By the way, solar panels generate electricity from sunlight during the day, but is it possible to obtain energy from them at night?
It may be hard to believe, but scientists have made progress in developing solar panels that can generate electricity at night.
Yes, indeed, Stanford University in the United States has developed a solar panel that can generate electricity at night.
For this purpose, they have used radiative cooling. Radiative cooling is a technology that cools objects by reflecting or emitting heat.
At night, the process of natural radiative cooling becomes more active. During this process, infrared energy is emitted from the Earth into space. The difference in temperature between an object and its surrounding atmosphere can be utilized to generate electricity.
Keeping this process in mind, experts succeeded in generating some electricity from the heat emitted by the earth by connecting thermoelectric generators to ordinary commercial solar panels.
They also modified the panels to generate 50 milliwatts of electricity per square meter during the night.
Solar panels typically generate around 200 watts of electricity per square meter during the day, which means that the electricity produced at night is minimal.
Even this much electricity can be used to power small devices such as LEDs and sensors.
Shanhui Fan, leader of the Stanford University research team, said that although this method produces very little energy, it has the potential to be significantly improved.
This method is effective only at night when the sky is clear, as clouds reflect infrared energy to Earth.
However, experts said that more research work needs to be done in this regard to test the efficacy of specific materials and thermoelectrics, which will help in obtaining the appropriate amount of energy.
That is, for now, we will have to wait for some time to use such solar panels in homes.
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