Even though the sun is the most energetic powerplant we know in our solar system, we have difficulties to harvest its energy. Conventional solar cells are still expensive because a lot of energy has to be invested to build them. Researchers from MIT have now found a way to use lightly coloured, but transparent glass to collect sunlight and redirect it to solar cells located at the edge of the glass. "With this technique, 100 times fewer solar cells are needed to produce the same amount of energy", says Marc Baldo from MIT, one of the inventors.

[Guardian]