By David Nutt
There is more to photovoltaic panels than the materials that comprise them: The design itself can also drive – or potentially diminish – the widespread adoption of solar technology.
Put bluntly: Most solar panels are not much to look at. And their flat, nonflexible composition means they can only be affixed to similarly flat structures. But what if photovoltaic panels were instead a hinged, lightweight fabric that was aesthetically attractive and could wrap around complex shapes, even contorting its form to better absorb sunlight?
Thus was born the idea for HelioSkin, an interdisciplinary project led by Jenny Sabin, the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Weisenberger Professor in Architecture in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, in collaboration with Itai Cohen, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Adrienne Roeder, 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’re really passionate about is how the system could not only produce energy in a passive way, but create transformational environments in urban or urban-rural settings,” Sabin said.
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David Nutt is a Senior Staff Writer for the Cornell Chronicle.