solargaps smart solar blinds power your household devices

although solar power is one of the most popular sources of renewable energy, solar panels can be expensive, difficult to install, and rather impractical if you live in an apartment with no roof. with this in mind, solargaps have created their smart solar blinds to open the window to green energy for anyone and everyone. the smart blinds automatically track the sun throughout the day, generating electricity from its energy to power your home devices. the ukranian startup even claim that the energy from the blinds can go so far as to reduce electricity costs by 70 percent.

solargap solar blinds could reduce your electricity bills by 70 percent
images courtesy of solargap

the solargaps smart blinds turn automatically throughout the day to collect the maximum amount of energy from the sun. one square meter of the blinds produces up to 100 watts of electricity when placed on the exterior of glass windows, meaning that a standard 2 M window provides enough energy to charge up a laptop. solargaps invisions that a large office building covered in solar blinds would be able to run completely off the grid.

the blinds are covered with photovoltaic modules

solargaps’ founder yevgen erik had long been installing blinds in office centers and building eco-houses during his time as a construction worker. the idea of combining solar panels with blinds struck erik, who immediately began to research the project. ‘I spent one day in the fields out of the city studying how the sunflowers followed the sun,’ erik explains. ‘then, I carried out research which proved that although solar modules are the cheapest among all other sources of energy, they are the most effective ones.’

the blinds can also be controlled manaually

the smartphone app can be used to control the blinds, and monitor their production of power. you can close the blinds fully when you need a bit of shade—yet they’ll return to their optimal sun-tracking position after you have left the room for at least five minutes. the smart blinds only need to be plugged into a power outlet, and the internal inverter starts converting solar energy into electricity that can be used by your home devices. the generated power can also be stored in a spare battery for later use.

the smartphone app can be used to check how much power the blinds are producing