Solar Solutions: Bio-inspired approach creates tailor-made photovoltaic
There is more to do with photovoltaic panels than the materials they include: the design itself can also stimulate the widespread acceptance of solar technology – or possibly reduce.
Do it simply: most solar panels are not much to look at. And their flat, non -flexible composition means that they can only be applied to similar flat structures. But what if photovoltaic panels instead were a hinged, lightweight fabric that was aesthetically attractive and could wrap around complex shapes, even turned its shape to absorb sunlight better?
Thus was born the idea for helioskin, an interdisciplinary project LED by Jenny Sabin, the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Weisenberger professor in the college of architecture, art and planning at Cornell University, in collaboration withtes, professor of physics, and and advessor of physics, and and advessor of physics, and advessor of physics, and and lysics, and advessor of physics, and advessor of physics, Professor in the Section of Plant Biology in the School of Integrative Plant Science, in The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and at the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology.
“What we are really passionate about is how the system could not only produce energy in a passive way, but can create transformational environments in urban or urban rural environments,” Sabin said. “Sustainability is about performance and function, but also, it is about beauty and people enthusiastic about it, so they want to participate. The big goal is to inspire a widespread adoption of solar energy for social impact.”
Sabin, the inaugural chairman of the new Multicollege department of Design Tech, has made a career to collaborate with various disciplines and to take instructions, not only from architecture, but also engineering. And physics. And math. And, perhaps the most important biology. All its projects are united by the same question: how can buildings and their integrated material systems behave more like organisms, respond and adapt to their local environments?
“Nature is not efficient,” Sabin said. “It is resilient and biology is in it for the long game, over much longer time scales. Moreover, it has been shown that plants that follow the sun show a photosynthetic advantage. And we think that is a pretty powerful way to think about sustainability and resilience in architecture.”
Sabin’s design interests relate to a very real need. The primary convergent problem is that 40% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from buildings, according to the International Energy Agency.
“By developing a new solar manner that can scales, we want to turn the needle by taking homeowners and companies to take solar energy to reduce the 28% of CO2 that comes from the heating, lighting and cooling of buildings,” Sabin said.
Helioskin originated in a partnership between Sabin and Mariana Bertoni, an energy engineer at Arizona State University, who is also a member of the Helioskin team. Together they combined computational design, digital manufacture and 3D printing to make adapted filters and photovoltaic panelassemblages – what Sabin does not call “Standard Angularity” – that could at the same time stimulate light absorption and architectural beauty. The key to that effort was to look at the mechanics of heliotropism – how sunflowing sunlight follows.
For Helioskin, this research foundation has been expanded with the expertise of rather in heliotropism and cellular morphogenesis – ie how plant cells grow to bend the plant to the sun – and Cohen’s specialization in the use of geometric methods such as origami and kirigami to enhance the mechanical performance.
The flowering Arabidopsis plant is an ideal model for helioskin because, as “the fruit fly of the plant world” according to reder, it is easy to study at a cellular level. These cells play a crucial role in changing the curvature of the stem of the plant while hanging in the direction of the sunlight, whereby the hormones of the arabidopsis cause the cells on its sunless side by 25%and the stem bends 90 degrees.
“We have already discovered how we can translate the tracking mechanism of our plant cells into Jenny’s architectural software,” said Roeder. “Now we have to start finding out how we can make that transition in Helioskin.”
‘The people -oriented design process’
The ultimate goal is to generate a mechanical following solar collection skin for retractable roofs, stadiums and skyscrapers, but to get there, the team launches a three -year pilot project in which they create small solar panels for back gardens, which can then be scaled up for urban parks.
The marketing of that vision not only includes scientific innovation and smart design, but requires industrial partnerships, capital and a marketing plan.
The project was launched via the Convergence Accelerator program of the National Science Foundation, which last year awarded $ 650,000 in phase I financing phase I. The team has requested the next financing phase – $ 5 million in three years.
The industrial partners include E -Inkt and Rainier Industries, which help integrate photovoltaic and ePaper in lightweight, stretchable architectural fabric. Sunflex, a company that uses Laser -recovered contact module technology for photovoltaic production, is on board to refine the helioskin prototypes in phase 2 -the detection, wiring, the arrangement of the panels, plus the geometry and substrate.
By the second year of the pilot project, the team is planning to have a completely scaled prototype backyard that could possibly offer light and powerful outdoor equipment; By the third year they want to be in the early stages of commercialization.
As part of their commercialization plan, the team conducted extensive marketing analysis and interviews that showed the gross costs of Helioskin, the cost-watt and system capacity were competitive with existing PV products.
“This was a really encouraging and exciting process to continue, to see how we compare ourselves with existing products and the potential that we have to scale,” Sabin said. “The people -oriented design process, including involving people in many different industries, from end users to potential stakeholders to people who work for the energy letter and the state or region – that has been a large part of our process, and it was really useful.”
The analysis unveiled niche applications that the team initially did not consider, such as “Big Box” commercial companies that want to strive for Solar to achieve net zero missions, but are also interested in displaying advertisements or colorful pattern change for aesthetic applications. To this end, the team works with e-ink to create a helioskin with electrically driven responsive display functions, so that sun peels can be placed on retail structures and stadiums and function as ever-changing billboards.
“This was something that came from interviews,” said Sabin. “We had never thought of these kinds of applications.”
One of the virtues of working with e-ink is that the company uses roll-to-roll printing to produce photovoltaic plates that makes the cheap production of Perovoltaic substances feasible.
“The basic idea is to try to print things in 2D, which is cheap, and then turn it into 3D, so that it can curve around structures,” Cohen said. “You can’t just take a normal sheet of paper and pack something. It will have all kinds of folds on it. As if you are trying to pack an orange, you get all these wrinkles. One of the innovations we have come up with was to cut the paper in a pattern of panels and hinges that it can stretch around these round objects. Behavior.”
In her experimental architecture practice, Sabin has spent more than 15 years on developing large canels and architectural installations on an urban scale, experience that she served well when launching a product.
“There is a strong focus on commercialization and the development of IP management plans. As a designer I have a practice, so I find this really interesting,” Sabin said. “But it is also completely new for most of my employees. They do not necessarily apply to this level and turn a product out. So the learning curve around it is quite steep for all of us.”
The ability to work together on disciplines is what Sabin initially went to Cornell in 2011. It is a place where “everyone has their door open,” she said. The excitement and the possibilities for impact can be felt.
“In short, we are in Mecca in New York for solar energy,” she said. “So there is a lot going on, both in terms of innovative research, but also applied systems, in agriculture and agrivoltaic, solar farms, etc. so that the dynamic community of people actively work on a common series of goals and questions and problems, is also super exciting for us.”