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The solution is Energy Glass - glass which produces DC power. It is currently in production for an apartment complex North Dakota, which - in spite of the climate - will be entirely off the grid.

Energy Glass Puts Thomas Edison’s Vision Back on the Table

As electrical technology advanced in the latter half of the 19th century, scientists and engineers were racing to develop the most efficient means of providing electric power to buildings. Thomas Edison, a pioneer in this arena as he was in many others, favored a direct current (dc) solution over one featuring alternating current (ac). As Edison saw it, a dc design was safer and easier to distribute than an ac solution, with motors that operated with more starting torque and greater efficiency and lacked that annoying 60 Hz “buzz” associated with ac systems.

Edison met with early success as he lit up neighborhoods in London and New York with his dc design, but efforts to expand exposed the system’s significant drawback. It required a dc generating source within a mile of the final destination to be effective, while ac power could be distributed over long distances using transformers. In the interests of expediency, the advantages of dc power within a building were sacrificed to support large area transmission efficiency outside the buildings.

Fast-forward to today. Energy Glass transforms light into dc power. A pane of Energy Glass might power an LED lamp. Sheathe an entire structure in Energy Glass and you’ve created a potent dc power generator. Twelve decades after Edison’s pioneering efforts, dc power delivery is back on the table.

And just in time. While many building systems rely on ac power, the devices we use every day are already on low-level dc power. Converting ac power to the dc power they consume wastes a lot of energy.

A modern building equipped with Energy Glass promises to deliver power directly to every dc system in the building—laptops, computer routers, cell phones, landlines, LED lighting, security systems, and even coffee pots and microwaves—with energy to spare. Excess power might be stored for later use, converted to ac power for the balance of the building’s energy needs or sold back to the utilities for a profit – especially when the building is not in use. It’s not hard to imagine transitioning all internal ac systems to dc power over time.

Energy Glass is a real game-changer. Edison would have loved it.