Major breakthrough as new technology generates solar energy at night

The new technology is being hailed as a major breakthrough for renewable energy production as it generates night-time solar energy.

Transcript

00:00Solar power as we know it is about to change from day time to night time all thanks to

00:08a new piece of technology.

00:10This device can produce electricity even after the sun has set.

00:14We're super fortunate to have this sitting here at the University of New South Wales.

00:20Scientists are now able to harness the power of radiation off warm surfaces.

00:25So any time you point an infrared camera at something and you see, oh, that is glowing,

00:32we can put our semiconductor device onto that surface and we can generate power from it.

00:38It's the first time anyone in the world has proven it's possible.

00:42What we've done at the moment could power a wrist watch from your own body heat.

00:46Still in its infancy, the technology can only generate around 100,000 times less than that

00:52supplied by a solar panel.

00:55Because this was really the first experimental demonstration, it wasn't that we were trying

01:01to reach the maximum possible efficiency.

01:03If you wanted to put this on your roof and power meaningful appliances, then you'd be

01:10able to maybe power your Wi-Fi at night from this.

01:15Thermal imaging cameras show how much radiation there is at night.

01:19The next phase of development looks at how night-time solar will charge satellites in

01:24space.

01:25There's a little more optimising to do before maybe it's useful terrestrially, but we are

01:30working to get these on a spacecraft, a satellite, in the next couple of years.

01:36Earlier this month, the team at the University of New South Wales was recognised as one of

01:4155 finalists at the Eureka Science Awards.

01:49Eureka Science Awards

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