Artificial Solar Leaves: Tack 'em to Your House!
A new sustainable design group called SMIT (Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology) has been working on a pretty awesome little invention. Instead of mounting big-ol' solar panels on heavy rigid structures that need reinforcement and special installers, they've put the solar panels on small, flexible, durable pieces of plastic.
And then they tacked the pieces of plastic to a house. Of course, each little panel has to be individually wired to its neighbor, so that they can all produce electricity for the house. But the result is still both impressive and inexpensive. Of course, you're not going to get the kind of efficiency out of these panels that you will out of traditional monosilicon roof-mounted panels, but your investment won't be as signficant either.
The idea is that the solar cells remind passers buy of ivy leaves. They're green, they blow in the wind, they absorb photons and conver them into electrons. Really, the similarities are pretty overwhelming.
Via Inhabitat
