Thursday, July 10, 2008
A new kind of solar panel is on the horizon. It is incredibly small and can be woven into textiles like curtains and roofing materials to create a more energy-efficient home. The organic photovoltaic-laced textiles move to follow the sun and can create about 16,000 watt-hours of electricity or about half of what the average U.S. home uses in a day.
Sheila Kennedy, an architect at design firm Kennedy & Violich, is the leader behind the emerging technology, which the firm integrated into a prototype called Soft House. The Soft House is a prefab home equipped with several large, flexible curtains that soak up the sun’s energy and transform it into electricity.