It is necessary to clarify the night solar energy generation

A few weeks ago I read different headlines about the possibility of obtaining solar energy at night, and what almost nobody explains clearly is that this possibility is today more than remote.

I explain. Solar panel technology is available to obtain electrical energy from the emission they receive from the sun. And today the energy provided by these panels is around 25% of what they receive from the sun, which is very good because a few years ago it was much less, and over time it is expected to obtain around 40 %.

What some scientists have reported is that they have been able to obtain energy by means of thermoactive diodes, and that they have obtained a certain amount of energy from the infrared radiation of some bodies at night.

Similar diodes have long been known to "see" at night (these are infrared cameras). We see bodies based on the heat they generate, and the more heat they emit, the clearer they can be seen.

The new milestone achieved by scientists is to obtain a certain energy from the infrared radiation emitted by bodies during the night. But we must clarify that this energy is around 100,000 times less than that provided by solar panels. Watch out !!

So I think it doesn't make much sense to say that you can get solar energy at night. They are two different types of energy and the energy levels reached have nothing to do with it either.

With this I do not want to disregard what has been achieved by researchers, because however little that energy may be, it is not negligible and will improve in the future, and could have applications for certain very specific and special cases.

The sun transmits its energy and heats the entire surface of the Earth, solar panels and everything else, and those hot surfaces give off some of their heat at night. If a part of that energy (although that energy is very little) could be collected, it can be positive for some special applications.

But what a responsible person cannot say is that we can get solar energy at night, without adding any further explanation. Unfortunately, there are quite a few people who communicate things without thinking much about what they say.