We all are pretty sure that in order to generate solar power you need the help of the sun. We would be right. But something new may be on the horizon, as scientists are working on “backward” solar panels that generate power at night. Researchers are calling their process “Optically Coupling with Deep Space.”
How Does It Work
Photovoltaic cells accumulate heat during the day, even during cloudy days (another bonus). What they register is the visible spectrum of light. To turn even low-level heat into energy, scientists have to use a thermal cell instead of a photocell. The materials must be able to absorb the lowest wavelengths of energy. The mechanism itself will work by just reversing what we think of as the mechanism for solar power.
Photovoltaic cells on Earth collect energy from the sun, partly because the huge radiation of the sun dwarfs the almost zero ambient radiation thrown off by the Earth. In a thermal radiation cell, we reset the parameters so Earth is the new sun, and its even minimal accumulated heat dwarfs the cold, midnight black of outer space. Letting heat seep out of thermal cells at night, drawn out by the cold night sky, could let scientists capture the energy as it goes out the same way we capture the sun’s energy as it comes in.
Heat Sinks
The overall process is what’s known as a heat sink, where accumulated heat is released somehow. Deep space is the heat sink in this case, providing the fluid into which accumulated radiant heat is released. The research team says its technology could gather up to 25 percent of what a similar solar cell would accumulate during full daytime light.
The scheme resembles a form of energy recycling where scientists try to recapture escaping low-grade heat made by all kinds of machinery and technology. Plenty of rising alternative energy ideas includes skimming the very highest levels of solar, nuclear reactions, or burning hydrogen.
But low-grade energy can potentially solve problems these more glamorous technologies don’t address, and so can radiant nighttime energy. The more tools we have to harvest renewable energy in the future, the more we can reduce the demand for traditional fossil fuel power plants.
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