January 19, 2014

How to tap the sun’s energy through heat as well as light


New approach developed at MIT could generate power from sunlight efficiently and on demand.

A new approach to harvesting solar energy, developed by MIT researchers, could improve efficiency by using sunlight to heat a high-temperature material whose infrared radiation would then be collected by a conventional photovoltaic cell. This technique could also make it easier to store the energy for later use, the researchers say.