Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy. Follow@smartccouncil on Twitter. Related articlesercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion Research Vehicle World premiere (video) Mercedes-benz rolling out a lineup of city-friendly hybrid EVS c
#6 new signs the world is getting smarter about energy There no doubt that the energy world is changing fast.
and utilities to look at energy in new ways. Here are six new projects in communities that are getting smarter about energy.
Managing unprecedented network load Within the next decade the United kingdom is forecast to have more than 10 million homes with solar panels and more than 6 million with electric vehicles,
making the country energy network increasingly difficult to manage. Council Lead Partner Schneider Electric is participating in a trial project that will help with changing energy network patterns
while boosting local capacity. The project involves installing high-performance power electronic converters at individual homes and offices.
By doing this, utilities can increase the voltage sent over local networks to give customers more flexibility.
Schneider Electric is also helping Spain Iberdrola keep better track of 11 million smart meters and advanced monitoring devices.
Customers also get more timely information about their energy usage, which helps them conserve and better manage their utility bills.
and streamlining its management systems in a project with Council Lead Partner Alstom Grid. The project aims to improve reliability
and an updated energy management system. All three are made by Alstom and will give the utility a single,
integrated platform to monitor and operate its electric grid. By having a single interface that consistent across transmission and distribution control rooms,
Modernizing Latin america largest gridthe Brazilian utility Eletrobras--the largest power utility in Latin america--is working with Council Lead Partner Itron to modernize its grid.
It using Itron Openway Riva to combine two different communications technologies on the same network. Itron adaptive technology automatically routes data over the best communications system--radio frequency or power line carrier--at the time for the data and the requirements of the application.
This effort will improve outage detection, transformer load management, and allow for smart and remote metering,
Giving renewable energy generation a boostenel, a Council Lead Partner, is making a big investment to boost the amount of energy generated from renewable sources in emerging markets,
coming close to doubling the amount of energy it currently generating. Enel says those three countries are set to be renewable energy hotspots
and its efforts not only provide more power, but also help them achieve their renewable energy goals. The new capacity will go online this decade.
Enel also has its sights set on South africa where more than 6 GW of renewable energy capacity will eventually be auctioned.
the transmission operator can balance different energy sources to maintain consistent power.#####Kevin Ebi is a staff writer and social media coordinator for the Council.
and best practices for reducing energy operating costs, reducing reliance on nonrenewable energy sources, lowering costs for citizens and improving reliability and resilience.
Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity without resistance and without dissipating energy. In ordinary materials, electrons repel each other,
but in superconductors the electrons form pairs known as Cooper pairs, which together flow through the material without resistance.
That energy gap is equal to the amount of energy needed to break Cooper pairs. The researchers who demonstrated last year the role phonons played in the superconductivity of graphite and calcium, Patrick Kirchmann and Shuolong Yang of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
#Graphene and Perovskite Lead to Inexpensive and Highly Efficient Solar cells Perovskite is the new buzzword in photovoltaics.
including photovoltaics. Now researchers at Hong kong Polytechnic University have combined these two materials to make a semitransparent solar cell capable of power conversion efficiencies around 12 percent, a significant improvement over the roughly 7-percent efficiency of traditional
semitransparent solar cells. The semitransparent design of these solar cells means that they can absorb light from both sides
and could allow them to be used as windows that serve the dual function of letting light into a building
and generating electricity. In the design of the Hong kong researcherssolar cell, the perovskite serves as active layer for harvesting the light,
and the graphene acts as the transparent electrode material. Graphene has long been pursued as a potential replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO) as a transparent electrode material for displays.
The researchers were able to improve the energy conversion capability of the solar cells by employing a multi-layer chemical vapor deposition process in
They claim that their solar cells cost less than US$. 06/watt, which they reckon is more than a 50 percent reduction in the costs of silicon solar cells.
They believe that the whole process is ripe for scaling up because the mechanical flexibility of the graphene enables the possibility of roll-to-roll processing o
#Graphene and Perovskite Lead to Inexpensive and Highly Efficient Solar cells Perovskite is the new buzzword in photovoltaics.
including photovoltaics. Now researchers at Hong kong Polytechnic University have combined these two materials to make a semitransparent solar cell capable of power conversion efficiencies around 12 percent, a significant improvement over the roughly 7-percent efficiency of traditional
semitransparent solar cells. The semitransparent design of these solar cells means that they can absorb light from both sides
and could allow them to be used as windows that serve the dual function of letting light into a building
and generating electricity. In the design of the Hong kong researcherssolar cell, the perovskite serves as active layer for harvesting the light,
and the graphene acts as the transparent electrode material. Graphene has long been pursued as a potential replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO) as a transparent electrode material for displays.
