.

There are nearly 5 million commercial buildings in America, according to the Energy Information Administration, and more than 80 million single detached homes. New Energy’s SolarWindow technology is under developed for commercial application in such buildings.