Swansea University in Wales and Indian steel giant Tata Steel will develop a £20 million project to facilitate homes and businesses self-generate their own power by trapping and storing solar energy through special coatings.
According to UK press reports, ordinary building materials such as steel and glass will be covered with a special coating that traps and stores solar energy. The project, which could provide a third of the UK's renewable energy by 2020, aims to heat and power all sorts of buildings at a fraction of the cost of conventional solar panels in the UK, where there are more than four billion square meters of roofs and facades.
It is thought large buildings could produce 50 times the energy of a wind farm because the energy production would be more consistent.