Portuguese 
Spanish 
2 min of reading 
The Creation of a Solar Panel That Works at Night Surprised a Series of Researchers
Professor Jeremy Munday from the University of California (Davis, USA) has created a “solar” panel that can generate power even when there is no trace of light, such as at night. This panel operates similarly to conventional solar panels, except the process is as if it were reversed.
Read Also:
How Munday’s Panel Works
Basically, conventional solar panels convert heat generated from capturing sunlight into energy. This means that at night, they are practically useless. The panel created by Munday uses the same principle to generate energy from heat, but utilizes thermoelectric cells that can be heated even in the absence of light.
-
Advancement in renewable energy: A R$ 150 million project launched by Petrobras and Finep aims to create state-of-the-art electrolyzers for green hydrogen, strengthening national research and preparing Brazil to compete in a billion-dollar energy market.
-
Illiterate or semi-literate grandmothers were trained to repair solar systems, open rural workshops, and light up homes that still depended on kerosene.
-
The world has bet on green hydrogen as the fuel of the future, but now faces the side effect: producing 1 kilogram requires about 9 liters of ultrapure water, and the largest projects on the planet are precisely in the driest regions of the Earth, where water is already scarce for people.
-
Africa has about 500,000 cell towers and most still burn diesel to operate, while companies rush to cover antennas with solar energy and avoid signal blackouts.
“A regular solar cell generates energy by absorbing sunlight, which causes the voltage to appear across the device and current to flow. In these new devices, light is emitted, and the current and voltage flow in the opposite direction, but you still generate energy. You have to use different materials, but the physics is the same,” explained the professor.
Thermoelectric Cells in Solar Panels
Thermoelectric cells emit heat as infrared light, using an approach similar to the solar panels we know, but functioning the opposite way. Munday’s panel requires fossil fuels to operate, but these would only be supplied through industrial processes that would cease to waste energy. Thus, generating extra energy would be a way to offset these carbon emissions.
In this initial prototype stage, the invention is capable of generating 50 watts of electricity per square meter. This represents only 25% of the capacity of a conventional solar panel operating during the day. Still, this efficiency is better than wasting the full energy potential of burning fossil fuels in industrial processes.
Be the first to react!