Do solar panels work at night?

Do solar panels work at night? It's a common question. You'll certainly find some articles out there claiming that new solar panels can generate at night, but is it really true?

Let's use my data to answer that question. 

The image below shows generation at different points during the day, and the cumulative through the day. This was a fairly sunny day with a few clouds mid-morning (the zig-zags). In total I produced just under 50kWh - a decent haul for a 7kWp system. (Unsure of the differences between kW/kWh/kWp? Read this simple explainer)

Officially sunrise and sunset on this day were 04.55 and 21.12 on this particular day. I've highlighted the sunset time. You can see a tiny bit of generation before and after but effectively the answer is no. the 0.058kWh produced within 5 minutes of sunset is barely enough to charge a phone and certainly not enough for anything useful. And it decreases from there.

One day they might invent something that can genuinely generate energy from moonlight, but for now you'll need a wind-turbine if you want to generate home energy after dark. Sorry!