The researchers were able to improve the energy conversion capability of the solar cells by employing a multi-layer chemical vapor deposition process in
They claim that their solar cells cost less than US$. 06/watt, which they reckon is more than a 50 percent reduction in the costs of silicon solar cells.
They believe that the whole process is ripe for scaling up because the mechanical flexibility of the graphene enables the possibility of roll-to-roll processing i
#Japanese Paper Cutting Trick for Moving Solar cells To maximize the amount of electricity that solar cells generate,
solar panels can be tilted to track the position of the sun over the course of a day.
Conventional solar trackers can increase yearly energy generation by 20 to 40 percent, but they can be costly,
Now materials scientist Max Shtein and his colleagues at the University of Michigan at Ann arbor have developed novel solar cells that integrate tracking into their design.
The scientists cut kirigami designs into a 3-micron-thick flexible crystalline gallium arsenide solar cells mounted on plastic sheets.
A solar cell array of this type can tilt in three dimensions in a highly controllable manner
The researchers found that their new devices could generate roughly as much power as solar cells mounted on conventional trackers.
Shtein and his colleagues suggest that kirigami solar panels could be simple, inexpensive and lightweight, and have widespread rooftop, mobile,
whether mounting solar cells onto more durable materials such as spring steel could make kirigami systems even more robust t
Measuring Electrical resistance Graphene merits in electronic devices and as a light bulb coating are still being debated. But new results suggest the atom-thick carbon sheet has one clear advantage:
namely the big spacing between electron energy levels when the material is exposed to a magnetic field,
said Langhammer. his usually means focusing a beam of high-energy electrons or photons or a mechanical probe onto a very tiny volume.
or Too Economical Just about every electrical device seems to want to slim down to a thin filmf possible,
either shiver or drain their car already stressed-out batteries. n the most unfavorable case,
These plasmon density waves absorb energy from the photons that pass through the silicon wafer. The absorption of the energy produces otor energetic electrons,
which generate a detectable electrical current. The researchers found that they could make the zigzag pattern of nanowires with a right-or left-handed orientation.
so switching would require less energy. One way that scientists have sought to overcome this limit is with tunnel FETS (TFETS.
This led to a more than 90 percent reduction in power consumption compared with conventional FETS. The scientists and engineers detailed their findings in the 1 oct. issue of the journal Nature. his transistor represents a major breakthrough in the electronics and semiconductor industry
longer battery life or lower power consumption in data centers to reduce their costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and ultra-sensitive and low-power biosensors and gas sensors to enhance the Internet of things.
the energy (measured in mega electron volts, Mev) gained per meter of travel. The amount of energy the accelerator can pump into a cluster of particles
electrons, for example, thus becomes a function of the device gradient and length. And cost, of course, increases with physical size of the accelerator.
RF accelerators can reach energies of a few tens of mega electron volts before the RF energy itself begins to destabilize the mechanism in what called plasma breakdown.
however, boosted their energy to 67 kev. A back of the envelope calculation translates this modest energy gain into an acceleration gradient over 2 Mev/m. his is not a particularly large acceleration,
but the experiment demonstrates that the principle does work in practice, explains co-author Arya Fallahi of CFEL. he theory indicates that we should be able to achieve an accelerating gradient of up to one gigavolt per meter.
Phosphorescent OLEDS (PHOLEDS) use only one quarter the energy of conventional OLEDS. Green and red PHOLEDS are used already in smartphones and TVS
leading to longer battery lives and lower electricity bills, but developing the kind of bright deep blue PHOLEDS needed for video displays has proven challenging.
