☀️ From Consumer to Prosumer

31 Dec

Summary:

Photovoltaic Glass is a subset of building-integrated photovoltaic technology which looks to create construction materials that can produce energy. A replacement for glass, the technology has the potential to become ubiquitous across our built environment and massively increase solar energy production.

The Problem(s)

Energy is constantly a paradox for humanity. Though it surrounds us, we have yet to work out how to harness this abundance for individual, social and planetary health.

1. Reliance on linear energy flows

Currently, our energy systems rely upon extracting and burning our finite fossil fuels. This is a linear system. On a finite planet, this by definition cannot last forever. What would it mean to synergise with life's circular energy flows?

2. Concentration of wealth & power

This energy system has concentrated wealth and power in the hands of oil-rich countries and a select few companies. How would that power balance shift if we all had energy independence at individual and community levels?

3. The Jevon's Paradox

Jevon's paradox describes the observable phenomenon that as we create more efficient systems and technologies, our resource consumption increases. This perverse outcome means that efficiency gains will not lead to consumption reduction (at least on their own). In a world of energy abundance, Jevon's Paradox, if left unaddressed, drives the final feasting of all the world's resources.

The Scape

Imagine in the not-so-distant future, you're monthly energy receipts are normally net gain. You are more producer than consumer, and the grid pays you for your contribution.

Waking up, your phone has charged on a windowsill during the early hours of sunlight. You head outside to pick up some things for breakfast. The local market is, in fact, local. The majority of the fruit and veg have been grown in the vertical farms less than a mile from your street.

While these transformations are the visible upside of a world with increasing energy abundance and have been enabled by a synergy of renewable energy innovations, one of the most catalytic technologies hides in plain sight: Photovoltaic Glass.

PV glass is now ubiquitous across all built environments. The glass pavements are producing, the buildings are producing, our phone screens are producing. Anything which once was simple glass is now solar glass. Seamlessly replacing its predecessor, functionality and aesthetics have been unified. The complaints that people aimed at 'ugly' solar panels no longer hold.

In Europe, buildings were responsible for about 40% of the energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. Now they are net producers of clean energy.

What is PV glass? And how has it risen to our energy challenges?

Photovoltaic Glass is birthed from an original design challenge: transparency versus efficiency. The purpose of the solar cells in PV glass is to convert photons (sunlight) into electrons (energy). This requires absorbing the light aka. reducing transparency. The higher the transparency, the less the energy produced.

The innovation has come with developing solar cells that only absorb the light which is invisible to the human eye. Thus the trade-off between transparency and efficiency is partially circumvented. The space is now filled with a variety of options that bring different ratios of efficiency, performance in varying levels of sunlight and transparency.

The PV glass breakthrough has been unlocked partially thanks to two synergistic technologies.

The first, Electrodynamic Screens (EDS), play the crucial role of up-keeping solar efficiency. Solar panels initially came up against the issue of dust build-up reducing production capacity. EDS technology uses an electric field to charge dust particles with static electricity and then sweep them off the surface of glass.

The second is equally crucial. The rise of renewable energy has massively ramped up the consumption of critical materials. Photovoltaic technologies require copper, silicon and often rarer metals like Indium and Cadmium. To ensure that we aren't replacing one linear extraction of resources (fossil fuels) with another (critical materials for renewable energy technologies), large levels of investment have been directed to recycling technologies that recover high-value raw materials from the photovoltaic industry.

This is just one example of our wider push to circularise our consumption patterns and energy flows. In a world of energy abundance, extraction and resource consumption become almost frictionless. The imperative of circularity therefore becomes ever more urgent.

For example, the potential energy production from PV glass in the USA would in theory satisfy 40% of the country’s energy demands. In practice, Jevon's Paradox makes this outcome less likely. Jevon's Paradox describes the counterintuitive phenomenon that, as efficiency increases, we end up with net gains in our consumption. In other words, while efficiency is a desirable goal, it often ends up with the perverse outcome of increased resource usage.

Society has had to 'bind' Jevon's paradox to prevent the abundance of energy from opening the doors to the final ravaging of planetary resources.

Firstly, we have economic binds on what we can use energy to do. Linear economies are only allowed in very special cases where we have yet to identify circular replacements. They are very tightly regulated and are slowly being phased out.

Instead, our abundant energy is being channelled into social goods.

Energy-intensive solutions such as urban agriculture have been massively scaled, making space for ecological restoration of damaged landscapes previously dominated by intensive agriculture. Public goods from clean and affordable transport to clean water are more universal than ever before.

Secondly, whilst the shift to energy abundance has returned power from corporations and oil-rich countries to citizens, it has also led to a mass reorganisation of labour. For most, this has meant more free time. In the absence of a 5/6-day work-week, a labour-consumer society might be expected to dedicate its new-found free time to consumption. Binding these behaviour patterns has required large investment at the level of community. Spaces for creativity and culture have become the antidote to easy-consumption.

In an age of abundance, the consumption fixation born out of scarcity becomes meaningless and destructive. Abundance demands we focus on living.

Downstream Value Creation

Energy Independence for citizen and community
- The photovoltaic glass revolution has meant that individuals and communities are largely self-sufficient in energy terms. This has driven significant shifts toward more decentralised and localised economies.
Abundance of Energy for Social Goods
- With an abundance of cheap, clean energy, energy-intensive social goods such as vertical farming have become viable solutions.
Binding the Jevon's Paradox
- Through a combination of circular innovation, high levels of regulation and investment into social capital, Jevon's paradox is prevented and our abundant energy systems are utilised to improve the quality of life, NOT the quantity of consumption. The Jevon's Paradox in the context of energy abundance has demanded we mature beyond consumerism.