The report is part of IRENA REMAP 2030 program. frica holds some of the best renewable energy resources in the world in the form of biomass, geothermal, hydropower,
meeting rising demand for power, transport and other uses in a way that is economically sustainable and safeguards livelihoods. he report identifies four key modern technologies as having the ighest deployment potentialsfor Africa modern biomass for cooking
Specifically, the authors of the report believe that renewable energy could transform the continent electricity sector by pushing the share of renewables in the electricity mix to 50%by 2030
A shift to biomass-based cooking would reduce the use of traditional cook stoves by more than 60,
It works by converting electric power from solar panels or a small onboard nuclear reactor into forward thrust.
but continuously as long as you keep powering it with electricity (via solar or nuclear power). Its inventor calculates that an interstellar probe would take ten years to reach two-thirds the speed of light,
The organic molecules of this chemical are used widely in electronic devices such as solar cells, LEDS and transistors.
powered by electricity instead of petrol. A 10.4 kilowatt-per-hour battery pack lasts 150 to 200 miles on a single charge, according to Lit Motors.
and enables them to conduct electricity. Real skin transmits pressure information as short pulses of electrical signals that are sent to the brain.
allowing them to avoid buying electricity from utility providers in the evenings at peak rates. this will increased lead to independence from the power grid,
#MIT refreshes fusion reactor with modern superconductors Rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting tapes could mean earlier practical fusion reactors, according to MIT.
By combining REBCO magnets with known fusion principles, the team has designed a research reactor, and potential prototype power plant,
It is half the diameter of the ITER fusion reactor to be built in France (designed before the REBCO superconductors),
the core of the MIT reactor can be removed without dismantling the entire machine. Liquid rather than solid materials surround the fusion chamber allowing easy circulation
New york. The state has awarded the $40 million project a $1. 3 million grant through the Regional Greenhouse gas Initiative, a program that supports multiple clean energy projects, Forester Daily news reports.
The digester will convert these waste streams to clean energy, clean water to be used for plant processes and solid-based fertilizer.
The electric power needed to run the digester and the existing facility will be generated using biogas from the project.
Research has made now significant progress towards using sustainable biomass, like wood, as an alternative raw material for chemical production.
The US research group under Professor Anthony J. Arduengo III is interested particularly in developing industrially applicable methods for using materials derived from wood biomass for the sustainable manufacture of a broad array of basic chemicals such as, for example,
Electricity passed through the solenoid creates a weak radiofrequency field. The field causes the magnetic tails of the chain to vibrate
"This zero-index metamaterial offers a solution for the confinement of electromagnetic energy in different waveguide configurations
the amount of electricity it needs to begin separating water into hydrogen and oxygen. The new catalyst is mixed as a solution
"While we had shown previously that palladium would do related reactions in a closed reactor system, this work with platinum is our first demonstration of operation in a flow reactor at industrially relevant conditions.
We believe this approach is also applicable to other precious metals if added as minority components in copper."
"Environmental Benefits Because platinum is at the center of many clean energy and green chemicals production technologies, such as fuel cells, catalytic converters,
and are anticipated also as materials for next-generation energy saving power devices and solar cells. However, the quality of Gan crystals does not come up to that of conventional semiconductor materials such as silicon (Si)
The aircraft's wings are covered by more than 17,000 solar cells that recharge the plane's batteries.
Currently, these data centres eat up about 2 per cent of electricity in the US. But Gan-based power electronics, Palacios said,
"First, lactic acid is fed into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic under high temperature and in a vacuum,
"The KU Leuven researchers developed a new technique by applying a petrochemical concept to biomass."
"We speed up and guide the chemical process in the reactor with a zeolite as a catalyst,
The rechargeable aluminum battery created by Stanford researchers generates about two volts of electricity, the highest achieved with aluminum.
Invest A lot More In The Grid Want to increase the use of green energy and reduce the level of harmful emissions?
Those who run electricity systems can now apply algorithms to tell operators which units to run
Christopher Berkey/AP Images for S&c Electric company) Today, the bulk power system as it is known is comprised of 10,000 power plants, 170,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and nearly 6 million miles of low-voltage distribution lines.
and solar energy that need access to the transmission lines. Professor Amin says that if wind energy is to swell by 40 percent during this time,
Specifically, 10 of its 13 states have renewable portfolio standards that will require more green energy.
says Julia Hamm, chief executive of the Solar Electric power Association. The recent past has seen such mega-deals as the 392-megawatt concentrated solar plant called Ivanpah,
which is joint venture among NRG ENERGY, Google and Brightsource energy. That project takes 173,000 mirrors and focuses the sunlight to the plant solar receiver steam generator,
when then produces electricity. However, it costly and out-of-favor, given that it is much easier and much less expensive to put rooftop solar panels on homes
and businesses not to mention the headaches of trying to get new transmission built to carry the power to where it would be consumed.