In several subsectors, notably food e-commerce and bioenergy, companies are reaching sizes where an IPO is within grasp,
that would use contextual information including your current time zone, ringer silence status, battery life, location and cell network strength to automatically determine whether youe available for a call and display that information to friends.
a feature that will impress folks who have tried to connect to Bluetooth light bulbs in the past. The martphone-centricapproach lets the company add tools like the Control to the mix as well.
and may be coming to a light bulb or teakettle near you b
#Gaming Startup Code Kingdoms Exits Beta On A Quest To Get Kids Coding Changes to the computing curriculum in England,
#Nikola Labs Launches iphone 6 Case Which Harvests Electricity From The Air Nikola Tesla pioneered the transmission of electricity over wires.
a case for an iphone 6. It converts the wasted 90 percent of energy the phone produces trying to pump out a cellphone signal,
This is not an extra battery; it simply works passively. Essentially it is harvesting back the ambient RF energy already being produced by the phone.
They aim to bring the product to market within one year, in partnership with Ohio State university,
medical devices and Internet of things devices anything that doesn require massive amounts of electricity. It will be launching on Kickstarter in one month for $99,
and energy theye using or later down the line, a smart water heater. So far though, the startup has focused on getting an initial version right by modeling droplet sizes
The robots are powered battery so they can go back to a charging dock (similar to a Roomba)
when theye running low on energy. t like 3d printing upside down, says ASMBLD cofounder Petr Novikov.
#First aqueous solar flow battery designed WASHINGTON: Researchers have designed the first aqueous flow battery with solar capability that can achieve a 20 per cent energy savings over traditional batteries.
Researchers at The Ohio State university had developed the world's first solar air battery last Fall in a new study,
the researchers have reported that their patent-pending design -which combines a solar cell and a battery into a single device-now achieves a 20 per cent energy savings over traditional lithium-iodine batteries.
The 20 per cent comes from sunlight, which is captured by a unique solar panel on top of the battery,
said Yiying Wu, professor at Ohio State. The solar panel is a solid sheet, rather than a mesh as in the previous design.
Another key difference comes from the use of a water-based electrolyte inside the battery.
Because water circulates inside it, the new design belongs to an emerging class of batteries called aqueous flow batteries."
"The truly important innovation here is that we've successfully demonstrated aqueous flow inside our solar battery,
"Wu said. As such, it is the first aqueous flow battery with solar capability. Or, as Wu and his team have dubbed it, the first"aqueous solar flow battery."
"It's also totally compatible with current battery technology, very easy to integrate with existing technology,
environmentally friendly and easy to maintain, "he added. Researchers around the world are working to develop aqueous flow batteries
because they could theoretically provide affordable power grid-level energy storage someday. The solar flow battery could thus bridge a gap between today's energy grid and sources of renewable energy."
"This solar flow battery design can potentially be applied for grid-scale solar energy conversion and storage, as well as producing'electrolyte fuels'that might be used to power future electric vehicles,
"said Mingzhe Yu, lead author of the paper and a doctoral student at Ohio State. The new solid solar panel is called a dye-sensitised solar cell,
because the researchers use a red dye to tune the wavelength of light it captures
and converts to electrons. Those electrons then supplement the voltage stored in the lithium-anode portion of the solar battery.
To carry electrons from the solar cell into the battery a liquid electrolyte is required, which is typically part salt, part solvent.
The researchers used lithium iodide as the salt, which offers a high-energy storage capacity with low cost,
and water as the solvent. In tests, the researchers compared the solar flow battery's performance to that of a typical lithium-iodine battery.
They charged and discharged the batteries 25 times. Each time, both batteries discharged around 3. 3 volts.
The difference was that the solar flow battery could produce the same output with less charging.
The study was published in Journal of the American Chemical Society. WASHINGTON: Researchers have designed the first aqueous flow battery with solar capability that can achieve a 20 per cent energy savings over traditional batteries.
Researchers at The Ohio State university had developed the world's first solar air battery last Fall in a new study,
the researchers have reported that their patent-pending design -which combines a solar cell and a battery into a single device-now achieves a 20 per cent energy savings over traditional lithium-iodine batteries.
The 20 per cent comes from sunlight, which is captured by a unique solar panel on top of the battery,
said Yiying Wu, professor at Ohio State. The solar panel is a solid sheet, rather than a mesh as in the previous design.
Another key difference comes from the use of a water-based electrolyte inside the battery.
Because water circulates inside it, the new design belongs to an emerging class of batteries called aqueous flow batteries."
"The truly important innovation here is that we've successfully demonstrated aqueous flow inside our solar battery,
"Wu said. As such, it is the first aqueous flow battery with solar capability. Or, as Wu and his team have dubbed it, the first"aqueous solar flow battery."
