Last summer, I was hiking through the Austrian mountains. And there, on top, I saw this beautiful, stone, remote hut, and it had solar panels on it. And every time I see solar panels, I get very enthusiastic. It's this technology that takes sunlight, which is free and available, and turns that into electricity. So this hut, in the middle of nowhere, on a beautiful location, was self-sufficient. But why do solar panels always have to be so ugly?
去年夏天,我在奥地利的山上远足。 在山顶上,我看到了 远处漂亮的石头小屋, 上面还有太阳能面板。 每当我看到太阳能面板 就会十分兴奋。 那是一种将免费又易得的太阳光 转变成电能的技术。 因此这个位于偏远美景处的小屋 是能源自给自足的。 但为什么太阳能面板总是非得这么丑?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
My name is Marjan Van Aubel and I'm a solar designer. I work in the triangle of design, sustainability and technology. I strive for extreme efficiency, meaning that I develop materials that expand in size or work with solar cells that use the properties of colors to generate electricity. My work is in museums all over the world, such as MoMA. And, I mean, it all went quite well, but it always felt that something was missing.
我叫玛里安·凡·奥贝尔, 是一个太阳能设计师。 我从设计、可持续性和技术 三个方面展开工作, 我努力提高效率, 这意味着我要研发能拓展尺寸的材料, 或研发利用不同色彩的 光线的性能来发电的 太阳能电池。 我在世界各地的博物馆工作, 如纽约现代艺术博物馆。 一切进展都很顺利, 但我总觉得缺少点什么。
And it was, until I read the book called the "Solar Revolution," where it says that within one hour we receive enough sunlight to provide the world with enough electricity for an entire year. One hour. And since then, I realized I just want to focus on solar. Scientists all over the world have been focusing on making solar panels more efficient and cheaper. So the price of solar has dropped enormously. And this is because China started producing them on a large scale. And also their efficiency has increased a lot. They now even have an efficiency of 44.5 percent.
直到我读了《太阳能革命》这本书, 书上说,地球上一小时所接收的太阳光 全部用来发电的话,就可以供全世界 用上一年。 仅仅一个小时。 从此以后,我意识到 我只想专注于太阳能。 全世界的科学家都 致力于把太阳能面板 变得更高效,更廉价。 太阳能的价格已经大幅下降。 这是因为中国开始大规模生产它们。 同时它们的效率也提升了很多, 现在的转化率甚至能达到44.5%。
But if you think about the image of solar cells, it's kind of stayed the same for the last 60 years. It's still this technology just stacked onto something. And solar cells need to be much better integrated into our environment. Climate change is the biggest problem of our time. And we can't rely on the others -- the government, the engineers -- to make positive changes. We all can contribute towards change.
但如果你想一想太阳能电池的样子, 它在过去的60年里都没怎么变过, 仍然只是堆放在别的东西上的科技。 太阳能电池需要更好地 融入到我们的环境中。 气候变化是我们这个时代最大的问题。 并且我们不能依赖其他人—— 政府、工程师 来带来积极的改变。 我们每个人都能推动这个改变。
Like I said, I'm a designer and I would like to change things through design. Let me give you some examples of my work. I'm collaborating with Swarovski, the crystal company. And if you cut crystals in a certain way, you are able to bend and direct the light onto a certain place. So I use these crystals to focus the light onto a solar panel, making them more efficient, but using aesthetics. So you take the solar crystal with you in the light, there's a battery in the solar cell, you put it in a docking station and you are able to power these chandeliers. So you're literally bringing the light indoors.
就像我说的,我是设计师, 我喜欢通过设计改变一些东西。 这是我工作的一些案例。 我正在和水晶公司施华洛世奇合作。 如果你以某种方式切割水晶, 就可以使光线折射并指向某个地方。 我就用这些水晶来把光线 聚焦到太阳能面板上。 只是运用了一点美学, 就使它们更有效率。 当你在太阳光下 拿着这个太阳能水晶, 太阳能电池中有块电池, 你把它放在一个扩展坞, 就可以为这些枝形吊灯供电。 事实上你将光线带到了室内。
I got completely hooked on solar when I came across this technology called dye-sensitized solar cells, colored solar cells, and they are based on photosynthesis in plants. Where the green chlorophyl converts light into sugar for plants, these cells convert light into electricity. The best thing is, they even work indoors. So different colors have different efficiency, depending on their place on the color spectrum. So, for example, red is more efficient than blue. So if I hear this as a designer: a colored surface, a glass colored surface, color that's mostly just used for esthetics, now gets an extra function and is able to harvest electricity, I think, where can we apply this, then?
