The question must always be what the total required material resources and energy for manufacture are. How does this thing work?
The TLSC consists of organic salts that absorb specific non-visible wavelengths of ultraviolet and infrared light, which they then luminesce (glow) as another wavelength of infrared light (also non-visible). This emitted infrared light is guided to the edge of plastic, where thin strips of conventional photovoltaic solar cell convert it into electricity. [Research paper: DOI: 10.1002/adom.201400103 - "Near-Infrared Harvesting Transparent Luminescent Solar Concentrators"]
If you look closely, you can see a couple of black strips along the edges of plastic block. Otherwise, though, the active organic material — and thus the bulk of the solar panel — is highly transparent.
It sounds promising, but these salts: are they rare? What kind of process are they put through? How much energy does making the final product require? Installing it as windows? At what point has it produced enough energy to replace the energy of resource extraction, manufacture, delivery, installation? How long does it last, how disposable is it, etc. etc. Once all that spells feasible, it's still a big question where on the efficiency range the actual mass product will land (they mention anything from 1 to 7 percent), which is a huge difference in how much it actually produces and thus whether the results are going to make a significant difference or amount to little more than 2-3 minutes extra on your cell phone power. (Things like the latter could encourage people to be more wasteful and have a net effect of zero in saving on non-renewable forms of energy.)
But yeah it's totally cool!
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