Israeli company demonstrates honeycomb solar cells for buildings

Combining solar technology with architecture always inspires endless creativity. A novel design at the Intersolar North America exhibition caught people’s attention: replacing the building’s exterior wall with honeycomb-structured solar panels.

The solar panel is named as its shape, called BeeHive PV, from a new Israeli company SolarOr. SolarOr, which has just completed the design, hopes to attract investors and partners to bring it to market and carry out demonstration projects.

Chief Operating Officer Avi Sasi told reporters at the Intersolar booth that the beehive photovoltaics are the first product of SolarOr; the company was founded in December 2007 and hopes to raise $5 million in funding.

Sasi showed reporters a small sample of the panel, which consists of a double-layer glass sandwich that looks like a cross-section of a honeycomb. The honeycomb is made of polymethyl methacrylate, and each hexagonal peak chamber contains a silicon cell. Sasi said the hexagonal design concentrates 2.5 times more sunlight than ordinary sunlight.

Assuming the conversion rate of the battery is 14%, then one square meter of solar panels can generate 140 watts of electricity. The charm of combining solar technology with architecture is that it can both insulate and generate clean energy.

However, this design cannot be used immediately. The reason is that architects have always been very demanding about the appearance of solar equipment used in buildings. The ordinary glass walls of commercial buildings give people a refreshing feeling. Usually these glasses are colored because they can reduce some light and heat. At the same time, these colors can give designers more room for creativity.