The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki are collaborating with industrial partners to investigate opportunities to extend integration of visually attractive solar modules into the architecture of building façades.
VTT Technical Research Centre says it has developed a mass production method – based on printing technologies to manufacture patterned organic solar modules – that ‘enables freely customised solar modules to meet the architectural requirements of buildings, and to add value to their visual appearance in addition to energy production’.
The Centre said “Organic solar modules can even form visually attractive multicolour graphical images. Thinness and flexibility allow the modules to be integrated in glass, or adjusted to integrate into a freeform surface in building façades. They can also serve as intelligent interior surfaces that collect energy from indoor lighting, for devices such as sensors that gather information from the surrounding environment as part of ‘Internet of things applications’.
PES Architects, one of the project partners, has developed and designed an innovative building façade concept in which solar modules symbolising ice crystals through Chinese calligraphy are brought into glass façades. The concept was the winning proposal in the design competition for the Sino-Finnish Congress Centre in Nanjing, China.