让我对太阳能着迷的是这样一种技术, 它叫做染料敏化太阳能电池, 彩色的太阳能电池, 它们是摸拟了植物的光合作用。 就像植物利用叶绿素 将太阳光转化成糖, 这些电池能将太阳能转化成电。 最棒的是,它们甚至能在室内工作。 不同颜色的电池效能是不一样的, 完全取决于它们在光谱中的位置。 例如红色就比蓝色的效能要大。 所以如果我作为一个设计师听到说: 在一个彩色的面,一个彩色的玻璃面上, 色彩通常只是为了美观, 现在要加上一个额外的发电功能, 我会想,该如何做到这一点呢?
This is Current Table, where the whole tabletop consists of these colored solar cells. There are batteries in the legs where you can charge your phone through USB ports. And in my work, it's always very important, the balance between efficiency and aesthetics. So that's why the table is orange, because it is a very stable color for indoors. And this is always the most asked question I get: "OK, great, but how many phones can I charge from this, then?" And before I go to this complicated answer of like, "Well, where is the table, does it have enough light, is it next to a window?" The table now has sensors that read the light intensity of the room. So through an app we developed you can literally follow how much light it's getting, and how full the battery is. I'm actually proud, because yesterday we installed a table at Stichting Doen's offices in Amsterdam and, right at this moment, our Queen Maxima is charging a phone from this table. It's cool.
这是一张电流桌, 整个桌面都铺满了 彩色的太阳能电池板。 桌腿上装有电池, 可以通过USB接口给你的手机充电。 在我的工作中,一直都很重要的一点, 就是效能和美学之间的平衡。 这也解释了为什么这张桌子是橙色的, 因为它在室内是一个很稳定的颜色。 而我被问得最多的问题是: “我能同时给几部手机充电呢?” 以前我会给出 一个很复杂的回答,比如 “这得看桌子摆在哪,是否光照充足, 它是在靠窗的位置吗?” 但现在桌子上有传感器 能检测室内光线强度。 因此通过我们开发的一个应用程序, 你就能看到它获得了多少光照, 以及电池的电量。 我很自豪,因为昨天 我们在 Stichting Doen 基金会 位于阿姆斯特丹的 办公室里装了一张桌子, 而此时此刻,我们的 马克西玛王后正在通过 这张桌子给她的手机充电。 太酷了。
(Applause)
(掌声)
So the more surface you have, the more energy you can harvest. These are Current Windows, where we replaced all windows in a gallery in London, in Soho, with this modern version of stained glass. So people from the street could come and charge their phones through the window ledges. So I'm giving extra functions to objects. A window doesn't have to be just a window anymore. It can also function as a little power station. So, here I am, talking about how much I love solar, but I don't have solar panels on my roof. I live in the center of Amsterdam, I don't own the house and it's a monument, so it's not possible and not allowed.
所以表面积越大, 就可以收获越多的能量。 这些是电流窗户, 我们将伦敦苏荷的 一家画廊所有的窗户 都换成了这种现代的彩色玻璃。 因此街上的人们能走进来通过窗台 给他们的手机充电。 我正在给物体加上额外的功能。 窗户也不再仅仅是窗户了。 它能变成一个小小的发电站。 虽然我在这里大谈我对太阳能的喜爱, 但是我家屋顶却并没有安放太阳能板。 我住在阿姆斯特丹的市中心, 我住的不是自己的房子, 并且它是一座古建, 所以不能也不被允许安装太阳能。
So how can you make solar cells more accessible and for everyone, and not only for the people that can afford a sustainable lifestyle? We now have the opportunity to integrate solar on the place where we directly need it. And there are so many amazing technologies out there. If I look around now, I see every surface as an opportunity. For example, I was driving in the train through the Westland, the area in the Netherlands with all the greenhouses. There I saw all this glass and thought, what if we integrate those with transparent solar glass? What if we integrate traditional farming that requires a lot of energy together with high-tech and combine those?
