Future Solar Panels Will Generate Energy From Raindrops

[Confounding]

Nobody has more need for alternative energy than China. I'm sure we'll be seeing more from them soon.

Future Solar Panels Will Generate Energy From Raindrops -

A new solar cell prototype developed by a team of scientists in Qingdao, China may change the way we use solar panels in the not so distant future. Solar panel technology has changed the way many people bring energy into their homes, but this type of technology has always posed one concern: panels cannot output optimal power without ideal weather conditions. When you have rainy days or a lot of cloud cover, there is only so much energy that panels can store for later use. While engineers and material scientists have been able to make their efficiency far better over the years, with solar panels that store decent amounts of energy to be used when sun is not readily available, there has never quite been a development like the one discovered this year.

Chinese scientists are now able to create electricity with the assistance of raindrops. This is thanks to a thin layer of graphene they use to coat their solar cells during testing. Graphene is known for its conductivity, among many other benefits. All it takes is a mere one-atom thick graphene layer for an excessive amount of electrons to move as they wish across the surface. In situations where water is present, graphene binds its electrons with positively charged ions. Some of you may know this process to be called as the Lewis acid-base interaction.

 

[SharpArrowhead]

This is freaking awesome! Science rules!

 

[waltky]

Solar still not a big producer of U.S. Electricity despite falling costs...

Solar Generated Less Than 1% of U.S. Electricity in First Half of 2016
September 29, 2016 – Solar energy accounted for less than one percent of the total electricity generated in the U.S. during the first six months of 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Monthly Energy Review.

Table 7.2a of the report shows that the U.S. generated a total of 1,951,350 million kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity from January through June of this year. But solar-generated electricity made up only a small fraction of the total.

Natural gas accounted for the most electricity generated (655,490 million kWh), followed by coal (549,441 million kWh), nuclear (400,425 million kWh), conventional hydroelectric power (151,064 million kWh), wind (116,220 million kWh), and wood (19,712 million kWh).

Despite the falling costs and rising efficiency of solar panels, just 16,906 million kWh of electricity was generated by solar power during the first half of 2016, according to the EIA. That equals about 0.866 percent of the total of 1,951,350 million kWh generated during the period.

Solar Generated Less Than 1% of U.S. Electricity in First Half of 2016