While Oncor Electric is still sending electrons to its 7. 5 million customers throughout Texas using high-voltage transmission lines,
and deliver electricity to the masses. While they will remain paramount to the distribution of electricity,
the reality is that it is politically difficult to expand them. Even more significantly businesses that cannot afford even a momentary disruption in power must look to new technologies that include distributed generation
other industrial campuses can choose to stay connected to such utility-provided electricity all the time or until the lights flicker out.
which can harness electricity and release it on to the localized microgrid when it is needed.
but it can also help spur green energy development. Oncor is using a small battery developed by Tesla motors.
I was covering a Northwestern University debate on the future of nuclear energy, in which the nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen predicted Tesla new utility-scale battery would render new-build nuclear plants obsolete.
The battery would be cheap enough to solve the reliability problem of intermittent solar and wind,
he predicted, providing a cheaper alternative to nuclear power 24-hour output. Gundersen predicted the cost of the utility-scale battery would fall to 2 cents per kwh of the electricity that passes through it
which in coming years would render renewable energy with reliable storage cheaper than a new nuclear plant.
Gundersen focused on the utility-scale battery, which we would soon learn to call the Tesla Powerpack,
but it a remarkable number if one expects new capital expenditures on batteries to increase electricity bills. onsidering both the impact on electricity bills and improved reliability of grid-integrated storage,
Customers would then receive offsetting reductions in retail electricity costs from the storage in the form of deferred investments, refunds from the wholesale market auction proceeds,
Ramez Naam review also led me to a study by the Electric power Research Institute, which found the benefits of grid-level storage exceeded costs in nearly all examined scenarios.
and my Forbes colleague Chris Helman pessimistic 50¢(for the Powerwall are outliers in the range of possibilities for the cost of electricity flowing through Tesla batteries.
And it means windmills+batteries may be cheaper than nuclear plants right now, with windmills+solar panels likely to follow e
#Medical marijuana Sparks New Technology The emerging cannabis industry has created not only thousands of new jobs, it has also given birth to a new technology niche.
and upticks in renewable electricity generation there using solar wind and hydropower could have contributed to the reversal.
and installation alternative energy generation technologies to improve their energy and economic security. There is clear evidence of this already occurring in Europe and China especially.
and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface
for some materials to conduct electricity without resistance, even at ightemperatures approaching 00 degrees Celsius. he discovery of this phase was unexpected completely and not based on any prior theoretical prediction,
the battery only generates around two volts of electricity, which is around half that of a typical lithium-ion battery.
without using any electricity Office buildings with plate glass windows may provide a nice view for workers,
or to generate electricity via flexible solar cells. A working prototype of the technology will be on display from Apr 13 to 17, at the Hannover Messe industrial trade show d
#Graphene device makes ultrafast light to energy conversion possible Converting light to electricity is one of the pillars of modern electronics, with the process essential for the operation of everything from solar cells and TV remote control receivers through to laser communications
In this vein, researchers from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (Institut de Ciències Fotòniques/ICFO) in Barcelona have demonstrated a graphene-based photodetector they claim converts light into electricity in less than 50 quadrillionths of a second.
along with an ultra-sensitive pulse detector to capture the speed of conversion to electrical energy. When this arrangement was fired up and tested
The case arveststhose stray radio waves and converts them into electric power. The Harvest case is able to stretch your battery life by nearly a third.
Nikola Labswill Zell explains in the video below how the phone case is able to turn radio waves into electricity.
often leading to the lowest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) in projects. Not only is increased annual production,
Key considerations include the total annual electricity production and the amount of electricity produced during hours
when electricity demand is at its highest. PV Watts is a useful tool for examining the tradeoffs involved.
