Feasibility Study of Solar Cells for Night Use
Jun 13, 2022
People often use solar panels to absorb clean energy (solar energy), but it also has certain limitations. Solar panels absorb best in sunny, direct sun environments, while cloudy and rainy weather can limit their energy efficiency. At the moment, it cannot continue to work when night falls and there is no direct or indirect light.
A team of researchers from UNSW Sydney's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering and the University's Research Centre has made a key breakthrough in infrared technology that will enable the development of solar panels that work at night .
The researchers successfully tested a thermal radiation diode device that converts infrared heat into electricity. The researchers say this thermal radiation diode technology is similar to that used in night vision goggles.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was discovered that the efficiency of a steam engine depends on the temperature difference across the engine, and thermodynamics was born, Nicholas Ekins-Daukes, principal investigator at the research center, said in a news interview. The same principle applies to solar energy, where the sun provides a source of heat and the relatively cool solar panels on the Earth's surface act as cold absorbers so that electricity can be produced.
However, if infrared radiation is emitted from the earth to outer space, the earth is a relatively warm celestial body, and space is extremely cold. Based on the same thermodynamic principles, this could also harness the temperature difference to generate electricity, sending infrared light into space.
Currently, the energy produced by the test equipment is very small, about 0.001%, compared to the energy efficiency of solar panels. But it does bode well for the development of solar panels that can be used at night in the future. Currently, the team is conducting research on a large scale and is seeking industry partnerships.
"We usually think that light also consumes a certain amount of energy when it is emitted, but we can emit light with radiant energy in the mid-infrared wavelengths, and this method has been shown to have the potential to successfully extract electricity," Dawkes said. It's not enough to make heat radiating diode devices into every household, but we've demonstrated the viability of this approach, and hopefully more progress will be made in the years to come.
Many scientists are also very supportive of developing 24/7 solar panels, a possibility first explored by Norwegian researcher Rune Strandberg. Currently, researchers at Stanford University are also exploring ways to harness thermal energy in the dark.
