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Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven
Low-cost perovskite solar cells in a solution to coat almost any surface. Sounds like Solar Electric Paint - Black Power described by science fiction writer Larry Niven in his 1995 short story The Woman in Del Rey Crater.
(Thin-film perovskite examined by Dr. Shuaifeng Hu)
Their new light-absorbing material is, for the first time, thin and flexible enough to apply to the surface of almost any building or common object. Using a pioneering technique developed in Oxford, which stacks multiple light-absorbing layers into one solar cell, they have harnessed a wider range of the light spectrum, allowing more power to be generated from the same amount of sunlight.This ultra-thin material, using this so-called multi-junction approach, has now been independently certified to deliver over 27% energy efficiency, for the first time matching the performance of traditional, single-layer, energy-generating materials known as silicon photovoltaics.
(From Oxford University.)
Larry Niven described it this way:
Black Power, they call it. It turns sunlight into electricity, just like any solar power converter, but you spray it on.
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