"It's also totally compatible with current battery technology, very easy to integrate with existing technology,
environmentally friendly and easy to maintain, "he added. Researchers around the world are working to develop aqueous flow batteries
because they could theoretically provide affordable power grid-level energy storage someday. The solar flow battery could thus bridge a gap between today's energy grid and sources of renewable energy."
"This solar flow battery design can potentially be applied for grid-scale solar energy conversion and storage, as well as producing'electrolyte fuels'that might be used to power future electric vehicles,
"said Mingzhe Yu, lead author of the paper and a doctoral student at Ohio State. The new solid solar panel is called a dye-sensitised solar cell,
because the researchers use a red dye to tune the wavelength of light it captures
and converts to electrons. Those electrons then supplement the voltage stored in the lithium-anode portion of the solar battery.
To carry electrons from the solar cell into the battery a liquid electrolyte is required, which is typically part salt, part solvent.
The researchers used lithium iodide as the salt, which offers a high-energy storage capacity with low cost,
and water as the solvent. In tests, the researchers compared the solar flow battery's performance to that of a typical lithium-iodine battery.
They charged and discharged the batteries 25 times. Each time, both batteries discharged around 3. 3 volts.
The difference was that the solar flow battery could produce the same output with less charging.
The study was published in Journal of the American Chemical Society y
#Cells that regenerate liver without cancer risk NEW YORK: Scientists have discovered new type of cells which are an important part of liver regeneration.
When healthy liver cells are depleted by long-term exposure to toxic chemicals, the newly discovered cells,
known as hybrid hepatocytes, generate new tissue more efficiently than normal liver cells. Importantly, they divide
and grow without causing cancer, which tends to be a risk with rapid cell division.""Hybrid hepatocytes represent not only the most effective way to repair a diseased liver,
but also the safest way to prevent fatal liver failure by cell transplantation,"lead researcher professor Michael Karin from University of California, San diego (UCSD) School of medicine.
The liver is the only organ regenerates after being damaged. Exactly how it repairs itself remained a mystery until recently,
when researchers discovered a type of cell in mice essential to the process. The researchers also found similar cells in humans.
The researchers studied liver function in mice. They were able to isolate the hybrid hepatocytes after observing how the tissue regenerated.
They then exposed healthy mice to three known cancer-causing pathways and watched the hybrid hepatocytes closely.
a postdoctoral research scholar, cut sugar production in liver cells by inhibiting a key protein involved in transporting pyruvate, a building block of glucose, from the bloodstream into the energy factories of liver cells, called mitochondria.
or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure. In a roundtable discussion on his recent breakthroughs and the future of synthetic photosynthesis, Peidong Yang, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley said his hybrid inorganic/biological systems give researchers new tools
"said Yang, also a co-director of the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute.""One purpose of this experiment was to show we could integrate bacterial catalysts with semiconductor technology.
while 36 percent was incinerated for energy generation. The remaining 38 percent of post-consumer plastics in Europe went to landfills.
and bioplastics (derived from renewable biomass sources such as corn or biogas methane). As part of a"cradle-to-cradle"approach, the researchers will explore the fate of these materials
while 36 percent was incinerated for energy generation. The remaining 38 percent of post-consumer plastics in Europe went to landfills.
and bioplastics (derived from renewable biomass sources such as corn or biogas methane). As part of a"cradle-to-cradle"approach, the researchers will explore the fate of these materials
#Australian scientists develop 3d printed organic solar cells capable of powering a skyscraper It no secret that solar panels are set to change the way the world harnesses energy-especially
when considering that next-generation homes could be powered by batteries that are charged by self-harnessed energy-and just like any other piece of modern technology,
scientists and researchers have been actively looking at ways to make the solar panel manufacturing process more optimized using an additive manufacturing process.
organic printable solar panels as part of the Victorian Organic solar cell Consortium. According to the researchers, the printable panels are capable of powering entire skyscrapers
According to the project website, the technology has the potential to ramatically reduce the dependence on more traditional sources of electricity in developed countries such as Australia,
easily deployable source of electric power for remote regions beyond the reach of the grid in developing countries.
unlike traditional electricity-producing solar panels, the printed cells offer the potential to allow printing onto actual housing materials including glass
but to collect some energy as well and power those electronics, "said Fiona Scholes, a senior research scientist at Australia national science agency CSIRO.
