Does anyone know how to make DIY energy panel to harvest the energy from snow?

I understand that there are a few people, companies, universities, that have figured out how to harvest energy from snow so I was wondering if anyone has simple DIY plans for cheap panels?

Apparently, silicone sheets with plastic electrodes can capture the energy from falling snow and when you live in a place where winter weather lasts more then 3 months it seems like a worthwhile investment especially if it could harness the energy from rain also.  

I've done a few searches but it seems that no one has any DIY plans for this at the moment. So if you have figured it out how to do this, it would be awesome to have a simple DIY plan made available to the permies.

Thank you for your time.

Hi Christine,

This is my kinda of thing....thanks for bringing it to my attention. For those who are dubious, this invention came from UCLA.

For verification, can do your own search for the paper  "All printable snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator"
and the senior author: Richard Kaner

I can't answer your question Christine...just remember these guys/women had to come up with a prototype which is a DYI project.  Check out the actual paper they published and you'll get an idea of what you need to do to replicate their results....later, I'll do an exhaustive search for others who have done the same or similar thing.

Here are some links for those of us who are interested.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/best-in-snow-new-scientific-device-creates-electricity-from-snowfall
Stuart Wolpert | April 15, 2019

Senior author Richard Kaner, who holds UCLA's Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation.

"Static electricity occurs from the interaction of one material that captures electrons and another that gives up electrons," said Kaner, who is also a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering, and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. "You separate the charges and create electricity out of essentially nothing."

Snow is positively charged and gives up electrons. Silicone -- a synthetic rubber-like material that is composed of silicon atoms and oxygen atoms, combined with carbon, hydrogen and other elements -- is negatively charged. When falling snow contacts the surface of silicone, that produces a charge that the device captures, creating electricity.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211285519302204
"All printable snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator"
Abdelsalam Ahmedabc Islam Hassanb Islam M.Mosa de Esraa Elsanadidyd Gayatri S.Phadked Maher F. El-Kadyfg James F. Ruslingdhi Ponnambalam Ravi Selvaganapathybc Richard B.Kaneref
 
The first-of-its-kind nanogenerator designed by UCLA researchers and colleagues also acts as a weather station

a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator, or snow TENG. A triboelectric nanogenerator, which generates charge through static electricity, produces energy from the exchange of electrons.

This snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator (Snow-TENG) can produce a power density of 0.2 mW/m2, and an open circuit voltage up to 8 V.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.03.032