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Hybrid Solar Panels Combine Photovoltaics with Thermoelectricity


December 30, 2009

By Larry Greenemeier

Read More: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...d-solar-panels

Tar and shingles are hardly environmentally friendly materials, so the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) hopes to soon help homeowners and businesses replace the roofs over their heads with something greener. To that end, the DOE awarded Weidlinger Associates, a New York City-based structural engineering firm, a $150,000 grant earlier this month (matched by a 10-percent commitment from the state) to develop durable hybrid solar roofing panels with integrated photovoltaic cells and thermoelectric materials that harvest the sun's energy to produce both electricity and hot water for buildings.

Weidlinger is working with Columbia University in New York City on the project, which the engineers and researchers hope will convert at least 12 percent of collected sunlight into electricity. This would be an improvement over the 5- to 10-percent conversion rate possible with relatively inexpensive thin-film plastic solar cells, although a far cry from the most complex (and expensive) solar cells, which have achieved a conversion rate as high as 41.6 percent.

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