Hybrid energy system cools and generates electricity and hot water

5 pointsposted an hour ago
by doener

2 Comments

jakedata

6 minutes ago

The key feature of these technologies is passive below ambient cooling.

"Such novel technology is often based on coating materials that reflect solar energy in visible near-infrared wavelength range (0.3–2.5 μm) and send infrared heat to the universe through atmospheric transparency window". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00323...

Any other benefit including solar water heating or photovoltaic generation is just burying the lede. 60We/m2 is just fine if it is sharing space with other applications. The fact that they are achieving this with basically doped silicone caulking rather than something like indium tin oxide is fantastic news. Dumping heat into space rather than our oceans and atmosphere is going to matter a whole lot more in the near future, and it even works when it is cloudy.

trencedamp

an hour ago

It's an interesting tech combo, but I 60W per square meter is quite a bit lower than regular panels which would be more like 200W. The system also seems much more complex. I just can't see people having this kind of thing on domestic rooves instead of flat panels