The software predicts the power produced from a PV system under various configurations. If a sunny location like Albuquerque, New mexico is selected,
and is positioned to be a very competitive source of electricity going forward. Tags: array technologies, solar tracker s
and a AC-DC-AC power converter from wind turbine maker Northern Power systems. e start by taking a generator
which has build a 1-megawatt wind farm and backup diesel generator array for the Aleutian island town of Sand Point,
Innovus should be able to allow that wind capacity to be used for both electricity and additional uses like heating (notated as"dump power"on the chart below),
mining operations and other remote locations where grid electricity is either very costly or simply unavailable.
#Solarcity Has a New Plan to Make Distributed Energy an Integral Part of the Grid Solarcity has an idea for how to help California utilities tap their own customers as an integral part of their billion-dollar distribution grid plans:
In a white paper this week, Solarcity wrote that the structure could be a key lever for customer-owned distributed energy resources (DERS) to compete for billions of dollars of distribution grid projects being planned by the state big three utilities.
said Ryan Hanley, Solarcity senior director of grid engineering solutions, in an interview. fter you find out what you can do with your pricing signals,
senior policy and regulatory attorney for the Center for Sustainable energy. xisting incentives and value streams don provide the right signals to adopt complementary solutions that provide synergistic value to the grid,
and control between grid operators and, say, utility-scale solar and wind farms. Still there are methods to determine the effective load carrying capacity of distributed renewables at scale,
Solarcity proposes building some headroom into how the distribution loading order calculates the capacity of customer-owned DER,
As for how companies like Solarcity will go about proving their DERS can do what they say they can,
Solarcity CTO Peter Rive suggested at Thursday meeting that utilities be allowed to earn returns on distributed energy resources as-a-service. ou could meet that load growth with standalone solar.
Solarcity is already selling Tesla behind-the-meter batteries with its solar systems, and has been testing their ability to work in concert as an aggregated grid resource.
and there will be some weight for the craft, solar panels and communications, but we think there would be 20 kilograms left over for the payload,
#Concept the translucent battery, that charging from the sun A group of Japanese engineers at the University of Kogakuin developed translucent lithium-ion battery that can be recharged in the sun. Solar rays are converted into electricity, the fact
and as a solar panel. When the battery fall into the sun rays, it becomes slightly tinted:
Development is the next step to the windows of the future, acting as solar panels. They will not only automatically obscure the sunlight,
He figured how to apply the coatings to each individual fiber in something called a chemical vapor deposition reactor,
It has a solar panel to charge the battery, to keep it working in places without electric power.
An alternative communications system like this could help save lives when disasters strike by connecting survivors with rescue workers and government officials.
and is known for its excellent conductive properties of heat and electricity. The graphene sheets stuck very well to the nanoglueo much
LEDS are a type of device that can efficiently convert electricity to light. Unlike fluorescent and incandescent bulbs,
#New Material Could Turn Water into Fuel Scientists have designed theoretically a new material that could help supply the world with clean energy by turning water into fuel,
which currently requires much more energy in from electricity than comes out in usable fuel. To make the process more efficient,
which allow plants to convert sunlight into chemical energy, "said Grau-Crespo.""The challenge now is to incorporate these wonderful natural catalysts into materials capable of doing the specific chemical job we need.
it could lead to highly-efficient conversion of solar energy to chemical energy-providing a clean, storable and transferrable source of energy. y
used subcritical fluid technology to extract phenolic compounds from the potato biomass. Traditional methods use methanol, a toxic solvent.
the overall goal is to achieve complete use of the available biomass. Her team, including visiting scientists from Brazil and China,
and to gasify what left of the biomass residue to obtain hydrogen. That research is ongoing a
is central to most electric power plants, heating and cooling systems, and desalination plants. Now, for the first time, researchers at MIT have found a way to control this process, literally with the flick of an electrical switch.
which could improve the efficiency of electric power generation and other processes, is described in a paper by Evelyn Wang, Department of Mechanical engineering Professor, Jeremy Cho, graduate student and Jordan Mizerak, recent graduate,
Solar cells power the equipment, while batteries store power when there isn't enough sunlight. Additionally, when conditions in the container are just right,
Clarke said that a solar technology firm is needed now to finish development and help with construction.
The only cost associated with operating them is the cost of electricity to power the lasers, according to Boeing,
really tiny animal the microscopic tardigrade is the inspiration behind a new material that could improve the efficiency of things like LED LIGHTS and solar cells.
and solar cells noticed that they could sometimes produce glass-coated devices with structured, or"oriented"molecules."
