Solar panels in small electronic devices have been around since the 1970s. However, new methods have been discovered to implement them. solar cells with higher efficiency and performance energy when using them in indoor environments. This can be a substantial advantage in terms of powering small devices such as calculators, controllers, keyboards or mice, since the use of batteries would not be necessary for them to work.
The answer is still uncertain, although manufacturer Ambient Photonics seems to have gotten pretty close. And his team has been working on it for quite some time. new bifacial solar cells that allows us to charge or power our electronic devices without the need for batteries.
Small solar panels with triple the performance
This technology is not suitable for large devices such as televisions, computers or video game consoles, among many others, but is more aimed at those small devices that we use in our daily lives and that its energy consumption is relatively low. This description can include light bulbs of all types, remote controls, calculators, keyboards, mice, and many other devices.
Ambient Photonics Bifacial Solar Cell
The technology is based on implementing bifacial cells that collect light indoors from the front and back, significantly increasing the efficiency and performance of the small solar panels that we can already find today in calculators and remote controls. In this way, the use of solar energy to dispose of cells and batteries will be able to go beyond the installations of photovoltaic self-consumption that we can integrate into our homes.
Ambient Photonics ensures that its technology can generate three times more energy than the proposals that currently exist on the market. Its cells are manufactured with an industrial printing process where proprietary energy harvesting molecules are attached to its thin layer. These cells can be of any size and shape, according to the company.
Ambient Photonics’ synthetic, metal-free organic dyes have tunable electronic and optical properties, allowing solar cells, according to the company, work with any interior light, including compact fluorescent, halogen, LED, incandescent and diffused or shaded natural light. Designed to replace batteries, Ambient Photonics says manufacturers can create much smaller and lighter products.
“Solar power has long been an option for certain low-power electronic devices, such as calculators or toys, but it took a major scientific breakthrough for Ambient Photonics to develop high-performance solar cell technology for mass-market devices,” says Bates Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Ambient Photonics.
This bifacial technology draws energy from both sides of the cell. From the front side it is capable of collecting 100% of the power of its cells, while on the back it is only capable of collecting 50% of the energy, as stated by the company. Bifacial solar panels are not something new. In fact, it is a technology that has already been seen in standard size photovoltaic modulesalso capturing the light that is collected from the surface where sunlight hits.
Although the firm already has several agreements with firms such as Universal Electronics for remote controls and Chicony for keyboards, we will still have to wait to find out if this technology ends up coming to fruition and thus be able to use similar electronic devices. without the need for batteries. The firm already gave a demonstration during CES 2024 and a few weeks ago they also stated that the technology can reach multiple sensors, such as presence or smoke sensors.
Cover image | Samsung
More information | Ambient Photonics
In Xataka Smart Home | The invention that promises much cheaper, more efficient and everywhere solar panels