Just came across this development: Ultra-Wideband Transparent Conductive Electrode for Electrochromic Synergistic Solar and Radiative Heat Management

 

 

 

Looks very Peltier?

WOW, what we have always needed.  What is the power density?

Would putting tin foil on your roof be better for cooling?

Would ordinary PV, or ST even, modules be better for absorption?

Is it really cheap, cheaper than a sensible design?

But what a great title for a paper, the decent use of words will sort it all out.

 

And what happens to the 'cold of space' on a cloudy day?

Edited December 13, 20214 yr by SteamyTea

The picture may be a bit misleading:  'device can vary its emissivity between 0.12 and 0.94. The device can also switch between solar heating mode (high solar absorptivity and low thermal emissivity) and radiative cooling mode (low solar absorptivity and high thermal emissivity) by controlling the optimal electrodeposition morphology for surface plasmon resonance. The optimal solar absorptivity (α) and thermal emissivity (ε) of solar heating and radiative cooling mode are (α, ε) = (0.60, 0.20) and (0.33, 0.94), respectively'

So the energy it uses is not the heat in/out of the building, it merely tunes the surface to be reflective (tin foil) or not - kind of LCD on steroids.

Being tunable beats all the passive solutions (like reflective paints - or absorbing surface if that is preferred), that provide benefit in one seasonal/daily cycle, but become part of a problem in the other. Will it be commercialised? We will see.