Photovoltaic

We've been following the progress of German startup Sono Motors since the first renders of its solar cell-packing Sion electric family car appeared in 2016. With a new prototype coming later this year, we emailed CEO Jona Christians for a catch up.

Given that solar panels lie in direct sunlight, it goes without saying that they can get pretty hot. Unfortunately, though, they also get less efficient as they heat up. That said, a new gel could help cool them … without using any electricity.

It sounds counterintuitive to put solar cells indoors, but there’s light energy inside that’s largely going to waste. Now a team of engineers has created flexible perovskite solar cells with the highest efficiency of any indoor flexible solar cells.

While we're used to seeing buildings with photovoltaic panels on their roofs, the fronts of those buildings are typically panel-free. German researchers are working on putting that space to use, with facade-based solar panels.

The community funding push that Sono Motors launched in early December, 2019, went on a little longer than originally advertised, but the company behind the PV-packed Sion family EV has come out of the other side with more money than was hoped for.

Germany's Sono Motors has given us a taste of what we can expect the production Sion to look like inside and out, and is now looking to future buyers to help raise €50 million to secure production facilities and more.

Engineers at MIT are developing a way to turn the humble RFID tag into a light-powered sensor for the internet of things.

A Spanish start-up called Proton New Energy Future has unveiled Ebörd, a smart table that has a wireless charger built into the entire surface, allowing it to charge multiple devices at once. Better yet, it harvests energy from the Sun or even artificial light.

Scientists at the University of Manchester in the UK have developed flags that are reckoned to be the first to harvest solar and wind at the same time. Not enough to power a house, or even a gadget such as a smartphone, but could be enough for set it and forget it remote sensors.

As of Jan. 1st, 2020, all new homes built in California will be required to have solar photovoltaic systems. The ruling is part of the California Energy Commission's newly-instituted 2019 Building Energy Efficiency Standards, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

​Glass surfaces that double as solar collectors are potentially transformative materials for architects. A new building going up in Geneva will make full use of recent advances to wrap an office space in colored photovoltaic glass, providing shading and generating energy at the same time.

Tesla has packed a number of its smart energy products into the one tiny mobile package. The Telsa Tiny House is being towed behind a Model X on a tour of Australia in an attempt to spread the word about the benefits of Tesla's products for generating, storing and using your own electricity.