PV Solar Electricity as a globally major future electricity provider to boost the glass industry immensely

Dr. Winfried Hoffmann

Glass has been used since many centuries as a building material, mainly as a light transmitting window with sometimes extraordinary examples of integrated art, like the magnificent windows in our cathedrals. Only in the last few decades, however, we have seen a tremendous increase in value when special depositions of thin films have extended the usage of glass to far more than just being transparent: architectural glass, specified to the special needs of the respective customer, helps to preserve the comfort in a house, while using less or even no energy for air conditioning. This can be done with coated glass that keeps the heat in the rooms in cold environments or the infrared part of the solar radiation out of buildings in hot environments with a lot of sunshine. The energy consumption in the building sector takes still a substantial part of our energy bill. There has been a considerable improvement in using much less fossil fuel for heating purposes over the last 40 years due to the introduction of passive houses and the introduction of solar thermal systems for heating water

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The Authors

Dr. Winfried Hoffmann VP and Chief Technology Officer Applied Materials Dr. Winfried Hoffmann graduated in physics and did his PhDthesis in biophysics. He joined the just formed photovoltaic R & D group for thin film solar cells of NUKEM in 1979 and took over its leade... Read more