this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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Cool idea but I wonder if there are actually any practical applications where you couldn't just use a regular solar panel instead.
What happens when you flip it around? Instead of needing a solar panel to power something, what could you do if you had a solar panel that had sensors, lights, or transmitters attached to it? None of those attachments cost anything additional to run and they don't decrease the panel's output. You just hook all the panels you want together into an array, and the damn thing could basically monitor itself and send error notifications to you when a problem needs fixing. That's a lot better than what we've had so far, either isolating, identifying, and solving problems without any guidance at all, or needing a monitoring system (computer) that soaks energy in order to keep tabs on your hardware. Some of the solar/battery systems you can buy now even rely on the extra power consumption of an AI agent to make sense of your error codes for you. It's crazy how many points of improvement this team made. I really hope it's practical on a large scale!