Welsh steel roofs to produce electricity
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- 2 Nov 2010
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Swansea University and Tata Steel are joining forces to produce sheets of steel coated with a light-sensitive film, sheets which would be used as electricity-generating warehouse roofing. It is estimated that the technology could produce a staggering “third of the UK’s renewable energy by 2020”.
Dr Dave Worsley, a reader in the materials research centre at Swansea University’s School of Engineering said: “We have been collaborating with the steel industry for decades (…) Until now we haven’t really paid much attention to how we can make the outside of the steel capable of doing something other than looking good. One of our engineering doctorate students was researching how sunlight interacts with paint and degrades it, which led to us developing a new photovoltaic method of capturing solar energy.”
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