Will Solar Panel Work in Night Time?

Electricity demand is increasing day by day. When people want to use Air Conditioner, they worry about high electricity bills. If we think about what will be an electricity situation in the next 10 years, you will get an electricity bill that will double – triple the present time. According to people's style, almost every home will have an air conditioner, electric cycle, bike & scooty.  As per current time, the power consumption of homes is 40% in day time and 60% in night time.  

Demand for Electricity next 10 years

1. Diesel & Petrol Vehicles will move on Electric Vehicles, so every home will install a charging station.
2. Government Departments, such as Railway, Airport, Manufacturing Plant, Commercial Spaces, Hospitals, Universities, Bank, Restaurants, etc.
3. People will more aware of solar energy.
4. Electricity Bill will be increased by 100% as per the 2020 electricity rate.
5. The city will be very polluted 

Do you know that electricity is made through natural resources such as coal, diesel, water, wind and sunlight. Indian government has fully focused to reduce dependency of power generation from traditional sources, such as coal and diesel. They want to utilize solar energy because it is infinite & pollution free. A solar panel is the main component of the solar energy system that converts sunlight into electricity. Now, you can see many solar applications on home, factory, school, government buildings, railway, airport, etc.

Many solar experts and researchers are working to make innovative products for the consumers. If we talk about the latest product of solar panels is the Mono Crystalline solar panel that is made by Mono PERC solar cells. If we talk about a limitation of these solar panels, you will get that Mono Crystalline Solar Panels work only in day time. People want to use solar panels at night, but the current solar panel does not work at night. So, you remember that necessity is the mother of invention.

Anti-Solar Panel – this is the future

Night time solar cells ‘thermoradiative cells” that generate small amounts of power. To address the growing power needs of consumers, we need to look for options that are capable of generating electricity around the clock.

Let's watch this video

How it Works

Let's understand, how anti solar panel will work? It will completely opposite of regular solar panels. 

“A regular solar cell generates power by absorbing sunlight, which causes a voltage to appear across the device and for current to flow. In these new devices, light is instead emitted and the current and voltage go in the opposite direction, but you still generate power,” Munday said. “You have to use different materials, but the physics is the same.”  

In Night time

It might sound surreal when you think about solar panels that could operate in the night as the main principle behind the functioning of a solar panel is through the absorption of energy from the sun. It is true that your appliances could still work at night through the energy stored in the batteries that was generated by the solar panels during the day time. But have you heard about solar panels working/ operating during the night?

Generation (Day & Night)

A specially designed solar cell is capable of generating up to 50 watts of power per square meter at night i.e. roughly 25% of generation compared to the day time (i.e. 50 Watt per sq. meter). This phenomenon was revealed by Jeremy Munday, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis. He is currently working on developing prototypes of the nighttime solar cells that could generate small amounts of power. These nighttime solar cells will work as a normal solar cell but in the opposite way.

These cells would work on the principle of ‘thermoradiativity’, i.e. an object which is hotter than its surroundings will radiate heat as infrared light. A warm object in the space will radiate the heat in the space which is cooler. Using the same principle, a thermoradiative cell will generate electrical current as it radiates heat or infrared light in the cool space. This principle could be used for generating power by solar cells during the night time, i.e. light will be emitted, current and voltage will go in the opposite direction, power generation.

Does it work in Night & Day?

This type of solar cell could potentially operate 24*7 and could be the answer to grid-balancing all over the world.

You can read more details about this research from below link: Solar power at night? https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-power-night