X
  • Renewable Power
  • Nuclear Power
  • Thermal Power
Power Gen Advancement
  • Home
  • News
    AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar Storage Facility in the US

    AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar-Storage Facility in the US

    The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast Tracked in California

    The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast-Tracked in California

    US Utility Scale Solar Installs 4.4 GW in Q1 2025

    US Utility-Scale Solar Installs 4.4 GW in Q1 2025

    US Solar Electricity Generation

    US Solar Electricity Generation Grows 28% Year-Over-Year

    Caterpillar Unveils Systems

    Caterpillar Unveils Systems for Multiple Power Generation

    Executive Orders to Boost Nuclear Energy

    Executive Orders to Boost Nuclear Power Signed by Trump

    Offshore Wind Capacity in Romania

    Offshore Wind Capacity in Romania to Witness Delimitation

    US Offshore Wind Development

    US Offshore Wind Development – Northeast Region Hit

    National Power Development

    Vietnam Alters its National Power Development Plan VIII

  • Market Moves
    EIA Data Reveal Renewables

    EIA Data Reveal Renewables Provided Almost a Third of U.S. Electrical Generation and Nearly Matched Natural Gas in March as Solar Outproduced Hydropower and Solar+Wind Were Greater than Either Coal or Nuclear

    Thermal Energy Storage Market

    Thermal Energy Storage Market Growth Driven by Clean Energy

    Offshore Wind Turbine Market

    Offshore Wind Turbine Market to Hit $39.2 Billion by 2031

    Gen AI Drone

    Gen AI & Drone Assets Transforming Energy & Utilities Sector

    Electricity Grid in UK

    How Electricity Grid in the UK is Witnessing Transformation

    UK Battery Storage

    The Evolving UK Battery Energy Storage Systems Market

    Hydrogen Fueling Station Market to Reach $2.88B by 2030

    Hydrogen Industry to Grow 10.4% CAGR, Hit $47.83B by 2034

    Hydrogen Fuel Cells Market to Reach $5.9 Billion by 2031

  • Press Statements
    EIA Data Reveal Renewables

    EIA Data Reveal Renewables Provided Almost a Third of U.S. Electrical Generation and Nearly Matched Natural Gas in March as Solar Outproduced Hydropower and Solar+Wind Were Greater than Either Coal or Nuclear

    Energy Evolution Conference 2026

    Energy Evolution Conference 2026: Shaping the Future of Renewable Energy in Dubai

    Eaton-announces-breakthrough

    Eaton announces breakthrough, AI-powered innovation to help utilities strengthen wildfire prevention efforts

    First-Digital-Twin

    ETAP and Schneider Electric Unveil Worlds First Digital Twin to Simulate AI Factory Power Requirements from Grid to Chip Level Using NVIDIA Omniverse

    E-world 2025 has started with record participation

    Houston to host key hydrogen summit as industry faces new political landscape

    Day 1, ADIPEC 2024: Global Ministers and CEOs Call for Accelerated Innovation and Collaboration to Fast-Track Energy Transformation

    Harnessing hydrogen to power HGVs

    Stabilising the renewable energy grid

  • White Papers
  • Projects
  • Events & Conferences
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar Storage Facility in the US

    AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar-Storage Facility in the US

    The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast Tracked in California

    The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast-Tracked in California

    US Utility Scale Solar Installs 4.4 GW in Q1 2025

    US Utility-Scale Solar Installs 4.4 GW in Q1 2025

    US Solar Electricity Generation

    US Solar Electricity Generation Grows 28% Year-Over-Year

    Caterpillar Unveils Systems

    Caterpillar Unveils Systems for Multiple Power Generation

    Executive Orders to Boost Nuclear Energy

    Executive Orders to Boost Nuclear Power Signed by Trump

    Offshore Wind Capacity in Romania

    Offshore Wind Capacity in Romania to Witness Delimitation

    US Offshore Wind Development

    US Offshore Wind Development – Northeast Region Hit

    National Power Development

    Vietnam Alters its National Power Development Plan VIII

  • Market Moves
    EIA Data Reveal Renewables

    EIA Data Reveal Renewables Provided Almost a Third of U.S. Electrical Generation and Nearly Matched Natural Gas in March as Solar Outproduced Hydropower and Solar+Wind Were Greater than Either Coal or Nuclear

    Thermal Energy Storage Market

    Thermal Energy Storage Market Growth Driven by Clean Energy

    Offshore Wind Turbine Market

    Offshore Wind Turbine Market to Hit $39.2 Billion by 2031

    Gen AI Drone

    Gen AI & Drone Assets Transforming Energy & Utilities Sector

    Electricity Grid in UK

    How Electricity Grid in the UK is Witnessing Transformation

    UK Battery Storage

    The Evolving UK Battery Energy Storage Systems Market

    Hydrogen Fueling Station Market to Reach $2.88B by 2030

    Hydrogen Industry to Grow 10.4% CAGR, Hit $47.83B by 2034

    Hydrogen Fuel Cells Market to Reach $5.9 Billion by 2031

  • Press Statements
    EIA Data Reveal Renewables

    EIA Data Reveal Renewables Provided Almost a Third of U.S. Electrical Generation and Nearly Matched Natural Gas in March as Solar Outproduced Hydropower and Solar+Wind Were Greater than Either Coal or Nuclear

    Energy Evolution Conference 2026

    Energy Evolution Conference 2026: Shaping the Future of Renewable Energy in Dubai

    Eaton-announces-breakthrough

    Eaton announces breakthrough, AI-powered innovation to help utilities strengthen wildfire prevention efforts

    First-Digital-Twin

    ETAP and Schneider Electric Unveil Worlds First Digital Twin to Simulate AI Factory Power Requirements from Grid to Chip Level Using NVIDIA Omniverse

    E-world 2025 has started with record participation

    Houston to host key hydrogen summit as industry faces new political landscape

    Day 1, ADIPEC 2024: Global Ministers and CEOs Call for Accelerated Innovation and Collaboration to Fast-Track Energy Transformation

    Harnessing hydrogen to power HGVs

    Stabilising the renewable energy grid

  • White Papers
  • Projects
  • Events & Conferences
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Power Gen Advancement
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe: Heat from the top of your head radiates into space as infrared light.

in News, Renewable Power, Solar Energy

Note* - All images used are for editorial and illustrative purposes only and may not originate from the original news provider or associated company.

Now three Stanford engineers have developed a technology that improves on solar panel performance by exploiting this basic phenomenon. Their invention shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.

The work by Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, research associate Aaswath P. Raman and doctoral candidate Linxiao Zhu is described in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The group’s discovery, tested on a Stanford rooftop, addresses a problem that has long bedeviled the solar industry: The hotter solar cells get, the less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful electricity.

The Stanford solution is based on a thin, patterned silica material laid on top of a traditional solar cell. The material is transparent to the visible sunlight that powers solar cells, but captures and emits thermal radiation, or heat, from infrared rays.

“Solar arrays must face the sun to function, even though that heat is detrimental to efficiency,” Fan said. “Our thermal overlay allows sunlight to pass through, preserving or even enhancing sunlight absorption, but it also cools the cell by radiating the heat out and improving the cell efficiency.”

A cool way to improve solar efficiency

In 2014, the same trio of inventors developed an ultrathin material that radiated infrared heat directly back toward space without warming the atmosphere. They presented that work in Nature, describing it as “radiative cooling” because it shunted thermal energy directly into the deep, cold void of space.

In their new paper, the researchers applied that work to improve solar array performance when the sun is beating down.

The Stanford team tested their technology on a custom-made solar absorber — a device that mimics the properties of a solar cell without producing electricity — covered with a micron-scale pattern designed to maximize the capability to dump heat, in the form of infrared light, into space. Their experiments showed that the overlay allowed visible light to pass through to the solar cells, but that it also cooled the underlying absorber by as much as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

For a typical crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 20 percent, 55 F of cooling would improve absolute cell efficiency by over 1 percent, a figure that represents a significant gain in energy production.

