Scientists have made a surprising discovery about the next generation of solar panels and energy storage that could turn conventional wisdom on its head.
According to a Loughborough University article, researchers from the university have discovered that the hotter new solar panels get, the better they store energy. They were looking at cutting-edge solar technology, photoelectrochemical flow cells, which act as both energy absorbers and a storage system.
They realized that as the cells heated up, the flow of electrochemical current improved, because ions moved faster and the electrolyte became more conductive.
“Instead of fighting against the sun’s heat, our research shows we can harness it,” said lead author Dr. Dowon Bae, of Loughborough University. “It flips the conventional wisdom on its head and gives us a new way to design solar storage systems that thrive in hot conditions.”
This flies counter to how many solar panels and storage systems have been treated in the past, where the more they heated up, the less reliable they were in terms of effective storage. The researchers did find the sweet spot for heating up panels; their effectiveness plateaued at 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), but the discovery opens up a number of possibilities.
It could make solar power more affordable by removing the need for cooling systems and make the systems more accessible to hot climates where there is a lot of sun, but it gets too hot for older panels to operate efficiently.
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Ultimately, researchers hope this study will make solar power more accessible and easier to install, and that all-in-one solar panels and storage systems will soon be commonplace.
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