Photoelectric engineering of all-weather bifacial solar cells in the dark

•All-weather dye-sensitized solar cells are realized.•LPP tailored fluorescence film are used to store solar energy and release at dark.•A photoelectric conversion efficiency at dark is as high as 21%.•The all-weather solar cells can lighten a lamp in the dark.

A promising but challenging problem for state-of-the-art solar cells is to persistently generate power in the daytime and dark. To address this profound issue, all-weather bifacial solar cells are built by combining long persistence phosphor (LPP) tailored fluorescent film with bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells. On behalf of the solar energy storage and fluorescent excitation behaviors of LPP phosphors, the so-called all-weather solar cells yield a maximized photoelectric conversion efficiency of 10.04% and a dark efficiency as high as 21%. Moreover, the newly launched all-weather solar cells with 32 modules can lighten a lamp, demonstrating a predictable application in future energy harvesting. The current work could also extend our knowledge to more advanced all-weather solar cells.

Graphical abstractAll-weather dye-sensitized solar cells are built by coating green-emitting long persistence phosphor tailored fluorescent film on bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells, realizing a photo efficiency of 10.04% and a dark efficiency of 21%.Download high-res image (171KB)Download full-size image