By: Johnny Hartsfield

Imagine closing your curtains for shade on a hot summer day while producing electricity at the same time.  This is exactly what architect Sheila Kennedy imagined for her new prototype.  Kennedy, and her team at KVA Matx, have brilliantly integrated solar cell technology with architecture in their SOFT HOUSE - a home that produces nearly 16,000 watt-hours of electricity by transforming household curtains into flexible, semi-transparent, solar collectors.

 

The SOFT HOUSE takes its name from the soft path, the concept originally proposed by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute where many different sources of energy in a distribution system work together.  From this concept, Kennedy asked the question: how could we “design a prefabricated house that could be affordable and that could have a point-of-purchase alternative energy system that a homeowner could tailor to her or his own energy needs and budget.” 

The KVA Matx team has answered this question with a thin-film photovoltaic textile created from organic photovoltaics that can be molded and modified without a manufacturing process.  However, until the team figures out how to make the fabric more efficient, you will not be seeing this product on the market very soon.  According to Kennedy, current organic photovoltaics (OPV), an emergent solar nano-technology, are less efficient than glass-based solar technologies, thus making them not yet cost effective.

Although this creates a small roadblock, Kennedy remains optimistic and believes they will overcome this because the SOFT HOUSE provides an actual application of the unique material advantages of solar nano-technologies without having to compete with the centralized grid.

Source: MIT News  Via: Inhabitat

Trackback Post