Skip to footer

Scientists invent first rechargeable solar battery

The rechargeable solar battery could make solar power more affordable, allowing the renewable energy source to be deployed more widely. The rechargeable solar battery was invented at Ohio State University.

|
Juan Karita/AP/File
A worker walks past a row of solar panels at a solar plant in the Amazon area of northern Bolivia. A rechargeable solar battery could cut manufacturing costs for solar-energy systems by about 25 percent, according to researchers.
  • By Associated Press

Researchers at Ohio State University say they've invented the first rechargeable solar battery.

The researchers say the new battery could make solar energy more affordable and open the door for its widespread use as a sustainable power source.

Solar panels generate energy from the sun that must be stored in expensive batteries in order for it to be sustainable. The OSU researchers say that a rechargeable battery would lower the cost of storing and using that energy.

A researcher says the battery should cut manufacturing costs for solar-energy systems by about 25 percent. And the solar batteries should last about the same as rechargeable batteries already on the market.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that the OSU research team is reporting its findings Friday in the journal Nature Communications.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Scientists invent first rechargeable solar battery
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1003/Scientists-invent-first-rechargeable-solar-battery
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe