Chin Hua solar glass generates electricity, lets (most of) the sun shine in

Putting solar panels on the roof will do your energy bill a lot of good, but won't necessarily help any other aspect of your house. Install a fleet of solar windows, however, and you could have more natural light to go right along with your additional enviro-smugness. At Taipei's International Optoelectronics Week, the Engadget Chinese crew caught sight of the Chin Hua solar window, a small, slightly foggy pane that delivers 2W of light in the configuration you see above. The glass can apparently be manufactured with more or less haze, delivering greater or lesser solar power efficiency. This means you could install the most efficient windows on the side of your house facing your nosy neighbors, making you feel better about the environment and better about not bothering to put on pants in the morning.

[CalBearGuy Posted Jun 9th 2010 1:02PM]

Until they manufacture these windows with roughly the same amount of steps and use about the same amount of materials as it costs to make normal windows it wont ever make sense. Using TCO's to make a solar cell has to be damn cheap because they only convert the Blue portion of the light spectrum which doesn't have much power. I agree if they can the cost to be 1-4x the costs of a normal window they may have something but after that, it just isn't worth it.

[jamesFF Posted Jun 10th 2010 4:17AM]

I think it would be more efficient to have the sidings of the house solar power.