Project Profile: Will a window one day power the building you’re sitting in?

Concordia researchers are developing technologies that may change how we see — and use — everyday structures

A window that lets sunlight in. Sounds like a pretty basic technology, right? Now imagine a window that, at the same time, generates electricity and is integrated into a smart building capable of automatically responding to minute changes in temperature both inside and outside its walls.

That is the dream of Andreas Athienitis, a professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering and the scientific director of the Smart Net-Zero Energy Buildings Strategic Network, a pan-Canadian research initiative focused on making buildings capable of generating as much electricity as they consume. A key tool in this effort is photovoltaic technology: the use of semiconductors to directly convert sunlight into electrical current and heat.

Read the Concordia article