The future of solar-powered houses is clear

[MindMover]

The future of solar-powered houses is clear. People could live in glass houses and look at the world through rose-tinted windows while reducing their carbon emissions by 50 percent thanks to QUT Institute of Sustainable Resources research.

Professor John Bell said QUT had worked with a Canberra-based company Dyesol, which is developing transparent solar cells that act as both windows and energy generators in houses or commercial buildings.

He said the solar cell glass would make a significant difference to home and building owners’ energy costs and could in fact generate excess energy that could be stored on onsold.

Professor Bell said the glass was one of a number of practical technologies that would help combat global warming which was a focus of research at the ISR.

“The transparent solar cells have a faint reddish hue but are completely see-through,” Professor Bell said.
“The solar cells contain titanium dioxide coated in a dye that increases light absorption.

http://phys.org/news127042045.html

[RC]

1. Glass is a reasonable good conductor of heat.

When it is -35°F, on a star lit night, what's to keep the pipes from freezing? Natural gas? And what of over night guests, as seen by neighbors?
Have these been thought of?

But it is easy to build a house that doesn’t need powered cooling or heating in Queensland.”

Elsewhere, probably not so easy.

[MindMover]

2. I don't think the intent is to build the entire house out of glass.....