Speaking of renewables, Solar Energy drives the utmost power for the world. Theirs climbing efficiency and falling prices are possibly the key elements pushing the renewables as an emerging way of producing power. Although people in specific areas keep their ears away from the topic, claiming the lack of latency and non-continuous power production, which the panels fail to do at intermittencies of cloud to the sunlight.
Accounting on this concern, a student from Philippines invented a new Solar Panel that would no longer require direct Sunlight to generate power & that hit completely innovative to the renewable way of generating energy.
Solar-Panel no longer requiring Sunlight to produce power
The concept behind this, called ‘AuREUS’ (which stands for Aurora Renewable Energy and UV Sequestration) was invented by Carvey Ehren Maigue, an Electrical engineering student from Mapua University of Philippines.
Maigue’s idea was to produce an organic luminescent particle that absorbs UV from the sunlight and converts it into visible light which then falls on a solar film, thereby generating energy. Like in, we absorb oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, this luminescent particle, capable of converting UV to visible light is the innovative key add-on of this field. With this, the demand of conventional solar panels, ‘direct sunlight’, is no longer a demand.
Prototype model
Maigue started AuREUS by turning fruit and vegetable crop waste into a luminescent material that can convert UV light. Mixing the material with a resin, and coating a solar film onto it, Maigue has finally produced a glass-like solar panels that is transparent and colored and importantly can produce surprising amount of electricity. The 3 x 2 foot prototype panel, designed by him was kept on his window and tested possible to generate as much energy to charge two smartphones. Scaled up, he says, these panels could enable buildings to produce all their own electricity.
Next to this, a pilot project to provide electricity to a building, where his doctor friend’s clinic resides, is under development and hopes can fulfil the purpose.
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The invention was recently the winner of “first James Dyson Sustainability award”, that proffers $35,000 prize.
“I think it will be a massive game changer for the industry,” Tom Crawford (Director of Sustainability, James Dyson)
Maigue says the flexibility of the material will allow designers to integrate electricity-creating forms with almost any design. “We can create curved panels, more intricate shapes for the walls, or the design they want without suffering lesser efficiency,” he says. “That’s one of the ways we can allow architects and engineers to express themselves more and be more artistic.”
Democratizing Renewables
“If we can democratize renewable energy, we can bring it both physically closer to people as well as psychologically closer,” Maigue says. “It would give them a sense of access to it, that they are closer to it, that they don’t have to be large institutions that have the capability to harvest solar energy with their rooftops.”
Read this: Solar panel in Space could soon beam electricity to earth
Ideas are Crazy, until they’re not!
References:
- https://interestingengineering.com/these-new-solar-panels-dont-need-sunlight-to-produce-energy
- https://www.fastcompany.com/90578605/these-solar-panels-dont-need-the-sun-to-produce-energy
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/scientists-invent-candy-colored-solar-panels-that-dont-need-direct-sunlight-to-work/#:~:text=)%20%7C%20Topic%3A%20Innovation-,Scientists%20have%20developed%20candy%2Dcolored%20solar%20panels%20that%20capture%20different,the%20company%20behind%20the%20technology.
