A research team from India’s Vellore Institute of Technology has designed and tested a glazing system that combines transparent wood (TW) with transparent solar PV (TSPV) modules. Transparent wood is produced by removing light-absorbing lignin from wood and filling the resulting porous structure with a transparent polymer.
“The proposed system comprises two layers: a TSPV panel layer, which generates electricity while maintaining transparency, and a second layer of TW, which would remain transparent and blocks heat gain in the interior portion of the building,” the researchers said. “A thorough investigation was conducted to assess the impacts of these materials on heat gain and illuminance through experimental analysis.”
The researchers tested the proposed system as skylight glazing. They fabricated transparent wood from 1 mm-thick veneers of balsa, poplar, and pine, as well as bamboo. They removed the lignin through chemical treatment before vacuum-infiltrating the remaining structures with transparent epoxy resin.
The researchers then combined the samples with commercially sourced PV modules featuring nominal transparency levels of 0%, 20%, 40%, and 60%. They evaluated 21 configurations, including PV modules without transparent wood and an 8 mm-thick clear-glass reference. The tests involved small cardboard building models measuring 12.5 cm on each side, with a 5.5 cm × 5.5 cm skylight opening.
Halogen lamps simulated hourly solar irradiance calculated for Vellore’s climate, while heat-flux sensors and a lux meter measured heat gain and indoor illuminance. The researchers repeated the heat-gain measurements four times and extrapolated representative-day results across the March-to-October cooling season. They then calculated cooling costs and avoided emissions based on an air-conditioning coefficient of performance (COP) of 3.5, an electricity tariff of $0.08/kWh, and an emissions factor of 0.98 kg CO2/kWh.
“Bamboo emerged as the most effective material in combining with TSPV, achieving the lowest heat gain at all levels of transparency, even at 60%, it has shown 371.78 kWh/m² and exhibited effective cost saving of 20.32 $/m²/year,” the researchers said. “Moreover, it has intense power in mitigating carbon emissions, and it has mitigated as much as 0.058 tCO2/year per annum for the PV module with 60% nominal transparency combined with transparent bamboo.”
The results showed that integrating transparent wood slightly reduced cooling energy demand, with PV modules combined with transparent bamboo consistently recording the lowest operating costs among the TSPV glazing configurations.
“Because of reduced transparencies in 0% and 20%, the operating cost, cost savings and CO2 emission mitigations show similar values to the baseline TSPV glazing systems,” the researchers said.
They presented their findings in “Transparent wood integrated with transparent solar photovoltaic panels for enhanced building energy performance and economic benefits,” which was recently published in Scientific Reports.
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