那么如何才能让每个人 都用上太阳能电池, 而不仅仅是那些负担得起 可持续生活方式的人? 我们现在有机会 将太阳能运用在我们直接需要的地方。 并且已经拥有了很多很棒的技术。 我现在放眼望去, 看到每个表面都是机会。 例如,我正坐火车穿过韦斯特兰, 荷兰的所有温室都位于这一地区。 我在这里看到这些玻璃然后就在想, 如果我们将这些都换成 透明的太阳能玻璃会怎样? 如果我们将需要很多能量的 传统农业 与高科技相结合会是怎样?
With this idea in mind, I created Power Plant. I had a team of architects and engineers, but let me first explain how it works. We use transparent solar glass to power its indoor climate. We use hydroponics that pumps around nutrified water, saving 90 percent of water usage. By stacking up in layers, you are able to grow more yield per square meter. Extra light, besides sunlight, coming from these colored LED lights also enhances plant growth. As more and more people will live in big cities, by placing Power Plants on the rooftops you don't have to fly it in from the other side of the world, you are able to grow it on the location itself. Well, the big dream is to build these in off-grid places -- where there's no access to water, electricity -- as an independent ecosystem.
带着脑海中的这些想法, 我创建了 Power Plant。 我有一支建筑师和工程师组成的团队, 但是让我先介绍一下它是怎么运作的。 我们利用透明的太阳能玻璃 来提升室内的温度。 我们使用水栽法, 用水泵来提供营养水, 可以节省 90% 的用水量。 通过层层堆叠, 每平方米的产量得到了提升。 除阳光外,这些彩色 LED 灯提供的额外光源, 也能促进植物的生长。 随着越来越多的人住进大城市, 通过在屋顶安装 Power Plant 你不必再从地球的另一端 将绿植空运过来, 你可以直接种植它们。 当然我最大的梦想是 将它建在离网的地方, 那里没有水和电, 它自成一个独立的生态系统。
For this year's Design Biennial, I created the first four-meter high model of the power plant, so you could come in and experience how plants grow. So it's a double harvest of sunlight, so both for the solar cells and for the plants. It's like a future botanical garden, where we celebrate all these modern technologies. And the biggest compliment I got was, "But where are the solar panels?" And that's when I think design really works, when it becomes invisible and you don't notice it.
为了今年的设计双年展, 我建造了首个 4 米高的 Power Plant 模型, 你可以过来感受一下 植物是如何生长的。 它能够双重利用太阳光, 既能为太阳能电池, 又能为植物本身捕获能量。 这看起来就像是一个未来的植物园。 我们在这里为所有 这些现代的技术而欢呼。 而我获得的最大称赞 就是“太阳能板在哪?” 我认为只有当它变得无形, 你注意不到它的存在时, 设计才算是真正发挥作用了。
I believe in solar democracy: solar energy for everyone, everywhere. My aim is to make all surfaces productive. I want to build houses where all the windows, curtains, walls, even floors are harvesting electricity. Think about this on a big scale: in cities, there are so many surfaces. The sun is still available for everyone. And by integrating solar on the place where we need it, we now have the opportunity to make solar cells accessible for everyone. I want to bring solar close to the people with you, but beautiful and well designed.
我信仰太阳能民主: 人人可用太阳能,处处能用太阳能。 我的目标是让所有的 表面能被高效利用。 我想建造出所有的窗户、窗帘、墙壁, 甚至地板都能发电的房子。 放眼一下: 在城市中,有如此多的表面。 每个人都仍能被太阳光普照。 并且通过将太阳能 导到我们需要的地方, 我们现在有机会让每个人 都拥有太阳能电池。 我想将太阳能带到每个人的身边, 而且是美观的,精心设计过的。
Thank you.
谢谢。