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This is a plug for research funding which should be provided by the private sector, but will probably come from Obama’s Marxist, John Holdren or useful idiot Chiu, Nobel prize and all. The incident energy on a large window, a meter square on a bright day in the desert with no shade might be as high as one hundred watts, because windows don't track the sun, but that energy is a peak value only possible for for only a few hours. Figure ten percent of that gets converted to electrical energy, which is optimistic. Ten watts per hour for a couple of hours. The cost for connecting windows to a storage facility somewhere in the house is only useful to the union electricians and carpenters who would be required in order for the homeowner to be eligible for the tax subsidy.

Some science is done to learn about the physics or chemistry. This sounds an appeal to the green Marxists currently overseeing the NSF budget to help soak what remains of the private sector and hurry us only on the road to economic disaster and socialist dictatorship. To charge emergency batteries or low power LEDs is a business decision. To really invest in energy why not bribe all the environmental lawyers so that they will have no incentive to obstruct real energy production. Pay them each a million dollars a year to shut up and move to Aspen. Then the talent of our nation can return to what we have taught France, China, Japan, and India to do. Those nations, of course, now own much of our intellectual property in patents and manufacturing expertise, but with a free society we have “The Ultimate Resource” (the name of a study much maligned by Marxists Obama and Ehrlich, written by economist Julian Simon), great minds, whether born here or from China, India or Russia, the ones who chose to become citizens will produce for their chosen nation, unlike Obama, whose goal appears to be to destroy us, and who has never produced anything in his life but a confidence man's hustle.

Even so, it’s still an infant technology.

The biggest step in any new technology has always been the innovations that follow its discovery. After that, things can be improved upon.

For example, the Toyota hybrid technology. When it first came out, Popular Mechanics at the time said that it wasn’t worth buying because it would take 150 000 miles before the savings would pay for the technology. With the price of the technology having probably decreased, because the cost of technology is always decreasing, the improved performance, and the strong increase of the price of gasoline, I’d be willing to bet that it’s nowhere near the 150k miles before the technology has paid for itself now.

Even if the technology won’t be ready for another twenty years, it’s nice to know that they are working on it.

The incident energy on a large window, a meter square on a bright day in the desert with no shade might be as high as one hundred watts,

Your estimate is low.

Note that these are average values from the entire year. Peaks are far higher. Click pic to enlarge.