flickering pictures

Researchers in Idaho have created inexpensive photovoltaic plastic sheets with nanoantennas that collect waste energy from factories and power plants as well as the sun. They store energy 24 hours a day — whether the sun is shining or not.

This could be a huge breakthrough for clean, green solar power, since critics have long argued that solar power’s main failings are its high cost and its reliance on constant direct sunlight for reliable energy production. This new technology boosts dollars-to-megawatts efficiency from both sides of the equation — decreasing the cost per solar panel while increasing energy output per unit.

In short, this is a big deal.

From the Idaho National Laboratory:

The nanoantennas target mid-infrared rays, which the Earth continuously radiates as heat after absorbing energy from the sun during the day. In contrast, traditional solar cells can only use visible light, rendering them idle after dark. Infrared radiation is an especially rich energy source because it also is generated by industrial processes such as coal-fired plants.

“Every process in our industrial world creates waste heat,” says INL physicist Steven Novack. “It’s energy that we just throw away.”

[...] Traditional solar cells rely on a chemical reaction that only works for up to 20 percent of the visible light they collect. Scientists have developed more complex solar cells with higher efficiency, but these models are too expensive for widespread use.

Nanoantennas, on the other hand, can be tweaked to pick up specific wavelengths depending on their shape and size. This flexibility would make it possible to create double-sided nanoantenna sheets that harvest energy from different parts of the sun’s spectrum, Novack says. [...] The sheets could potentially cover building roofs or form the “skin” of consumer gadgets like cell phones and iPods, providing a continuous and inexpensive source of renewable energy.

And while we’re on the subject of solar power, the city of Cambridge, Ontario has a new sculpture (right) that collects the sun’s rays by day and creates an interactive sine-wave-based light show by night, with input from visitors to its website. Navigate on over to impose your own custom patterns of flashing, rolling and flaring light on the good people of Cambridge.

Nanoantenna story via Slashdot.