Student creates award-winning solar panels inspired by food waste

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 We’ve covered a few different innovative and creative forms of solar panel designs here on the blog over the past few months, but it’s fair to say that today’s may be the most interesting one to date!


Carvey Ehren Maigue, a student at Mapua University, has created a solar panel that involved retrieving the luminescent particles found in certain types of food waste and storing them in a resin substrate.This was done in the attempt to solve a key efficiency issue facing solar panels. Namely, their dependence on direct sunlight for peak performance. 

It is claimed that Maigue’s design, known as the AuREUS system, is designed to continue harvesting light for solar energy generation almost half of the time, with many current panels only producing for 20-25% of the time. Maigue envisions his system working in the same way as the Northern Lights, hence the name AuREUS, derived from “aurora borealis. 

A single AuREUS solar panel is roughly three feet tall and two feet wide, a great fit for most building facades. Maigue hopes his food-inspired panels can encourage more building owners to employ renewable energy without compromising the architectural quality of their space.

Maguie unpacked the idea, saying “we can create curved panels, more intricate shapes for the walls, or the design they want without suffering lesser efficiency. In this way, we can show people that adapting sustainability to fight climate change is something that can benefit both the present and the future generation and in doing so, we can rally more people in this fight against climate change.”

For more information on the AuREUS panels and other innovative projects, check out the 2020 James Dyson Award website.

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