Solar cells get their energy from the sun. This means that when it rains, it will generally be cloudy, which also means that sunlight isn’t as strong as it could be. It sounds like rain would be solar’s energy, right? However it seems that Chinese scientists have managed to figure out how to power solar cells using raindrops.
What this means is that on days that it rains, your solar cells will continue working and will draw power from an alternative source. How does it work? The water from the rain will stick to the graphene and will act as a capacitor. The difference between the graphene’s electrons and the water ions are apparently big enough where it can actually produce electricity.
Before you get too excited, the science and technology is still in its early stages. At the moment the system is anything but efficient. According to the scientists, it is only capable of converting about 6.5% of the energy it gets, versus the 22% that we typically expect from some of the better solar panels.
This means that we can’t rely on the sun and the rain to power our solar panels, at least not yet, but it definitely is a pretty promising start.
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