A handful of buildings in California are beginning to try a new kind of indoor lighting: sunlight without windows. It’s called hybrid solar lighting, and it is being marketed by a company called Sunlight Direct. During the day, sunlight is captured and channeled into lighting fixtures, then at night, the fluorescent bulb takes over. On… [Continue Reading]
Solar Building Automatically Shades Itself From The Sun
April 24, 2007 by 2 Comments
The Devonshire Building is a solar building, that automatically opens and closes banks of shades on it’s south facing façade. The intelligent system tracks the amount of sunlight entering the windows, and takes into account the time of day and season. The key architectural aim was to design a building that would incorporate as much… [Continue Reading]
A Spherical Solar Cell From Japan: The Sphelar
February 7, 2007 by 9 Comments
A Kyoto-based company, Kyosemi, has created a spherical solar cell design. The “Sphelar” is a matrix of tiny, spherical-shaped solar cells, about 1mm in diameter. The spheres are designed to absorb sunlight at any angle, and therefore do not require motorization for tracking the sun. Because of their geometry, Sphelar cells even optimize the use… [Continue Reading]
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