Solar Venetian Blinds Bring Solar Lighting Indoors

As useful as natural light is to a home, there are times when you just don’t want it shining through. Particularly on hot summer days. Belgian designer Vincent Gerkens’ entry in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition asks us, why just block out that sunlight when you could capture it for use at night?

His recreation of classic venetian blinds turns them from solar blockers into solar panels. Gerkens’ version, called “Blight” (blind + light), lines the outer half of each panel with flexible solar cells, which collect solar energy during the day when the blinds are all or partially shut. At night, that energy is transferred to the inside of each panel, where an electroluminescent foil provides energy-efficient light for the indoors.

Although the name is a bit questionable in my opinion (I get it, but c’mon…blight?), the idea has real merit. As Gerkens put it to Inhabitat; “With Blight, we have not produced a new object, we have just [re]created the design of an everlasting product: the Venetian blind. We…add a little technology to give it a new function.”

Blight is certainly a fresh twist on solar lighting and an ingenious way to bring an outdoor product indoors. And it was just one of fifty top entries at this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Conference. Check out the rest here.

Posted on November 23rd in Solar Products by Dan.