Believe it or not, solar panels aren’t exactly pros at handling the sun. Sounds backward, right? But it’s true — excess heat can be a big problem for solar panels. It drags down their efficiency and can even shorten their lifespan. So, how do you keep something that’s
Believe it or not, the long-promised next generation of solar panels are here. A tandem perovskite solar panel with higher efficiency than silicon alone has just arrived on the market. The first batch has already been purchased by an undisclosed U.S. customer, which will soon install them in a
Oh hydrogen, that clean, green fuel that would solve so many emissions problems — if only it didn’t come with a few emissions problems of its own. If you’ve written off hydrogen as the fabled emissions free fuel panacea that’s never gonna live up to its promise (as
Solar panels are typically made with silicon as their semiconducting material. But you know what they say: The grass is always greener with cadmium telluride … wait, what do you mean you’ve never heard of that? Well, I don’t blame you. Cadmium telluride-based photovoltaics (or CdTe for short) are
The U.S. wind industry kinda blows. Okay, that might be a bit harsh, but the past few years haven’t been great for turbines in the States. 2023 was particularly nasty. The weather got us off to a bad start with less resources to work with in the first
Algae. It’s gross green goo that collects in still water…and can possibly make our future greener, too. Researchers are finding weird and unique ways to turn living algae into solar panels and hydrogen farms. So how exactly can algae do all this? And will they end up on
Hydropower is a great source of energy that doesn’t suffer the same intermittency problems as other renewables. But dams fail. A lot. About 95% of the existing hydropower systems in the States were built before 1995, and over half operate using equipment designed over 80 years ago.1 This
In the summer of 2023, the Rijnstate hospital of Elst, The Netherlands opened its doors. What makes this particular campus interesting is how it generates its energy. Heat pumps, PV panels, and an electrolyzer all work in concert to maintain a constant supply of power. The building collects energy from
Imagine getting the energy needed to power our phones, light up our homes, or drive our cars, from thin air. And no, we’re not talking about Nikola Tesla’s dream of wireless power a century ago, but a new and accidentally electrifying discovery along those lines from the University
Wave Energy Converters have been making a lot of, um, waves in the energy sector lately thanks in part to China’s brand new, megawatt-scale, wave energy device. This device isn’t the first of its kind, but its sheer size represents a breakthrough for this underutilized but potent branch
Nuclear is reliable, works 24/7, and generates a lot of power, all for essentially zero carbon.1 That comes at a price, though. Nuclear plants are really expensive, legislatively challenging, difficult to scale, and have a hotly debated reputation. But what if there was a way to build smaller,
Fusion energy is basically just smashing things together to make energy. Grossly oversimplified? Yes, but still accurate. First Light Fusion in the UK has a unique approach to fusion energy that takes that “smashing things together” to another level. I had a chance to see their facility first hand and