Research conducted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has shown that commonly available solar PV technology used indoors can power building IoT devices.
The study was aimed to test the ability of solar PV cells to absorb indoor light and opens the way for harvesting some of this light for low power devices with low capacity batteries such as smoke alarms, security cameras and temperature sensors.
The researchers tested three different materials, gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs), which are geared toward white LED light, and silicon, a less efficient but more affordable and commonplace material.
The modules were tested with white LED light with a fixed intensity comparable to light levels in a well-lit room. For the silicon and GaAs PV modules, the indoor light proved less efficient than sunshine, but the GaInP module performed far better under the LED than sunlight.
Continue reading: https://www.powerengineeringint.com/news/solar-pv-can-power-indoor-iot-devices-study/
The study was aimed to test the ability of solar PV cells to absorb indoor light and opens the way for harvesting some of this light for low power devices with low capacity batteries such as smoke alarms, security cameras and temperature sensors.
The researchers tested three different materials, gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs), which are geared toward white LED light, and silicon, a less efficient but more affordable and commonplace material.
The modules were tested with white LED light with a fixed intensity comparable to light levels in a well-lit room. For the silicon and GaAs PV modules, the indoor light proved less efficient than sunshine, but the GaInP module performed far better under the LED than sunlight.
Continue reading: https://www.powerengineeringint.com/news/solar-pv-can-power-indoor-iot-devices-study/
