Lifeboat Foundation

From Wi-Fi-connected home security systems to smart toilets, the so-called Internet of Things brings personalization and convenience to devices that help run homes. But with that comes tangled electrical cords or batteries that need to be replaced. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Energy Materials have brought solar panel technology indoors to power smart devices. They show which photovoltaic (PV) systems work best under cool white LEDs, a common type of indoor lighting.

Indoor lighting differs from sunlight. Light bulbs are dimmer than the sun. Sunlight includes ultraviolet, infrared and visible light, whereas indoor lights typically shine light from a narrower region of the spectrum. Scientists have found ways to harness power from sunlight, using PV solar panels, but those panels are not optimized for converting indoor light into electrical energy.

Some next-generation PV materials, including perovskite minerals and organic films, have been tested with indoor light, but it’s not clear which are the most efficient at converting non-natural light into electricity; many of the studies use various types of indoor lights to test PVs made from different materials. So, Uli Würfel and coworkers compared a range of different PV technologies under the same type of indoor lighting.

The United Arab Emirates has launched the Al Dhafra solar farm – now the world’s largest single-site solar farm – ahead of COP28.

The 2-gigawatt (GW) solar farm is 22 miles (35 km) from Abu Dhabi and features almost 4 million bifacial solar panels. It will power nearly 200,000 homes and eliminate over 2.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

It created 4,500 jobs during the peak of the construction phase, and the solar panels were installed at an average rate of 10 megawatts (MW) a day during construction.

Terabase Energy has successfully completed its first commercial solar installation using Terafab, its automatic solar-installing robot.

The Terafab robot – aka the “construction automation platform” – installed 17 megawatts (MW) of the 225 MW White Wing Ranch project in Yuma County, Arizona, on which solar tech company Terabase Energy is working alongside developer Leeward Renewable Energy (LRE) and contractor RES.

The Terafab robot completely eliminates the manual lifting of heavy steel tubes and solar panels – an industry first. Terabase Energy says that its robot achieved labor productivity improvements of 25% compared with manual installation, and the setup improves working conditions for solar technicians, as they’re housed in shaded and cooled conditions. The robot’s precision also enables the 100% return of solar panel packaging for reuse by the manufacturer.

A robotic AI-Chemist@USTC makes useful Oxygen generation catalyst with Martian meteorites. (Image by AI-Chemist Group at USTC)

Immigration and living on Mars have long been depicted in science fiction works. But before dream turns into reality, there is a hurdle man has to overcome — the lack of essential chemicals such as oxygen for long-term survival on the planet. However, hope looms up thanks to recent discovery of water activity on Mars. Scientists are now exploring the possibility of decomposing water to produce oxygen through electrochemical water oxidation driven by solar power with the help of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. The challenge is to find a way to synthesize these catalysts in situ using materials on Mars, instead of transporting them from the Earth, which is of high cost.

To tackle this problem, a team led by Prof. LUO Yi, Prof. JIANG Jun, and Prof. SHANG Weiwei from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), recently made it possible to synthesize and optimize OER catalysts automatically from Martian meteorites with their robotic artificial intelligence (AI)-chemist.

Immigration to and living on Mars have long been depicted in science fiction. But before that dream turns into reality, there is a hurdle humans have to overcome—the lack of chemicals such as oxygen essential for long-term survival on the planet. However, the recent discovery of water activity on Mars is promising.

Scientists are now exploring the possibility of decomposing water to produce oxygen through electrochemical water oxidation driven by solar power with the help of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. The challenge is to find a way to synthesize these catalysts in situ using materials on Mars, instead of transporting them from the Earth, which is costly.

Continue reading “AI chemist synthesizes catalyst for oxygen production from Martian meteorites: One step closer to Mars immigration?” »

China’s solar industry has invested $130 billion in 2023, dominating the global solar supply chain and widening the technology and cost gap with other countries.

Xijian/iStock.

A new report by Wood Mackenzie reveals that China will control over 80 percent of the world’s production of polysilicon, wafers, cells, and modules — the critical components of solar panels — from 2023 to 2026.

Continue reading “China becomes solar energy superpower, dominates 80% of supply chain” »

Perovskite cell passes theoretical efficiency limit of standard solar cell.

“This is significant because it creates the opportunity for greater renewable energy storage.”

Through the use of solar collectors, concentrated solar thermal technology (CST) harnesses solar energy to produce heat or electricity. The process is simple although difficult to execute successfully: large mirrors or lenses focus sunlight onto a narrow region known as the receiver.

These mirrors are what are known as solar collectors and they come in a variety of formats each with a distinct design and focusing technique, such as dish systems, solar power towers, and parabolic troughs.

Researchers at EPFL and Northwestern University have unveiled a groundbreaking design for perovskite solar cells, creating one of the most stable PSCs with a power-conversion efficiency above 25%, paving the way for future commercialization.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) stand at the forefront of solar energy innovation, and have drawn a lot of attention for their power-conversion efficiency and cost-effective manufacturing. But the way to commercialization of PSCs still has a hurdle to overcome: achieving both high efficiency and long-term stability, especially in challenging environmental conditions.

The solution lies in the interplay between the layers of PSCs, which has proven to be a double-edged sword. The layers can enhance the cells’ performance but also cause them to degrade too quickly for regular use in everyday life.