The Future of Solar Panels: Solar Panels Made From Crops

Sustainability is the main objective of solar panels and other renewable energy generation technologies. Unfortunately, solar panels have a paradox that requires a proper solution soon: it uses silicon and other metals. While these are renewable materials that require recycling and proper manufacturing practices, they are non-biodegradable and still consume more energy than natural resources to break down into raw materials.

Thus, solar technology is at a crossroads that goes to excellent sustainability practices. First, solar energy manufacturers can continue to improve their existing technologies, allowing them to use less materials by enhancing efficiency, design, and longevity. The alternative is by using natural and easily-recyclable materials than silicon, plastic, and steel.

All manufacturers seem to be moving in both directions. Recently, scientists have discovered the efficiency of perovskite, a much more affordable alternative to silicon, to build the solar films that facilitate solar energy absorption. However, initial testing have yet to show perovskite’s mass adoption into existing solar panel systems. Over time, it’s most likely to become a huge part of solar technology as a whole.

Another breakthrough is from a Filipino scientist who built solar panels by using crops. The scientist from Southeast Asia had won the James Dyson Foundation Sustainability Award in 2020. Crops are a natural, biodegradable, and easily broken-down material that requires less energy than plastic and steel. Learn more about this scientist’s achievements from Euro News below.

Solar panels that don’t require direct sunlight have been invented in another leap forwards for clean energy.

A Filipino engineering student designed the revolutionary material using luminescent particles from fruit and vegetable waste.

Carvey Ehren Maigue, 29, won the James Dyson Foundation Sustainability Award in 2020 for the panels he constructed at Mapua University in the Philippines.

As they do inside crops, these particles absorb the sun’s ultraviolet rays and turn them into visible light. The panels are then able to convert this harvested light into electricity.

Maigue said he was inspired by Elon Musk and how he “he blazed a trail for his solution to reach the market.”The James Dyson Foundation

Ultraviolet rays still reach us on cloudy days, meaning there is huge potential to scale the technology up in urban areas – as well as in other places that a conventional solar panel wouldn’t sit.

Inspired by auroras and called AuREUS, the particles are placed in a resin surface which can be moulded into different shapes.

The new solar material could even be fitted to our clothes

Discussing his invention in 2020, Maigue said he wanted to bring the product to the market immediately while also investing in further research.

“I want to create threads and fabric so that even your clothes would be able to harvest ultraviolet light and convert it into electricity.”

The prototype was a three-by-two foot panel installed in a window of Maigue’s apartment, capable of generating enough electricity to charge two phones each day. But he has ambitions to clad whole buildings in AuREUS, turning them into vertical solar farms. (Continue reading more about it here)

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