Sunspan

Sunspan encloses standard silicon cells inside glass tubes held in flexible harnesses. The tubes are aerodynamic and structural, and their curved geometry follows the sun through the day without a single moving part, yielding more energy than a flat panel while carrying their own load. Fewer than one in twenty commercial parking lots has solar on it, not because the sunlight isn't there but because the steel, concrete, and labor to hold panels above cars is roughly 90% of the cost.

Parking lots are the most thoroughly wasted surface in the built environment: paved, unshaded, already wired, already near the load. Solar over them shades the cars, powers the building, and charges what's parked underneath, and it has stayed rare for reasons that are entirely about mounting hardware. Sunspan cuts the balance of system by making the panel the structure.