Sistine Solar wants to help sustainability-minded homeowners who also care about aesthetics No one would argue for the aesthetic beauty of the average solar panel?the dark, gridded rectangles blend into rooftops about as well as a penguin at a peacock party. But one MIT-born startup is hoping to change all that.
Sistine Solar creates panel systems that can be customized to visually match a shingled rooftop, an ad, or any other image you can imagine. The secret is a proprietary SolarSkin embedded in the panel that reflects back an image while still letting light through to the photovoltaic cells below. Sistine Solar?s customization currently tacks on an additional 10 percent to the cost of a solar panel system, but the company is betting that homeowners will still prefer the camouflaged panels. Their first residential installation just wrapped in December, and already Sistine Solar has had hundreds of inquiries?particularly in Massachusetts and California.

?We think SolarSkin is going to catch on like wildfire,? said co-founder Senthil Balasubramanian in an interview with MIT. ?There is a tremendous desire by homeowners to cut utility bills, and solar is finding reception with them?and homeowners care a lot about aesthetics.?
But they?re certainly not the only ones betting on the ?aesthetic solar? trend. Last October, electric car company Tesla revealed it?s creating a line of rooftop solar tiles made f...