New Solar Panels Collect During Rain

In Central Florida, spring always arrives early, and summer is never far behind. But when it comes to really making the Sunshine State “shine”, these are the two seasons that do it best. While the sun is always shining on some part of Florida, they don’t call them “April Showers” for nothing. Most solar energy equipment work at full capacity during sunny hours, but they can lose that maximum efficiency as the skies start to darken. But not for long.

Chinese researchers have recently created a new type of solar cell that continues to energize even while it rains. The solar panels are covered in a thin layer of graphene, a sheet one atom thick with the properties necessary to accept energy through water. Due to these unique properties, graphene has been incorporated in a number of household products, such as light bulbs and internet technologies. But in the case of solar panels, it is used to separate the positively charged ions, like sodium and ammonium. Water droplets pick up these elements in the atmosphere and bring them down when it rains, but the graphene layer can sort out these minute components and utilize them in generating energy.

While the efficiency of these graphene solar panels may not be as high as some of the purely solar panels already on the market, the hope is that they will open up a new means of collecting energy that will benefits some of the wetter regions of the world.

This is the pinnacle of arguments against those who claim Florida is too rainy to sustain a substantial solar energy industry. Thousands of individual homeowners and businesses have proven that the sun is already copious enough to justify solar energy installations, but now, technology has grown beyond the problems of solar naysayers.