A team of researchers at England’s Exeter University have created glass bricks with solar cells embedded in them.
Curbed reports that the blocks, named Solar Squared, allow natural light and provide thermal insulation while generating solar power. The blocks are scalable and stackable, and given their energy savings, they can be cheaper than conventional glass blocks over the long run.
Solar Squared’s creators saw their challenge as two-fold: Solar cells are ugly and they also need a lot of surface area to function. “We wanted to overcome these limitations by introducing technologies that become a part of the building’s envelope,” explained Dr. Hasan Baig, one of the researchers behind the design.
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