Anticipate their installation in homes and offices by 2028. Panasonic is evaluating “power-generating glass” that it plans to begin selling for use in a variety of buildings by 2028.
Perovskite solar cells are combined with glass to produce a one-micron-thick photovoltaic layer sandwiched between two sheets of glass substrate. Panasonic’s “original inkjet coating method” is combined with laser processing technology to produce large panels of varying sizes that are sufficiently transparent to function as windows.
Panasonic claims to have attained a conversion efficiency of 17.9%, which is “the world’s highest level conversion efficiency” for a perovskite module measuring more than 800 square centimeters. This claim has been independently verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the United States. However, according to Nikkei Asia, China’s UtmoLight recently stole the crown with an 18.6% conversion efficiency.
Panasonic installed the prototype power-generating glass panels in a model house constructed for its Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, in order to test them. The performance of the glass will be evaluated for more than a year, with the test scheduled to conclude on November 29, 2024.
In 2014, Panasonic kicked off the process of developing this particular kind of solar cell, and the company now has a goal of having it commercially available for use in a variety of buildings by the year 2028. The following is an explanation provided by a representative of Panasonic: “We’ll use its globally top-class efficiency as a selling point… Any location in the world that makes use of glass presents an opportunity for a market, such as skylights in shopping malls and windows in offices.
