GLEN ALLEN, VA – In a newly released report, NanoMarkets, Glen Allen, VA, states that smart coatings offer solar panel makers ways to increase efficiency, lower costs and create higher value-added products. Since these are the three main factors determining success in the photovoltaics (PV) industry, NanoMarkets believes that sales of smart coatings to the PV sector, which are negligible now, will reach $504 million in 2016, growing to $847 million in 2018.

Self-cleaning coatings deposited on PV panels promise both higher panel performance and lower maintenance costs. Self-cleaning glass is already available from major glass manufacturers, so no great leaps in technology are required to deploy it in the PV space. NanoMarkets predicts that by 2016, self-cleaning smart coatings sold into the PV sector will reach more than $150 million in revenues.

Electrochromic and similar on-demand-tinting smart coatings will generate $222 million from sales to the PV sector in 2016. NanoMarkets believes that by then, lucrative opportunities will have arrived in this sector through the melding of BIPV glass panels with electrochromic smart windows.

Thermochromic smart coatings are also expected to play a role in PV. These can be used to turn panels “off” under extreme heat conditions that could permanently damage them.

Additional details about the report, “Smart Coatings in Photovoltaics,” are available at www.nanomarkets.net.