[freebeard]

Via Hacker News:
FORGET SOLAR PANELS. HERE COME RAIN PANELS
CHRISTOPHER PLAIN·JULY 25, 2023

In a potentially game-changing breakthrough in energy harvesting, researchers have found a way to capture, store and utilize the electrical power generated by falling raindrops, which may lead to the development of rooftop, power-generating rain panels.

Previous attempts to generate power from failing rain have run into specific technical hurdles that often seemed impossible to surpass, but the researchers behind this new method say they have found a solution that may finally make such rain panels as popular, if not more so, than solar panels.
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Ultimately, the team says they zeroed in on what they think is the most optimal design to make rain panels a practical alternative or supplement to solar panels. Specifically, making the individual cells work independently and finding the right surface thickness seemed to reduce the coupling capacitance enough to make power collection from rain panels viable.

“The peak power output of the bridge array generators is nearly 5 times higher than that of the conventional large-area raindrop energy with the same size, reaching 200 watts per square meter,” Li explained, “which fully shows its advantages in large-area raindrop energy harvesting.”