Silicon is fast approaching its theoretical limit for solar efficiency, but pairing it up with other materials could help break through. Researchers have developed a new technique for combining silicon and perovskite solar cells, and reported a new record efficiency of 25.2 percent.
Continue Reading
Nuclear batteries can last decades, but their power density is currently too low to be very practical. Now, Russian researchers have developed a new nuclear battery design based on nickel-63, which has a higher specific energy than regular, commercially-available batteries.
Continue Reading
Most batteries have a cathode on one side and an anode on the other, with a separator between them. Engineers at Cornell University have developed an unusual new structure that intertwines the components together in a swirling shape, which they say lets the device recharge in a matter of seconds.
Continue Reading
Ovo Energy has launched a suite of domestic energy products, including a V2G charger that gives EV drivers the flexibility to draw electricity from the grid when it's cheap and sell it back during peak demand hours. And if users get the balance right, they could effectively drive their EVs for free.
Continue Reading
Waste heat generated by electronics can damage components, and represents a large amount of energy going to waste. Now scientists at the UCB have developed a thin film that could be built into computers, cars or factories to capture and recycle the energy from waste heat.
Continue Reading
Rather than using hydrogen in its normal gaseous state, a liquid hydrogen carrier called formic acid has been floated, and now a team from EPFL has built a promising prototype of a formic acid-based fuel cell.
Continue Reading
Just a few months after Tesla built the world's biggest battery, another contender is looking to swoop in. Simec Zen Energy and British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta are planning to build an even larger storage battery in the same Australian state.
Continue Reading
As useful as solar energy is, it still has one major Kryptonite: gloomy weather. Now, a team of Chinese engineers has developed a hybrid solar cell that can produce electricity come rain or shine, using the triboelectric effect to harvest energy from the movement of raindrops on its surface.
Continue Reading
We’re so used to having devices powered by lithium-ion batteries that it’s hard to imagine using anything else, but there are plenty of alternatives. The latest, an aqueous hybrid capacitor, is stable, safe and boasts high energy and power densities, recharging in as little as 20 seconds.
Continue Reading
Energy is all around us – we just need to work out how to tap into it. Now a team from MIT has developed a device called a thermal resonator, which could essentially pull electricity out of thin air by taking advantage of gradual ambient temperature changes over the course of the day.
Continue Reading
See the stories that matter in your inbox every morning