Photovoltaic concrete facade uses sunlight to generate energy

Concrete facades could soon capture solar energy to electricity buildings, employing a prototype photovoltaic cladding developed by materials company LafargeHolcim and electronics maker Heliatek.

The product combines LafargeHolcim‘s concrete with a top layer of Heliatek‘s HeliaFilm — a flexible solar movie that’s only one millimetre thick.

The firms analyzed the in a pilot project in the LafargeHolcim Research Center at Lyon, and they plan to take it to market at 2019.

According to LafargeHolcim, it’s the capacity to double the energy production a construction can attained by traditional roof-based photovoltaics, because facades occupy a greater surface area.

“A ten-storey commercial building covered with 60 percent of its facade with the Ductal/HeliaFilm cladding system could generate approximately 30 percent of its annual energy requirement,” explained LafargeHolcim, that first unveiled the prototype this past year.

“Our HeliaFilm is the active element which transforms building cladding into a power station,” added Heliatek CEO Thibaud Le Séguillon. “This is the path to green, localised electricity.”

Less than five percent of a solar panel that was conventional, HeliaFilm is made to be incorporated into building materials by construction component producers. Past LafargeHolcim’s cement sheeting, it may be used with steel or glass.

Heliatek also make a related product called HeliaSol, a standalone movie which can be used on buildings. It comes in a selection of colors.

The firms have produced 40 meters of Ductal/Heliatek facade to date, such as 25 square yards as part of the pilot project in September. A 200 square yards will be built as an installation in 2019 that is early.

So that it blends in with its structure, the firms aren’t the only ones attempting to redesign the solar panel.  Two years back, Tesla started making the Solar Roof, solar panels disguised like regular roof tiles.

A second recent photovoltaic concrete project came from the Block Research Group in the college ETH Zurich, that installed thin solar cells onto the surface of concrete on per sinuous model roof.

The post Photovoltaic concrete facade uses sunlight to create energy appeared initially on Dezeen.

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