As a city planner, I would like to incorporate the same idea of France's new solar panel law that requires new buildings to place solar panels or plants partially covering the roof. All the buildings of my new city would be included thereby reducing energy consumption throughout the city. One thing I want to keep in mind when designing these buildings, is the type of energy cell I use in my solar panels. Through research I discovered that there a several different types of energy cells that have been used in solar panels. The most abundant one is silicon, which are efficient at converting sunlight to electricity and have the longest life span. The next type are thin film photo voltaic, which are cheaper and have a more efficient production time but at the cost of some efficiency. A third option is organic photo voltaic (OPV), which are made from carbon polymers and can be engineered to enhance specific functions of the power cell like detection of certain types of light and the carbon basis allows for use with many different supporting materials which can lead to many di fferent uses. However, OPV lacks the efficiency and lifespan of silicon. The final type I researched was concentration photo voltaic (CPV), which uses lenses to focus sunlight creating greater efficiency than silicon, but CPV is much more expensive to manufacture and use (Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy). Ultimately I would choose silicon for my solar panels, but I think when deciding on what to do to reduce the carbon footprint of the citizens, we should always consider the options within the options.

Energy Cell Info Source:
http://www.energy.gov/eere/energybasics … ell-basics