How Solar Can Provide Peaking Power

A few days ago, my colleague Lisa Stiles-Shell wondered if solar was well positioned to provide peaking power. Through Futurepundit, I found an article concerning some R&D work being done on organic photovoltaics that, "sheds some light" on the subject:

Global Photonic Energy Corporation (GPEC), developer of organic photovoltaic (OPVtm) technology for ultra-low cost high power solar cells, announced that the company's research partners at Princeton University and the University of Southern California (USC) have achieved a new record in an organic solar cell that is responsive to light in the near infrared (NIR) range of the solar spectrum. NIR radiation is invisible to the human eye.

...

Imagine organic photovoltaics coating windows especially in hot climates. Instead of letting in the infrared frequencies the photovoltaics convert those photons to useful electricity. So instead of heating a building and thereby increasing the demand for air conditioning the photovoltaic coating could keep out heat and turn it into electricity that would power air conditioners.

Technorati tags: Energy, Technology, Economics, Electricity, Solar, Nanotechnology