Solar Panels Cooling Our Homes While Harvesting Energy

[Stormysaga + 62]

Rooftop solar panels could pull double-duty: harvesting energy from the Sun while also cooling the house below. Scientists have created a device that combines two technologies to do exactly that. This is a two-part device that’s a solar harvester on top and radiative cooler on the bottom. The tricky part was maintaining an object that is hot and cold at the same time, so they built a vacuum chamber that surrounds the radiative cooler to make sure the two don’t get crossed.

The solar part of the device can be heated up to 42 degrees Fahrenheit above the normal temperature, while the cooler part can reach 54 degrees Fahrenheit below the ambient temperature. 

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30471-9

[DA? + 301]

On one of the TED Talks there was a chap working on a meta material that was so efficient at radiating infra red that it was put out in the Californian summer sun and sat there below freezing. An excellent way to cool one way the other way to heat. Maybe sterling engines are the future source of energy. But if this is able to manufactured at a reasonable cost the reduction in energy costs is massive, not just for aircon but just about everything works better when cooler.