Solar Power

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.

Piezoelectric Material Remains Effective at High Temperatures

The material remains effective as an energy harvester or sensor at temperatures to well above 572°F.

Method Helps Create Fuels from Plants

Scientists have been trying for years to create biofuels and other bioproducts more cheaply.

Photovoltaic Cell Increases Nighttime Power Generation

The device uses a thermoelectric module to generate voltage and current from the temperature gradient between the cell and the air.

A Heat Engine with No Moving Parts

The design could someday enable a fully decarbonized power grid.

Advancing Renewable Energy Production with Solar Thermochemical Hydrogen

Hydrogen has emerged as an important carrier to store energy generated by renewable resources, as a substitute for fossil fuels used for transportation, in the production of ammonia, and for other industrial applications.

Ultra-Thin Solar Panels Achieve Record Efficiency

In a paper published in American Chemical Society’s ACS Photonics, a University of Surrey team detailed how they used characteristics of sunlight to design a disordered honeycomb layer to...

'Floating Sensors' Spread Like Dandelion Seeds

Dropped by a drone, the battery-free devices hover 100 meters in the air.

How to Clear Dust from Solar Panels (Without All the Water)

An MIT team has a water-free way to charge up dust on solar panels and repel it away.

Spray-On Coating Could Make Solar Panels Snow-Resistant

An inexpensive, clear coating has reduced snow and ice accumulation on solar panels, enabling them to generate up to 85% more energy in early testing.

Facility Focus: University of Michigan College of Engineering

Michigan engineers and collaborators are improving smart infrastructure, autonomous transportation, weather prediction, nuclear non-proliferation, and more.

Three-Layer Method Makes Plastic More Transparent and Adds Electrical Conductivity

This process could improve large touchscreens, LED light panels, and window-mounted infrared solar cells.

Turning Thermal Energy into Electricity

Applications include power and energy, communications, and sensors.