This new solar thermoelectric generator (STEG) traps heat on one side and cools the other, making electricity from the hot-cold gap via the Seebeck effect. Unlike solar panels, which need direct sunlight, STEGs can use ambient heat and scattered light. That’s why they still work in shaded or cloudy areas—any temperature difference can generate power. Today they’re only ~1% efficient (vs. ~20% for solar), but the new design is 15× better than earlier STEGs. They won’t beat solar panels yet, but could be useful in spots where panels underperform.
I did data collection for a paper looking at the Seebeck effect in magnetic insulators about ~10-15 years ago, and it seemed like everyone in the whole physics department considered spintronics pretty dead. It feels great to see some big promising applications coming out of the field.
It’s explicitly part of Chinese science and technology strategy to think outside the box and it’s what’s pushing them forward on areas like semiconductors as well.
Given the massive advantage in talent they’ve built up while the Us reverts to Drill Baby Drill we know how this ends.
Eventually the Us with push for atmospheric dimming to “fix” the negative externalities of their approach which had the nice side effect of degrading solar ….
FMl
You’re being downvoted but i don’t think you’re entirely wrong. China has been pursuing some stuff that the western world had essentially abandoned, getting interesting wins (eg: thorium reactors).
He's wrong in the "why" tho. It's not that they must think outside the box, it's that they _must_ not all focus on a single point of research. I'm pretty sure that they are also pursuing popular research topics, because it would be pretty bad if they fall behind for not doing the obvious.
Solar and batteries will keep getting cheaper, its going to get harder to maintain fossil fuel use under those market conditions.
Competition is great.
PV panels work in shaded or cloudy settings (at reduced power of course).
What doesn’t work is concentrated PV, due to the scattering.
Yeah, I'd expect anything solar thermal to scale worse than current standard n-topcon glass glass PV panels.
Some of the cooling tricks could likely be used on standard PV, since overheating affects efficiency.
But do they actually out-perform solar panels in any situation yet?
Would it be possible to do both on a single panel? In other words, put photovoltaic cells on the sunny side and thermoelectric generators on the shady side.
Photovoltaic efficiency drops as the panels overheat. Some have demonstrated active cooling methods that are net energy gain. I wonder if it would be cost effective to use these between the panels and cooling system?
No.
so they are basically using a similar idea to that of a stirling engine in thermoelectric generator or they use a different mechanism to produce energy?
Two materials (often n-type and p-type semiconductors) are joined at two junctions, one junction is heated and the other cooled. The temperature difference makes charge diffuse from the hot side toward the cold side, and this charge is what turns into the seebeck voltage they describe. It was just very hard to get anything meaningful out of this because you can't easily get such a temperature difference. If you've read of the peltier effect, it's the same thing as this, just in reverse.
They both use heat. But stirling converts mechanically, whereas STEM converts energy to electricity «directly».