Produce energy, without it being seen.

This is the feat of this glass of a new kind which, under the false air of a perfectly banal glass, actually offers an additional function: it manufactures electricity!

Unveiled last August, this tile conceals in its structure a photovoltaic panel that generates watts as soon as it is exposed to the sun.

So here is the very first transparent solar panel Its development, at the University of Michigan (USA), already promises to be a landmark, as it hints at the possibility of transforming any glass surface into an invisible local energy source.

Enough to allow cars, buildings, houses, bus shelters, mobile phones, etc., to self-feed. All for free, thanks to the photons of the sun.

"Until now, apart from conventional photovoltaic cells, all the tests of discrete solar panels had led to surfaces that were more or less translucent and always colored," says Richard Lunt, the research director behind the work.

Our prototype stands out because it is the first to be exceptionally transparent to the naked eye. Its transparency index already reaches 85%, which is almost as good as a conventional glass (90%)." For the past ten years, the largest solar laboratories (in the United States, France, Germany, etc.) have been working to develop invisible panels.