The researchers have managed to reduce each of the solar panels to approximately the size of a coin
Melbourne and Monash universities-has gone even so far as to explore how to transport the technology to some of the world most remote areas that don even use electricity."
"Connecting our solar panels is as simple as connecting a battery.""As for what next for the team, researchers hope that with government support they could be available to the public in just a few years."
ever car, generate energy, "Monash Dean of Engineering Frieder Seible told AAP. Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten
and our capacity to turn sunlight into electricity for Australian consumers and small businesses, "Mr Shorten said.
"We have to make sure with the printable solar cells that we don't make the same mistake.
"We would like to improve the efficiency of solar panels-we need to develop solar inks to generate more energy from sunlight,
ver one billion people lack access to electricity. In remote places, simple medical items are expensive
The solar panels are connected to the battery (12v containing a charge controller and AC inverter) to chare it,
which is used to prep the forthcoming mission to Mars. ince the International space station is powered by solar panels,
and patented a micro wind turbine device that is capable of generating power in wind speeds as low as 1 mph,
the founder of American Wind, will drive across the United states in an electric vehicle powered by four Microcubes without stopping even once to plug in the battery for a recharge.
A single Microcube can generate more power than a standard solar panel for a fraction of the size,
and stacking several Cubes together in the same space it takes for one solar panel can produce 18x as much energy.
because they don't produce the amount of electricity that our unit generates, "said Yost.""A U s. patent examiner told us there has never been created a generator with the characteristics of the Microcube.
800 watts per hour to keep its lithium-ion battery charged. While electric vehicles have been on the market for some time,
"We also hear that wind turbines cannot produce enough energy in such a small form factor as the Microcube.
The research was supported by the Department of energy Frontier Research center on Light Material Interactions in Energy conversion, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) o
and car that produce and share clean energy Two of the most pressing and discussed issues facing the world today include the global housing crisis,
and our grotesque reliance on nonrenewable energy sources, which has led to the depletion of Earth resources
however energy waste in manufacturing, buildings and transportation is connected fundamentally real breakthrough means solving them together rather than separately.
At today EERE day, The Oak ridge National Laboratory unveiled its Additve Manufactuing Integrated Energy (AMIE) project,
a first-of-its-kind design that uses an integrated symbiotic energy system to share energy between a single-unit, 3d printed solar powered house and a 3d printed electric car.
AMIE could support worldwide electricity needs, completely revolutionizing how we generate, use and store clean energy.
Thanks to a collaboration between more than 20 major industry partners and with the innovative use of 3d printing technology
The team took advantage of 3d printing instant feedback and rapid prototyping to experiment with new shapes, printing speeds, battery technologies, cleaner burning fuels,
and maximize energy savings. t the flexibility of this printed platform that allows us to explore all of those opportunities,
however the true innovation comes from the integrated energy-sharing platform, which uses a bidirectional wireless charger to direct energy to and from the car or house as needed.
The project energy control center manages the system electrical demand and load by balancing the intermittent power from the buildin 3. 2 kw solar array with supplemental power from the vehicle.
In essence this approach was designed to take advantage of the fact that even though we aren using our car and our house every minute of the day,
they can still be generating and storing energy. So, while it is sunny outside, the house produces its own solar energy,
and at night or on cloudy days, the natural-gas-powered hybrid electric car can provide supplemental power.
and expertise of several specialized areas, including advanced manufacturing, vehicle technologies, building technologies and sustainable electricity.
associate laboratory director for Energy and Environmental sciences at ORNL. ur research provides solutions on a small scale,
which will translate to a significant reduction in energy use and an increase in cost savings when ramped up to a national,
consuming, and storing clean energy. MIE is not the end, it the beginning of a discussion, said Jackson. e want people to look at it
and separating GNP. 3d printed graphene battery by Graphene 3d Labdiscovered in 2004, graphene is considered a sort of oly grailin 3d printing and manufacturing materials.
is very light and flexible, an efficient conductor of heat and electricity, and is compatible with human tissue.
Its applications range from medicine, advanced energy, electronics, aerospace design and many others. Despite these groundbreaking characteristics,
high-energy and toxic chemical processes, limiting its use to certain R&d labs. Graphene 3d new process,
and will allow an ever widening variety of manufacturers to consider incorporating the extraordinary qualities of graphene in wide range of materials from batteries to consumer electronics to plastics. s the most sought-after and groundbreaking material,
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