Solar panels for your home. Solar panels to recharge smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Panels built into emergency batteries, lamps, and basically anything that can harness solar energy. Solar panels are everywhere and increasingly affordable, but Solar Paper offers something different: its design is so thin you can use it as a bookmark in a book.
A couple of days ago a YouTube video appeared in my feed: a Chinese woman suffered a nervous breakdown in the subway because (apparently) her mobile device ran out of battery. The video shows no signs of being fake, and various possibilities about the woman herself have been considered, but what is clear beyond the video is the level of technological dependence we have developed. The battery dilemma is very complex, and despite the efforts of manufacturers, there will always be an occasion when a battery completely betrays the user. Until a revolutionary technology emerges, the most effective tricks remain the classics: portable chargers, emergency batteries, and solar panels. If you spend a lot of time away from home, a solar panel might make a bit more sense, but they aren't exactly portable solutions, unless...
...unless the solar panel is as thin as a bookmark (read: bookmark). That's what the Solar Paper project aims at, developed by the company Yolk. Each panel measures 190 by 90 millimeters, and its thickness is just 1.5 millimeters. All the user has to do to increase power is connect more panels, reaching a maximum of 10W. According to its official presentation, the 5W Solar Paper can fully restore an iPhone 6's battery in two and a half hours, as long as there's plenty of sunlight. A small LCD reports the current level, and the entire Solar Paper design is resistant to liquids, so it shouldn't be damaged by sudden rain. The Solar Paper casing also has magnets to make it easy to attach to metal surfaces.
Solar Paper has taken Kickstarter by storm, and with an initial goal of $50,000, it's already above $220,000. This crowdfunding campaign offers an excellent opportunity to buy the panel at a discount: for the 5W version, the special price is $69, while the 7.5W and 10W editions are $99 and $139 respectively. The first round of deliveries will take place during September.
