New technology is being developed that may make having solar energy as easy as using a spray paint can.

According to an article on News.Discovery.com, spray-on solar ink, a concept developed by Professor Brian Korgel with his team at the University of Texas at Austin, would be a cheaper, simpler way to make solar power more popular.

The panels used now are silicon-based, rather than Korgel’s solution-based invention.

“We’re coming up with a cheap way to make solar cells,” said Korgel in the article. “Right now, the way they’re made is in expensive, vacuum processes, using high temperature. And what we’re trying to do is develop essentially an ink or a paint that you can simply spread on a substrate at room temperature or under a heat lamp that will then work as a solar cell.”

Dr. Som Mitra is doing similar research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He said in five years the practice of painted solar cells on American’s rooftops will be commonplace.