See Dyesol's value-add clean-energy generating Dye Solar Cell (DSC) technology on prototype steel roofing material from Tata Steel Europe at the Sustainable Building Envelope Centre in Shotton, UK. This video appeared on iTV News' Wales Tonight program on 24 June 2012.
iTV Wales Tonight Transcript: 24/06/2012
iTV Newsreader:
"Wales' biggest private sector employer, Tata, is developing innovative ways of using steel to make buildings self-sufficient in energy. The Company says its Sustainable Building Centre at its Shotton plant on Deeside is at the forefront of how steel will be used in the building trade in the future. Our Business Correspondent Carol Green reports."
iTV Business Correspondent Carol Green:
"This is the heavy end of Tata's business in Wales, making steel for everything from cars to tin cans. But the Company is looking to the future and developing new technologies at its Deeside plant. It's all about using steel to generate energy and turn buildings effectively into power stations."
Robert Dangerfield, Tata Steel:
"Everybody's familiar with the blast furnaces, those iconic structures that are in the South, but where does it go from there? The answer is a lot of that material is coming to Shotton where its being organically coated and its being galvanized and its being turned into these innovative construction products. Products could go in the community in industrial buildings, commercial buildings, large public buildings, but also be on my and your roof at home."
iTV Business Correspondent Carol Green:
"The idea is to future proof steel. Making sure the product is relevant in a world where the drive to save energy and carbon is getting stronger."
Daniel Pillai, Sustainable Buildings Envelope Centre:
"Tata Steel supplies one hundred million square meters of roofing and wall material into the industry. Now if we could convert 10% of that supply into this energy generating device and that device were to have 10% efficiency in gathering the solar energy and delivering it to the building, that would represent something to the equivalent of one nuclear power reactor year on year."
iTV Business Correspondent Carol Green:
"A traditional product is being given a new lease of life which should deliver a commercial boost to the business. Carol Green, iTV Wales News."
-end of news clip transcript-
Dye Sensitized Solar Cell technology is a third generation photovoltaic technology that differs substantially from first generation, silicon solar cells, and second generation, thin film technologies - it uses discrete layers of materials (dyes, titanium dioxide nanoparticles, and catalysts) that amount to a thickness around 50 to 100 times thinner than the human hair.
The advantages of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell technology include the use of non-toxic, widely-available raw materials, lower energy and lower cost manufacturing processes, and its excellent performance in real-world, lower-light solar conditions, i.e. cloudy days, hazy/polluted days, dappled light, shade, dawn and dusk. Plus DSC offers a range of aesthetic options including variations in coloration and transparency which offer beautiful solutions for power generating glass in the building integrated photovoltaics sector.