Generating electricity from solar powered home curtains
I came across this item in Slashdot which took my interest, mainly because it has to be one of the dumbest ideas I have heard of.
This reminds me somewhat of the old “Irish Invention” jokes in which one of them involves a torch powered by solar energy - the joke being that if you had solar energy to run the torch, why would you need the torch for light. Of course, now we have solar powered garden lights which store up energy during the day and emit light at night from the electricity stored. But this idea is nothing like that.
The problem is, people draw their curtains during the day to let light in, and close them at night - so during the optimal time to be catching the suns rays, the curtains are bunched up to the side of the window frame, and at night, are fully extended (at the optimal position for catching light) but the sun has gone. Sure, I guess if you live in a very warm environment such as Australia in the summer, you may have your curtains closed during the day and have airconditioning on, but the amount of electricity generated would not amount to enough to cover what would be consumed by air conditioning anyway.
Of course, there is also the fact that the curtains are draped vertically in the window, not the ideal position to catch available sunlight during the day, as the sun is most often directly above. Surely time would be better spent looking for a way to create photovoltaic roofing tiles or something of the like…