thermalphotovoltaic

A new heat-to-energy converter has reached a record efficiency of 44% – the average steam turbine manages about 35%, for comparison. This thermophotovoltaic cell is a major step on the way to sustainable, grid-scale renewable energy storage.

In a world first, a team at the University of New South Wales has demonstrated measurable power generation from "the inverse of a conventional solar cell." It could eventually produce around one tenth as much power as a solar panel – but at night.

A team of researchers from Madrid is developing a thermal energy storage system that uses molten silicon to store up to 10 times more energy than existing thermal storage options and could form the basis for a new generation of low-cost solar thermal stations to store solar energy in urban centers.

Physicists have produced a prototype metamaterial device that could be used in super-efficient "thermophotovoltaic" cells to generate electricity from infrared energy, even in the dark.

Solar power that's portable and overcomes the bandgap limit of traditional PV cells is the hope of new research at MIT. A new nanomaterial device absorbs light from the sun, producing heat, and emits the energy at wavelengths optimally tuned for the cell, theoretically boosting efficiencies.