Energy

Tapping more of the sun’s energy using heat as well as light

New approach developed at MIT could generate power from sunlight efficiently and on demand

January 24, 2014

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A new approach to harvesting solar energy, developed by MIT researchers, could improve efficiency by using sunlight to heat a high-temperature material whose infrared radiation would then be collected by a conventional photovoltaic cell.

This technique could also make it easier to store the energy for later use, the researchers say.

In this case, adding the extra step improves performance, because it makes it possible to…read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science