Summary

A group of scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new solar energy technology which is more efficient and can greatly reduce the carbon dioxide emissions.
Conventionally, scientists use semiconductor materials like silicon to produce solar cells and photovoltatic panels. Portion of the light incident on the semiconductor materials is absorbed to activate the electrons. Electric field(s) within the photovoltalic cells forces the electrons flow in certain direction to generate current. However, the process is too costly to make it a feasible alternative to the electricity form the power grid. The major breakthrough of the new technology is to minimize the solar cell to a postage stamp size and improve the efficiency from the conventional 14% to nearly 80%. The systems consist of lenses that can automatically trace the movement of the sun all the time and let the sunlight incident perpendicularly onto the solar cells. The lenses are incorporated into glass buildings and window panes to provide nearly 50% of the energy needed of the building operation.
In US today, residential and commercial buildings use 2/3 of all electricity and produce 35% of all carbon dioxide emissions, which is a great proportion. Both Anna Dyson, an architectural scientist, and Michael Jensen, a mechanical engineer, confirmed that the new technology is critical to reduce our dependency of fossil fuels and global warming.
The full-size prototype will be installed into the building at the Center for Excellence and Environmental Energy Systems and the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

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The original passage “Mechanical Engineers Create High-tech Solar Panels” is from http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0507-bringing_sunlight_inside.htm