What was the single most significant breakthrough in clean energy technology this year? Smart grid digitized systems? Tidal power?
According to Interdisciplinary Committee of the World Cultural Council, it was the Grätzel Cell, a dye solar cell (DSC) that can be applied to surfaces as a coating of colored paint. The committee awarded the 2012 Albert Einstein World Award of Science to its inventor, Professor Michael Grätzel, recently, claiming that “chemistry for energy is currently one of the most important research topics for the future of our society and for mankind worldwide.”
image via Dyesol
The technology was commercialized in 1994 by Dyesol, an Australian solar company that sells various DSC products and supplies internationally. Each DSC, covered in titania (a white pigment) and ruthenium dye, is a tiny electrolyte that mimics the natural process of photosynthesis. When exposed to sunlight, the ruthenium dye creates electrons that are absorbed by the titania to create electrical current. The cells can be attached–in the form of a spray or a paste– to glass, metal, including electronics, cars, trains, and buses, and construction materials for buildings and homes, as well as various other plastics and surfaces.
As founding father of Dyesol’s technology, Grätzel serves as chairman of Dyesol’s Technology Advisory Board. Since 1977, Grätzel has been a chemistry professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and has focused his research on solar energy. He has already gained international recognition for many discoveries, including his findings on light’s ability to split hydrogen and oxygen in water and currently serves as director of EPFL’s Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces.
Grätzel has won several international energy awards, has invented or co-invented over 50 patents, has published over 900 research papers and 60 reviews and book chapters, and holds and honorary doctorate in eleven universities worldwide. While his Grätzel Cell was not the first DSC on the market, it has been lauded for its efficiency and versatility.
With the popularity of solar technology, the price of silicon has dropped globally. But DSC products are still cheaper to manufacture than traditional PV panels. It is arguable whether or not they are much more efficient, but unlike silicon-based cells, the technology has the added benefit, as does CIGS (Copper indium gallium selenide) thin film solar technology, that it can be applied to unconventional surfaces.
But perhaps even more important is that with its low cost, the Grätzel Cell marks a paradigm shift for solar power. Solar panels were once considered ugly, bulky and appropriate only for rooftops. With only a few panels on each rooftop, homeowners could not rely on the panels alone to provide all their power needs. With time, the panels became thinner and more efficient, and some manufacturers even created sleek transparent panels that could be used instead of windows or skylights. But solar spray technology can be applied onto countless surfaces, both stationary and transportable, big and small, flat and bumpy, that were never before candidates for solar power.
The military, for example, is already using a similar technology on tents that can be pitched in remote locations and provide solar-powered electricity without a connection to transmisison lines.
Image via Dyesol
Solar cells on appliances could replace the need for batteries of plugs. On cars, the Grätzel Cell could be a significant fuel source, and on homes and buildings, it could coat the entire exterior to provide a significant source of green power. Solar is no longer stationary, so let your imagination run wild!
Solar Cell Paint Inventor Gets Moment In Sun
Thomas Home, the sustainable eco house
A beautiful and highly sustainable home that requires a third of the cooling and half the heating of similar homes, the Thomas Home, set on an 11 acre site in the Cascade foothills and overlooking Mt. Rainier and Everett City in Washington state is a perfect example of passive house design.
This comes partly simply from the cube-like shape, putting a compact four stories on a relatively smaller footprint. But the Thomas Home, designed by Designs Northwest Architects, also boasts very high thermal insulation due to the construction with ICFs – two layers of rigid foam insulation into which concrete has been poured.
Thomas Home
In addition, the use of lots of glass also contributes to the home’s energy efficiency. Warming the Thomas Home in winter, and creating a solar chimney in hot weather, the glass rooms are not just beautiful but an intrinsic part of the design.
The Thomas Home employs a variety of strategies that reduce its energy use; 33% lower for cooling, and 44% lower for heating. Most importantly, a geothermal heat exchange brings up temperate air in pipes from underground to cool the house in summer.
The temperature underground hardly varies from a constant 55 degrees, summer or winter, and the pipes running through the house are able to cool the house to nearly that even in 100 degree heat outside. This means in summer, the house needs much less cooling.
Likewise, in winter, it is much easier to heat a house from a starting point near 55 degrees, than starting from the frigid temperatures outside. Materials selected are sustainable, low VOC, low maintenance materials like this flooring and durable steel banisters. But it is not all practicality and sustainability. An amusing touch in the house is a firemans’ pole. One last element of sustainable design is less tangible, but important too: the house is solidly constructed. It has been built to last. That is about the epitome of sustainability of this Thomas Home.
Ultimate Sustainable Nomadic Home – My Modern Metropolis
Designed by Berlin-based Studio Aisslinger, this incredibly attractive modular home was created almost 4,000 ft above sea level. Located near Bozen in Northern Italy, it features magnificent views of the Dolomite mountains, yet can be easily taken apart and rebuilt in a new location. This makes the structure perfect for the travelling nomad, all while leaving a minimal CO2 footprint.
Dubbed Fincube, the home is made entirely of local wood and the design is minimal, material-orientated and in close touch with nature. A 360-degree triple glazing is furnished with a second facade layer, giving the building a very elegant, yet modern shape.
The modular aspect of Fincube allows it to be embedded into a variety of landscapes including forests, meadows and mountainsides. The combination of long-lasting design and the option of changing its location make the Fincube a flexible home or hideaway, and a lifetime companion. To top it off, Fincube is a smart house, with all vital functions being controlled by a central touch panel.
EKO Range
The EKO Range of homes from Planet Homes are designed to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer without using an external heat source or cooling source.
This type of design is called a passive solar design and means your home will be warm and effecient.
With a range of designs to choose from, you will easily find the right home to suit your site, needs and budget, and you can rest assured that all EKOKIT designs are based on passive solar principles, are thermally and water efficient and incorporate safe, healthy building materials. The designs are extremely flexible, including innovative modular options that allow you to start off small and grow your home at a later date as your needs change.
