The new technology is being hailed as a major breakthrough for renewable energy production as it generates night-time solar energy.
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00:00Solar power as we know it is about to change from day time to night time all thanks to
00:08a new piece of technology.
00:10This device can produce electricity even after the sun has set.
00:14We're super fortunate to have this sitting here at the University of New South Wales.
00:20Scientists are now able to harness the power of radiation off warm surfaces.
00:25So any time you point an infrared camera at something and you see, oh, that is glowing,
00:32we can put our semiconductor device onto that surface and we can generate power from it.
00:38It's the first time anyone in the world has proven it's possible.
00:42What we've done at the moment could power a wrist watch from your own body heat.
00:46Still in its infancy, the technology can only generate around 100,000 times less than that
00:52supplied by a solar panel.
00:55Because this was really the first experimental demonstration, it wasn't that we were trying
01:01to reach the maximum possible efficiency.
01:03If you wanted to put this on your roof and power meaningful appliances, then you'd be
01:10able to maybe power your Wi-Fi at night from this.
01:15Thermal imaging cameras show how much radiation there is at night.
01:19The next phase of development looks at how night-time solar will charge satellites in
01:24space.
01:25There's a little more optimising to do before maybe it's useful terrestrially, but we are
01:30working to get these on a spacecraft, a satellite, in the next couple of years.
01:36Earlier this month, the team at the University of New South Wales was recognised as one of
01:4155 finalists at the Eureka Science Awards.
01:49Eureka Science Awards
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