The solar panels, created by student Carvey Maigue, won the Dyson Sustainability Award this year and earned him $35,000 as prize money.
Solar panels are the foundation of shifting towards clean energy. And yet, they have one major flaw: when the clouds roll in, their productivity falls.
An electrical engineering student, Carvey Maigue from Mapua University, has developed a new solar panel that produces energy using the sun’s ultra-violet light. The novel panels are far more effective as the ultra-violet rays make through the densest clouds’, hence ensuring continuous electricity production even on rainy days.
Carvey hopes his invention of a new form of solar panels will be used at large on the walls and windows of buildings, houses, and other structures where possible to have a continuous supply of clean, green, and renewable energy.
Solar Panels That Work In All Weather Conditions
The novel solar panels are termed AuREUS (Aurora Renewable Energy and UV Sequestration) and consist of luminescent particles from vegetable and fruit waste. These particles are efficient in absorbing and converting the UV light into visible light. An additional solar film finally converts that visible light into renewable energy.
The prototype novel solar panel created by Maigue is 3-by-2 feet in size and lime green in color. He installed it in a window of his apartment and showed that it could charge two phones each day. Maigue believes these solar panels will enable large buildings to produce their own independent renewable energy under all weather conditions.
Democratizing Renewable Energy
The novel solar material is flexible and hence could be applied to clothing of different forms. It would allow designers to use it in a variety of ways. Such incorporations of new solar material would also let people understand and adopt the novel form of energy.
Maigue, while explaining further on his creation to Fast company, said by the democratization of renewable energy, we could bring it closer to people both psychologically and physically. Such efforts will help people understand the new reality of solar energy, that the new ways don’t require big-sized rooftop solar panels to harvest energy, but in fact, its more closer to us than we can imagine.
To know more about the AuREUS solar panels, watch the video below by James Dyson Foundation. It is surely a breakthrough in the renewable energy sector and would likely transform solar panels at large.
