  The increasing demand for renewable energy is promoting technologies that
integrate solar energy harvesting materials with the human living environment,
such as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs). This places requirements on
developing colored covers with a trade-off between efficiency and aesthetics,
providing a new stage for the large-scale application of structural color
technologies. Here in this study, we have investigated the theoretic
feasibility of employing the photonic glass, a random packing of monodisperse
dielectric microspheres, as the colored cover for solar energy harvesting.
Based on numerous optical simulations, we have evaluated the color and average
solar transmissivity (AST) of the photonic glasses with varying parameters.
Results show that using non-absorbing microspheres with relatively high
refractive index, about 3 {\mu}m thick photonic glasses could enable colors
with lightness over 50 while keeping AST at around 80%. Besides, we demonstrate
that due to the short-range structural correlation, photonic glasses could
generate purple, blue, cyan, light green, and grey colors, but cannot help with
yellow and red color hues. Finally, the effects of several enhancement methods
are clarified, and possible ways for expanding the color range are
demonstrated. These results provide a comprehensive guide to the practical
implementations of structural color using photonic glasses, particularly in the
colorization of solar energy materials.
