Innovative research from a ʹڲƱ team shows Earth’s radiant infrared heat can be used to generate electricity, even after the sun has set.
ʹڲƱ researchers have made a major breakthrough in renewable energy technology by producing electricity from so-called ‘night-time’ solar power.
The team from the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering generated electricity from heat radiated as infrared light, in the same way as the Earth cools by radiating into space at night.
A semiconductor device called a thermoradiative diode, composed of materials found in night-vision goggles, was used to generate power from the emission of infrared light.
The results of the research have now been published in .
Although the amount of power generated at this stage is very small – around 100,000 times less than that supplied by a solar panel – the researchers believe the result can be improved in the future.
“We have made an unambiguous demonstration of electrical power from a thermoradiative diode,” said team lead, Associate Professor Ned Ekins-Daukes.
“Using thermal imaging cameras you can see how much radiation there is at night, but just in the infrared rather than the visible wavelengths. What we have done is make a device that can generate electrical power from the emission of infrared thermal radiation.”
Flow of energy
A/Prof Ekins-Daukes says the process is ultimately still harnessing solar power, which hits the Earth during the day in the form of sunlight and warms up the planet.
At night, this same energy radiates back into the vast, cold void of outer space in the form of infrared light with the thermoradiative diode now proven to be able to generate electricity by taking advantage of this process.