Solar Textiles

Most photovoltaic (PV) installations utilise heavy conventional glass or polycarbonate panels, and even newly developed thin plastic or metal films for PV cell use may fracture during both construction and application. Textile fabrics, the most widespread flexible materials in everyday use, offer a solution to the need for lightweight, flexible solar PV generators. Solar Textiles: The Flexible Solution for Solar Power is about the incorporation and operation of solar cells on textile fabrics. The combination of textile manufacturing and solar PV cell technology opens up further avenues for both the textile and semiconductor industries. Thus, this book reflects the progressively increasing commercial interest in PV cell technology and the versatility that their integration in textiles provides.Discusses textiles as electrical substratesExplains the photovoltaic effect and associated parametersOffers special consideration of solar cells on textilesCompares fibres and fabrics and how to implement PV activity on a textileDescribes manufacturing methods outside of semiconductor technologyIncludes applications open only to textilesThis work is aimed at textile technologists, electronic engineers, solar technologists, civil engineers and designers in building fabrics and architecture.