(idizimage/iStock)

TECH

Brand New Renewable Technology Harnesses Electricity From

The Cold, Dark Night
MIKE MCRAE 13 SEP 2019

Two years ago, one freezing December night on a California rooftop, a tiny light shone
weakly with a little help from the freezing night air. It wasn't a very bright glow. But it was
enough to demonstrate the possibility of generating renewable power after the Sun goes
down.

Working with Stanford University engineers Wei Li and Shanhui Fan, University of California
Los Angeles materials scientist Aaswath Raman put together a device that produces a
voltage by channelling the day's residual warmth into cooling air.

"Our work highlights the many remaining opportunities for energy by taking advantage of
the cold of outer space as a renewable energy resource," says Raman.
 (Aaswath Raman)

"We think this forms the basis of a complementary technology to solar. While the power
output will always be substantially lower, it can operate at hours when solar cells cannot."

For all the merits of solar energy, it's just not a 24-7 source of power. Sure, we can store it
in a giant battery or use it to pump water up into a reservoir for later, but until we have
more economical solutions, nighttime is going to be a quiet time for renewable solar
power.  

Most of us return home from work as the Sun is setting, and that's when energy demands
spike to meet our needs for heating, cooking, entertaining, and lighting.

Unfortunately, we often turn to fossil fuels to make up the shortfall. For those living o the
grid, it could require limiting options and going without a few luxuries.

Shanhui Fan understands the need for a night time renewable power source well. He's
worked on a number of similar devices, including a recent piece of technology that ipped
photovoltaics on its head by squeezing electricity from the glow of heat radiating out of the
planet's Sun-warmed surface.

While that clever item relied on the optical qualities of a warm object, this alternative
device makes use of the good old thermoelectric e ect.

Using a material called a thermocouple, engineers can convert a change in temperature

into a di erence in voltage. This demands something relatively toasty on one side and a
place for that heat energy to escape to on the other.
The theory is the easy part – the real challenge is in arranging the right materials in such a
way that they'll generate a voltage from our cooling surrounds that makes it worthwhile.

To keep costs down, the team used simple, o -the-shelf items that pretty much any of us
could easily get our hands on.

They put together a cheap thermoelectric generator and linked it with a black aluminium
disk to shed heat in the night air as it faced the sky. The generator was placed inside a
polystyrene enclosure sealed with a window transparent to infrared light, and linked to a
single tiny LED.

(Aaswath Raman)

For six hours one evening, the box was left to cool on a roof-top in Stanford as the
temperature fell just below freezing. As the heat owed from the ground into the sky, the
small generator produced just enough current to make the light icker to life. 

At its best, the device generated around 0.8 milliwatts of power, corresponding to 25
milliwatts of power per square metre.

That might just be enough to keep a hearing aid working. String several together and you
might just be able to keep your cat amused with a simple laser pointer. So we're not talking
massive amounts of power.

But as far as prototypes go, it's a fantastic starting point. The team suggests that with the
right tweaks and the right conditions, 500 milliwatts per square metre isn't out of the
question.

"Beyond lighting, we believe this could be a broadly enabling approach to power

generation suitable for remote locations, and anywhere where power generation at night is
needed," says Raman.

While we search for big, bright ideas to drive the revolution for renewables, it's important
to make sure we don't let the smaller, simpler solutions like these slip away quietly into the
night.

This research was published in Joule.

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