Scientists at the University of New South Wales developed night solar panels. They are developing thermoradiative diodes that generate clean energy after sunset.

They are developing thermoradiative diodes that generate electricity after sunset by dumping heat into cold space.

Instead of absorbing sunlight like a solar panel, these devices do the reverse.

They emit infrared radiation and harvest a trickle of power from that flow. The team has already shown the effect works in the real world, not just on paper.

It is tiny today, but it is real.

Right now, these devices produce roughly 100,000 times less power than conventional solar panels.

That sounds like a joke until you realize this is day one of an entirely different energy curve. Solar panels also started as lab toys. The point is not the output today. The point is that electricity generation is no longer locked to daylight.

This work builds on earlier theory from Harvard University and Stanford University, but UNSW crossed the line from theory to demonstrated power.

The disruption behind the news: The grid does not shut down at night.

Power demand dips, but it does not disappear.

Homes still run routers, sensors, medical devices, chargers, and security systems.

Today, that overnight load is met by storage, fossil baseload, or long transmission lines.

Thermoradiative power attacks that problem from a new angle.

The immediate disruption is not utility scale power. Think milliwatts to watts at first. That is enough to keep devices alive without batteries cycling every night.

Battery wear is one of the hidden costs in electronics and energy systems. Cutting even a small percentage of charge cycles has real economic value.

Earth radiates about 100 watts per square meter into space at night. Even capturing 0.1 percent of that would deliver 0.1 watts per square meter, continuously, without fuel, storage, or sunlight.

That number is not impressive for homes. It is very impressive for sensors, remote infrastructure, and space systems.

Space is where this gets dangerous for incumbents. Satellites already rely on solar panels plus heavy batteries to survive darkness.

A thermoradiative layer that works whenever a satellite is warmer than deep space reduces battery mass and extends mission life. Mass saved in orbit is money saved on launch. That is a brutal incentive.

This also changes how we think about resilience. A city covered in conventional solar still goes dark at sunset unless storage kicks in.

A city with dual mode surfaces generates something 24 hours a day. Not much at night, but enough to stabilize microloads and reduce stress on storage systems. Over millions of devices, that adds up.

What to watch next

First, materials.

Output scales with semiconductor efficiency and thermal contrast. Any breakthrough in infrared emission control directly lifts power density.

Watch for materials borrowed from photonics and chip manufacturing.

Second, integration.

These devices do not need to replace solar panels. They can sit behind them, underneath them, or inside buildings.

Adoption accelerates when installation piggybacks on existing surfaces.

Third, timelines.

This will not be a five year rooftop revolution, it will take ten to twenty years of infrastructure.

Early wins will be in space, defense, and remote sensing. Consumer impact comes later, quietly, baked into products you never think about.

This is about erasing the hard stop at sunset with night solar panels. Once electricity generation becomes continuous, even at low levels, the entire logic of storage, redundancy, and device design shifts.