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Photovoltaic (PV) systems have received much attention in recent years due to their ability of efficiently converting solar power into electricity, which offers important benefits to the environment. PV systems in regions with high solar…
Approaching thermodynamic limits in light harvesting requires enabling nonreciprocal thermal emission. The majority of previously reported nonreciprocal thermal emitters operate in reflection mode, following original proposals by M. Green…
Traditional concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems utilize multijunction cells to minimize thermalization losses, but cannot efficiently capture diffuse sunlight, which contributes to a high levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and limits…
We propose a new concept for the design of high-efficiency photocells based on ultra-thin (submicron) semiconductor films of controlled thickness. Using a microscopic model of a thin dielectric layer interacting with incident…
Selective solar absorbers (SSAs) with high performance are the key to concentrated solar power systems. Optical metamaterials are emerging as a promising strategy to enhance selective photon absorption, however, the high-temperature…
We propose a mid-infrared device based on thermocouple optical antennas for light sensing and energy harvesting applications. We numerically demonstrate that antennas are able to generate low-power dc signals by beneficing of the…
Accurate building energy simulation is essential for developing advanced control strategies that enable demand flexibility and grid responsiveness. The Smart Buildings Control Suite (sbsim) offers a lightweight, scalable, and…
The integration of renewable sources is essential for decarbonizing heat production in district energy networks. Beyond biomass-based solutions, solar thermal energy, with or without heat pumps, presents a significant opportunity. However,…
Photosynthesis converts sunlight into the chemical free energy that feeds the Earth's biosphere, yet at levels much lower than what thermodynamics would allow for. I propose here that photosynthesis is nevertheless thermodynamically…
One of the current trends related to data centers is providing it with renewable energy sources. This paper suggests an analysis technique for a model uses solar panels energy to power a data center consists of 100 traditional servers,…
A thermostat senses the temperature of a physical system and switches heating or cooling devices on or off, regulating the flow of heat to maintain the system's temperature near a desired setpoint. Taking advantage of recent advances in…
Historically, the design of hybrid solar photovoltaic thermal (PVT) systems has focused on cooling crystalline silicon (c-Si)-based photovoltaic (PV) devices to avoid temperature-related losses. This approach neglects the associated…
More than half of the waste heat rejected into the environment has temperatures lower than 100 $^\circ C$, which accounts for nearly 85 PWh/year worldwide. Efficiently harvesting low-grade heat could be a promising step toward carbon…
Thin film solar cells have been attractive for decades in advanced green technology platforms due to its possibilities to be integrated with buildings and on-chip applications. However, the bottleneck issues involved to consider the current…
Spectrally selective solar absorbers (SSAs), harvesting sunlight into heat, are the key to the concentrated solar thermal systems. Current SSAs' designs using photonic crystals, metamaterials, or cermets are either cost-inefficient or have…
In this work, it is investigated the behavior of the efficiency at maximum power of a quantum dot molecule, acting as a device for photovoltaic conversion. A theoretical approach using a master equation, considering the effect of the energy…
A solar cell is a heat engine, but textbook treatments are not wholly satisfactory from a thermodynamic standpoint, since they present solar cells as directly converting the energy of light into electricity, and the current in the circuit…
It is thought that nature already exploits quantum mechanical properties to increase the efficiency of solar energy harvesting devices. So, the operation of these devices can be enhanced by clever design of a nanoscopic, quantum mechanical…
The increasing penetration of photovoltaic (PV) systems in distribution grids can lead to overvoltage and transformer overloading issues. While voltage regulation has been extensively studied and some research has addressed transformer…
The endeavor of the scientific community to maximize the possibility to harvest Sun irradiation for energy production is mainly devoted to the improvement of the power conversion efficiency of devices and to the extension of the spectral…