Solar power technology is one of the most popular sources of clean renewal energy that has been through several innovations through the years to be used for a host of applications such as powering residential apartments, streetlights and even run the batteries on the International Space Station. But the only caveat in harnessing this limitless bounty is that it cannot generate power at night. But now, scientists have found a way to leverage solar energy irrespective of day and night and keep it going round the clock.
Researchers at the University of California have reportedly invented a new type of solar technology that they’re calling ‘anti-solar panels’ whose modus operandi is the exact opposite of conventional solar panels. The regular solar panels that we have today work by trapping sunlight and converting it into energy for a variety of purposes. Whereas, the anti-solar panel simply works in reverse, capturing energy radiated by the Earth to the space.
Here’s what happens: When one side of the Earth is plunged into darkness, it cools down. The heat in that surface region thus starts escaping into space. Now the anti-solar panel seizes this heat, or thermal energy, which would have otherwise been lost, and turns it into usable energy. Reportedly, the anti-solar panels can generate around 25 per cent of the energy that a solar panel does in a day.
“In order to produce electrical power after the sun has set, we consider an alternative photovoltaic concept that uses the earth as a heat source and the night sky as a heat sink, resulting in a ‘nighttime photovoltaic cell’ that employs thermo-radiative photovoltaics and concepts from the advancing field of radiative cooling,” researchers explain in the study published in ACS Photonics.
Although the amount of energy generated this way has no competition with the traditional solar panels, that’s essentially free energy and can mean a lot if captured and used on a large scale.
Source: in.mashable
