solar roof – Impact Lab

By Futurist Thomas Frey

I’ve been obsessed with a problem that shouldn’t still exist: why does installing solar panels remain so expensive, slow, and ugly that most homeowners never bother?

The answer isn’t the panels—those are cheap now. It’s the installation labor, the structural modifications, the permitting hassles, and frankly, the aesthetics. Bolting rectangular panels onto your roof looks like you’re trying to power a Mars base, not a suburban home.

But what if a robot could 3D print a solar roof directly onto your house in a day, creating a seamless, beautiful, waterproof energy-generating surface that costs a fraction of current solutions? What if you didn’t even need to remove your existing shingles?

This isn’t science fiction. The technology exists today. We just haven’t assembled it correctly yet.

We need buildings in which to live, but crafting those buildings is making it harder to live on this planet. As much as 10% of global carbon emissions come from the production of concrete. One ton of CO2 is generated by making one ton of cement, which is made from limestone and a few other things heated to an extremely high temperature.

But what if concrete could generate its own energy? The era of photovoltaic concrete may be getting closer. Photovoltaics, which work by converting light to energy via semiconducting, are starting to migrate from solar panels into the building materials themselves.

Continue reading… “The future of construction may be concrete that generates its own electricity”

Tag: solar roof

Using Robots to 3D Print a Solar Roof On Your House

The future of construction may be concrete that generates its own electricity