{"id":274,"date":"2016-01-28T11:05:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T16:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/?p=274"},"modified":"2016-01-27T14:14:46","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T19:14:46","slug":"could-balloons-be-the-future-of-solar-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/could-balloons-be-the-future-of-solar-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Could balloons be the future of solar energy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While many debates about various aspects of solar energy and solar power will likely rage on for quite some time, there&#8217;s one seemingly undebatable point: cloudy days pose a problem.<\/p>\n<p>Solar panels are becoming a more viable clean energy source each passing week with new technologies emerging and public interest increasing, but then there are the clouds. <\/p>\n<p>What to do about the cloudy days?<\/p>\n<h2>Above the clouds<\/h2>\n<p>Well, an answer has come forth recently in the form of another question: what if we go above the clouds? Or, more specifically, what if we utilize balloons to take cloudy weather out of the solar equation?<\/p>\n<p>Scientists in Japan are developing a solution by developing a way to place solar panels above the clouds. Yes, researchers at the Japanese-French Laboratory for Next Generation Photovoltaic Cells in Tokyo want to use giant solar panel balloons equipped with generators to gather solar energy.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Balloons that float above clouds could be the future of solar energy <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/goOXxQHI5n\">https:\/\/t.co\/goOXxQHI5n<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/k3nOi360Ka\">pic.twitter.com\/k3nOi360Ka<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; HuffPost Science (@HuffPostScience) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HuffPostScience\/status\/678375633676800000\">December 20, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>The power of high altitude solar energy<\/h2>\n<p>Gaining uninterrupted access to sunlight through the use of balloons could solve a lot of problems associated with unpredictable solar power generation due to bad weather. <\/p>\n<p>Not only could energy production become predictable in this scenario, but scientists say that solar energy <a href=\"https:\/\/news.cnrs.fr\/opinions\/solar-energy-aims-for-the-sky-0\" title=\"is five times more abundant\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>is five times more abundant<\/strong><\/a> up above the clouds than on the ground.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/transparent-solar-cells-could-be-a-reality-soon\/\" title=\"Transparent solar cells could be a reality soon\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/skyscrapers_j8u1hY6r-150x150.jpg\" title=\"Transparent solar cells could be a reality soon\" alt=\"Transparent solar cells could be a reality soon\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/transparent-solar-cells-could-be-a-reality-soon\/\" title=\"Transparent solar cells could be a reality soon\"><h4>Transparent solar cells could be a reality soon<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/transparent-solar-cells-could-be-a-reality-soon\/\" title=\"Transparent solar cells could be a reality soon\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<span class=\"source-attribution\">Source &rarr; <a href=\"https:\/\/news.cnrs.fr\/opinions\/solar-energy-aims-for-the-sky-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CNRS<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While many debates about various aspects of solar energy and solar power will likely rage on for quite some time, there&#8217;s one seemingly undebatable point: cloudy days pose a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6,30,24],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-technology","tag-weird-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}