Quote from 'How Stuff Works' website:
On a bright, sunny day, the sun shines approximately 1,000 watts of energy per square meter of the planet's surface, and if we could collect all of that energy we could easily power our homes and offices for free.
End quote.
This is wonderful news, except
for the fact that sticking an energy harvesting solar panel (or two) on your roof is not an aesthetically pleasing prospect. In fact, they look a bit mingin' to be honest.
Fortunately, the new "Rustic Roof" system will hide your ecologically sound carbuncle, while adding to the quaintness of your quintessential English village and helping you to avoid rows with your local planners and/or neighbours.
Highly scientific, and based on my mum's patented "The sun can still burn you through a thin T-Shirt" technology, the Rustic Roof is a stretched and coloured thin gauze, which covers you roof, and your solar panels, in the shape of... well, a more beautiful roof.
The more flamboyant solar panellist might use the ‘English Thatch’ or ‘Japanese Pagoda’. For the more reserved, there’s the classic ‘Blue Slate’, ‘Mediterranean Terracotta’, and our best selling range is still the ‘Council Estate Concrete Camouflage’.
Clearly I'm no scientist, but the crux of this idea is the choice of correct gauze material - it needs to be thick enough to disguise the solar panels, yet still allow enough energy through to allow the system to be efficient.
Although there would be a reduction in energy harvested from the sun, I'm sure more people would take up solar panels if they didn't have to look at them.