Solar Power

Indoor Photovoltaics Spark a Sustainable Revolution

Newcastle University researchers have created high-efficiency, sustainable solar cells that harness ambient light to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Perovskite Solar Cells — From the Lab to the Manufacturing Floor

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) has announced that a team of researchers, led by MIT and including the University of California San...

How Much Do You Know About Our Renewable Energy Resources?

Limited energy resources, global warming, and air pollution are increasingly being seen as growing crises. How good is your knowledge about our renewable energy resources? Take this quiz to find out.

Radiative Cooling and Solar Heat from One System

Researchers have been exploring how to turbocharge a passive cooling technique — known as radiative or sky cooling — with sun-blocking nanomaterials that emit heat away from building rooftops.

A Sustainable Battery with a Biodegradable Electrolyte Made from Crab Shells

Scientists created a zinc battery with a biodegradable electrolyte from an unexpected source — crab shells.

Developing More Durable Solar Cells

An international research collaboration led by UCLA has developed a way to use perovskite in solar cells while protecting it from the conditions that cause it to deteriorate.

New Battery Aims to Integrate Renewables for Grid Resiliency

A new battery design could help ease integration of renewable energy into the nation’s electrical grid at lower cost, using Earth-abundant metals, according to a study just...

New Compound Withstands Extreme Heat and Electricity for Next-Generation Energy Storage

Flexible polymers made with a new generation of the Nobel-winning “click chemistry” reaction find use in capacitors and other applications.

Videos of the Month

Videos of the month for March 2023.

Sustainable Hydrogen Through Solar Power

A new kind of solar panel has achieved 9 percent efficiency in converting water into hydrogen and oxygen — mimicking a crucial step in natural photosynthesis.

The Space Solar Power Demonstrator Has Launched

On January 3rd, the Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) launched into orbit a prototype, dubbed the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD), which will test several key components of an...

Organic Redox Flow Battery

Redox flow batteries are stationary batteries in which the energy is located in the electrolyte, outside of the cell itself, as in a fuel cell.

Technique Merges Solar Cell and Liquid Battery

A highly efficient and long-lasting solar flow battery generates, stores, and redelivers renewable electricity from the Sun in one device.

Top 10 Most-Read Tech Briefs Stories of 2022

See Tech Briefs’ most-read stories of 2022.

Solar-Powered Smart Robots Walk Autonomously

A team has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size so that they can walk autonomously.

Beaming Clean Energy from Space

Once considered science fiction, technology capable of collecting solar power in space and beaming it to Earth to provide a global supply of clean and affordable energy is moving closer to reality. Through...

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Sustainable Technologies/Future Energy Category Winner — SUNPave: Tomorrow’s Energy Today

When solar panels are placed horizontally, they harvest 15-20 percent less energy from the sun, and hence consumers end up paying a higher price for the harvested energy.

Bringing More Reliable Electricity to Puerto Rican Microgrids

Ben Ollis and a team of engineers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are creating a novel orchestrator tool to manage a cluster of microgrids so they can directly support and communicate with each other, making them more resilient during long power outages. It is being installed as a demonstration project in the small town of Adjuntas in the Central Mountains of Puerto Rico.

Glow-in-the-Dark Algae May Be Ideal for Soft Robots

Engineers developed soft devices containing algae that glow when under mechanical stress —perfect for building soft robots.

Model Predicts Seasonal Variability of Solar and Wind Power

Researchers at Columbia University, supported in part by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, conducted a study that modeled the seasonal variability of solar and...

New Perovskite Solar Cell Has a Commercially Viable Lifetime

Princeton Engineering researchers have developed the first perovskite solar cell with a commercially viable lifetime, marking a major milestone for an emerging class of renewable...

Organic Steam Generator Uses Sunlight to Purify Water

Researchers have developed an inexpensive and eco-friendly steam generator to desalinate and purify water using sunlight.

Enhancing Solar Option During Power Outages

Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have designed a novel building-solar controller that optimizes solar energy with smart technology to keep microgrids operating for up to five days.

Using AI to Help Scale Up Advanced Solar Cell Manufacturing

The system makes it possible to integrate data from prior experiments, and information based on personal observations by experienced workers, into the machine learning process.

Focusing the Sun – A Big Gain for Solar Power Efficiency

A new kind of optical concentrator can passively focus the sun onto a photovoltaic cell from any angle to reduce the amount of photovoltaic material needed for a given amount of power generation.

Solar Power for Carbon Capture

A solar thermal device mimics photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide emissions into a clean energy resource.

Enhanced Material Stable Enough for Solar Cells

A simple change to the surface of perovskite removes a barrier to its functionality.