The researchers said the new transparent thermal overlays work best in dry, clear environments, which are also preferred sites for large solar arrays. They believe they can scale things up so commercial and industrial applications are feasible, perhaps using nanoprint lithography, which is a common technique for producing nanometer-scale patterns.

“That’s not necessarily the only way,” said Raman, a co-first-author of the paper. “New techniques and machines for manufacturing these kinds of patterns will continue to advance. I’m optimistic.”

Cooler cars

Zhu said the technology has significant potential for any outdoor device or system that demands cooling but requires the preservation of the visible spectrum of sunlight for either practical or aesthetic reasons.

“Say you have a car that is bright red,” Zhu said. “You really like that color, but you’d also like to take advantage of anything that could aid in cooling your vehicle during hot days. Thermal overlays can help with passive cooling, but it’s a problem if they’re not fully transparent.”

That’s because the perception of color requires objects to reflect visible light, so any overlay would need to be transparent, or else tuned such that it would absorb only light outside the visible spectrum.

“Our photonic crystal thermal overlay optimizes use of the thermal portions of the electromagnetic spectrum without affecting visible light,” Zhu said, “so you can radiate heat efficiently without affecting color.”

Previous Post

Mother Nature will be delivering a future gift of 2 percent more wind energy in the Midwest if regional climate models are correct, according to research from Wake Forest University.

Next Post

Hydrogen could be the ideal fuel: Whether used to make electricity in a fuel cell or burned to make heat, the only byproduct is water; there is no climate-altering carbon dioxide.

Related Posts

Recycling Rare Materials
Articles

Recycling Rare Materials from Hydrogen Technology

June 23, 2025
Advancements in Hydrogen
Articles

Advancements in Hydrogen Storage Systems

June 21, 2025
AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar Storage Facility in the US
News

AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar-Storage Facility in the US

June 17, 2025
The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast Tracked in California
News

The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast-Tracked in California

June 17, 2025
Port-to-Pipe-B2B-Models for Green Hydrogen Export Corridors
Articles

Port-to-Pipe B2B Models for Green Hydrogen Export Corridors

June 12, 2025
Corporate-Offtake-of-Offshore Wind Shifting Energy Spectrum
Renewable Power

Corporate Offtake of Offshore Wind Shifting Energy Spectrum

June 11, 2025
Next Post

Hydrogen could be the ideal fuel: Whether used to make electricity in a fuel cell or burned to make heat, the only byproduct is water; there is no climate-altering carbon dioxide.

LatestNews

AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar Storage Facility in the US
News

AES Corp Rolls Out Largest Solar-Storage Facility in the US

June 17, 2025
The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast Tracked in California
News

The Darden Clean Energy Project Fast-Tracked in California

June 17, 2025
US Utility Scale Solar Installs 4.4 GW in Q1 2025
America

US Utility-Scale Solar Installs 4.4 GW in Q1 2025

June 3, 2025
US Solar Electricity Generation
News

US Solar Electricity Generation Grows 28% Year-Over-Year

June 3, 2025
Caterpillar Unveils Systems
News

Caterpillar Unveils Systems for Multiple Power Generation

May 26, 2025
Executive Orders to Boost Nuclear Energy
News

Executive Orders to Boost Nuclear Power Signed by Trump

May 26, 2025
Power Gen Advancement

About Us

Power Generation Advancement is a leading information centric website providing latest up to date information and happenings within the industry. The website is sub divided into 3 sectors updating the latest news and developments about Power Generation industry through Renewable Energy, Nuclear Energy, Thermal Energy sources. Power Generation Advancement runs with an objective to provide a one stop knowledge driven content to our reader and subscribers in various forms like news, projects, upcoming events.

Subscribe Us

Resources

  • Advertise with us
  • Our Services
  • Contact Us
  • Download Mediapack
  • Newsletter Archive

System

  • Search
  • Sitemap
  • RSS Feed

© 2017 Copyright © Valuemediaservices 2017 All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Market Moves
  • Press Statements
  • White Papers
  • Projects
  • Events & Conferences
  • Contact Us

© 2017 Copyright © Valuemediaservices 2017 All rights reserved.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In