These Solar Panels Can Still Generate Electricity At Night

Solar panels can generate electricity from the Sun’s heat, but that means they can only work during the day. However, recently, experts from the University of California said that it was possible to make a type of solar cells that can do the exact opposite, which is to generate energy at night. They call it “anti-solar panels.”

In comparison with the Sun, solar panels have a much lower temperature so they absorb heat and turn it into energy. Since space is cold, if you place a warm solar panel toward it, it will generate heat in the form of invisible infrared light. If we can absorb that energy, we can generate electricity. According to the experts’ research, such a system can make one-fourth of the amount of electricity the same number of cells can generate during the day.

The author of this research, Jeremy Munday, said that whatever they are, solar panels or anti-solar panels, they were essential just heat engines.

He explained that the Sun generates heat and the Earth receives it. The usual solar cells pick up that energy and turn it into electricity. So the whole process requires two heat bodies and a way to execute the conversion of the power from one form to the other.

The nighttime device follows the same principles, we need a cold and a hot body. However, the role is now switched, as the Earth is now what generates heat and the cold one is space. The anti-solar panels will absorb this heat from our planet and turn it into electricity.

The conventional solar panels use the photovoltaic cell as oppose to the thermoradiative cell of the anti-solar ones. Silicon is the ideal material to capture light, which is in the visible spectrum. However, to generate heat without the Sun, we have to make our cells from something capable of capturing extremely long wavelength light. The team is testing mercury alloys to see if they can do the job.

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