Printed Electronics in Buildings: Control, Lighting, and Energy Generation
Printed electronics in buildings: Control, lighting and energy generation
Today, buildings play a key role in the energy transition. Their potential for saving and generating energy is being exploited and expanded. The roof and façade of houses offers potentially large surfaces for energy harvesting, e.g. via building-integrated solar modules. Local energy storage through advanced batteries can also be integrated into new houses at the design and construction stage. In addition, smart sensor systems can improve the energy efficiency of buildings.
A domain of printed electronics here is the lighting sector. As in automotive engineering, ultra-flat and flexible OLED lighting enables new design forms for lighting solutions in buildings. Thanks to their enormous flexibility, they can, for instance, be used for surface-integrated lighting solutions, act as a striking design object or enable exciting new combinations of signage and lighting.
Building materials incorporating printed sensors and RFID components are part of the megatrend towards smart buildings. These materials can be used to continuously measure and transmit data on factors such as material quality, temperature, outgassing and leaks directly within the masonry.
Printed sensors enable, for example, ultra-flat motion, temperature and humidity sensors that can be discretely integrated—even right in the masonry. When combined with the building automation system, building parameters such as temperature, humidity and degassing can be monitored almost everywhere.
Printed electronics opened up new horizons with regard to the energy supply for buildings: In the form of flat printed solar cells (OPV) attached to external surfaces, this technology is one important answer to the question of future energy generation. Thanks to the enormous flexibility of printed solar cells, complete roofs and facades as well as individual surfaces and sections indoors and outdoors can be used to generate clean energy from sunlight.
Electrochromic windows help air-conditioned buildings consume less energy for cooling in the summer by automatically adjusting their light transmission to the amount of sunlight. They also support the most comfortable indoor climate possible.
Another area of application is the smart home environment.
New horizons from battery supply to solar power generation
With the Internet of Things, more and more smart objects are going to find their way into everyday life—small and miniature everyday devices and objects that offer a multitude of new functions thanks to integrated IT functionalities and Internet connection. Printed electronics play a key role here, for example in storing the required power, since conventional batteries and coin cells are often unsuitable due to lack of space. Instead, increasingly sophisticated printed thin-film batteries are used.
For products that are only used once, there is an additional advantage. While coin cells here almost always provide a multiple of the energy that is needed (and must additionally be disposed of), printed batteries are designed to offer the exact capacity for the specific energy requirement.
Printed and ultra-flat supercapacitors are increasingly popular. They are particularly useful when the energy for operating a smart object is obtained from the immediate surroundings of the object, for example from air movement or radio waves.
New dimensions in energy generation are also opening up applications of organic and printed photovoltaics (OPV). In the form of ultra-thin and highly flexible small-format solar cell films, they generate power for mobile devices, for example. In case of large-scale production and when integrated into buildings, for instance in exterior facades, they can make a significant contribution to the emission-free energy generation. Due to their enormous flexibility, they adjust to almost any shape of building and object—and they can even be used as a conscious design element.