Bend It, Roll It, Wear It! Solar to Go!
By Susan Wilson
Solar, Solar everywhere…. New methods of creating solar cells mean that we will see solar uses for some likely and scary items.
Bend It: A few days ago, Kanarka announced that they have developed a way to cheaply make solar cells using an inkjet printer.(Kanarka Press Release) These extremely cheap and easy to produce solar cells will be printed on plastic and can be used in a variety of "indoor and sensor applications". This process does not require a "clean room" or any other special environmental considerations unlike the typical silicon based solar cells, thus cutting down on the cost and increasing the desirability of these inkjet produced solar sheets. One of Kanarka’s future plans is to use the process to produce solar clothing.
A several of Internet companies sell portable solar charges that fold, bend and roll. Solio has a charger that "fans" out into three small solar panels that can be folded up for easy storage or portability. Proporta sells a foldable solar charger that will charge your cell phone, mp3 player, or other small gadgets. Eclipse Solar Gear also sells rollable or bendable portable solar panels that can also be used to charge laptops, mobile phones and other portable devices.
Roll It: United Solar Ovonic has a solar laminate, Uni-Solar, with a peel and stick backing so that you can add it to your metal roof. The laminate is light weight and because it is not made out of glass, won’t break if limbs or hail impact it. Because it is easy to install, the labor costs associated with this type of roof system are much lower than with the typical glass panel and brace systems.
Wear It: Several different companies(Voltaic Systems, O’Neill Europe, and Clear Blue Hawaii) have integrated solar panels and gadget charging into backpacks and messenger bags a few of which can be purchased at Eclipse Solar Gear.
Not just Backpacks or messenger bags have been developed for wear. There is also a Solar Blue Jean Jacket with solar panel lapels that has been designed by Bogner Jeans. The Solar Blue Jean Jacket won’t be out until next year, which should give us all time to save up enough money to afford it. Willy Bogner has come out with solar powered snow suit with LEDs(light emitting diodes). The solar power lights the LEDs so that skiers can be seen on the ski slopes.
There is also the dark side (pun intended) to wearing solar clothing. One Company, Covert Asset Tracking Systems, Ltd (C.A.T.S.) , plans on producing clothing with solar power tracking devices integrated in the fabric so that people can be tracked by GPS and the Internet. Yikes! The myriad misuses of a product like this are just overwhelming - how to give the government and stalkers easy access to your whereabouts!
On a brighter note(I know, I know), the Taiwanese are proposing using solar powered clothing to monitor the health of the wearer. The clothing would monitor, body heat, heart rate, and presumably a few more vitals and then would be able to send the information to the wearer’s health provider using the integrated RFID(Radio-frequency Identification) chip.
Hmm. Maybe what needs to be developed is a solar snow suit with integrated, tracking, LEDs and health monitoring. That way if you get caught in an avalanche the emergency workers can monitor your vital signs while they find you using GPS. The LEDs could light your cozy little snow cave so that you can monitor how badly you are shaking.
All things considered, we have quite a bit of new solar technology just around the corner that will greatly influence not only our roofing choices but also how we dress. We will be able to dress for "energy", "health", "light" and "paranoia". We will be able to find solar on and in our homes, our health care, and our clothing.
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June 6th, 2009
My name is Frank Hinojosa Electrical supervisor for
J.T.S. Construction Co Inc,
We’re a General Contractor in the State of California
We have several divisions and different trades two
of them I’m the direct supervisor, Electrical and Solar Systems design and installations, We have as
well a Modular Division, Our main customer for our
buildings are all the school districts for the state of
California, for last few years we build an average of
100,000 S/F of buildings per year, our goal is to install solar systems on our buildings in plant
We would like to learn more about your products
and the possibilities working together.
Frank Hinojosa
Mobil # (661) 201-9572
Office # (661) 835-9270 X 37