Meanwhile, those who build solar cells want as much light as possible to move"down,"toward the substrate,
It uses something called HCPVT (Highly Efficient Concentrated Photovoltaic/Thermal) to generate electricity and hot water from solar power.
as well as highly efficient photovoltaic cells (known as gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells) to convert that concentrated solar energy into electricity. Though concentrated solar thermal power
"In other words, the difference between this technology being classified as a death ray as opposed to a solar array is merely a matter of how the reflectors are angled.
Photovoltaic cells used by the Sunflower have a max operating temperature of around 105 degrees Celsius,
The end result is a device that produces about 12kw of electricity, along with 21kw of thermal energy.
Even though that doesn't amount to a huge amount of energy (the 12kw of electricity is only enough to power a few homes, for instance),
Its gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells though more efficient than standard PV cells, are not cheap. Add up construction costs and the costs of the fancy cooling system,
the Modumetal method requires only electricity. The company hopes its technique will usher in a new era
when exposed to sunlight without the need for a separate solar cell. The transparent battery was developed first by the researchers,
Graphene, a sheet of carbon atoms that is only one atom in thickness, conducts electricity and dissipates heat much more efficiently than silicon,
This research outcome potentially allows for great flexibility in the design and optimization of electronic and optoelectronic devices like solar panels and telecommunication lasers.
All these properties combined make it a tremendous conductor of heat and electricity. A defectree layer is also impermeable to all atoms and molecules.
as they are normally either purely organic, for example in solar cell conducting polymers, or entirely inorganic, such as oxide or metallic glasses.
Where solar panels are concerned, the suppression of reflected light translates into a 3-6 percent relative increase in light-to-electricity conversion efficiency and power output of the cells.
Coupled with the superhydrophobic self-cleaning ability, this could also substantially reduce maintenance and operating costs of solar panels.
In addition the coating is highly effective at blocking ultraviolet light. Other potential applications include goggles, periscopes, optical instruments, photodetectors and sensors.
If this voltage is generated by sunlight in a solar cell, then you could store solar energy by generating hydrogen gas.
and using"chemical energy"."Research teams all over the world are therefore working hard to develop compact, robust,
because an efficient hydrogen generation preferably proceeds in an acidic electrolyte corroding very fast solar cells. Electrodes that so far have been used are made of very expensive elements such as platinum or platinum-iridium alloys.
it consists of chalcopyrite (a material used in device grade thin film solar cells) that has been coated with a thin, transparent, conductive oxide film of titanium dioxide (Tio2.
leading to the observed high photocurrent density and photovoltage comparable with those of a conventional device-grade thin-film solar cell.
i e to chemical energy for storage. As a consequence we have developed successfully and tested a demonstrator device for solar hydrogen production with a company in Schwerin under the Light2hydrogen project, according to Schedel-Niedrig g
graphene's flat sheet conducts electricity quickly, and the atomic structure in the nanotubes halts electric currents.
or stopping electricity, the resulting switching ratio is high. In other words, how fast the materials can turn on
The first application as part of DOE's Bioenergy Science Center was in the examination of plant cell walls under several treatments to provide submicron characterization.
Graphene, a sheet of carbon atoms that is only one atom in thickness, conducts electricity and dissipates heat much more efficiently than silicon,
& Interfaces the development of a biodegradable nanogenerator made with DNA that can harvest the energy from everyday motion and turn it into electrical power.
and convert it into electricity so we might one day use it to power our mobile gadgetry.
such as solar or wind power, is a key barrier to a clean energy economy. When the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) was established at Caltech
and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface
Vermont scientists invent new approach in quest for organic solar panels and flexible electronics University of Vermont scientists have invented a new way to create
and farther--aiding the hunt for flexible electronics, organic solar cells, and other low-cost alternatives to silicon.
BETTER SOLAR CELLS Though the Nature Communications study focused on just one organic material, phthalocyanine, the new research provides a powerful way to explore many other types of organic materials, too--with particular promise for improved solar cells.
A recent U s. Department of energy report identified one of the fundamental bottlenecks to improved solar power technologies as"determining the mechanisms by
which the absorbed energy (exciton) migrates through the system prior to splitting into charges that are converted to electricity."
and solar technologies,"says Furis, who directs UVM's program in materials science, "and to do that we need a deeper understanding of exciton diffusion.
#Stanford engineers invent transparent coating that cools solar cells to boost efficiency: The quandary: The hotter solar cells get,
the less efficiently they convert sunlight to electricity; The fix: A new transparent overlay allows light to hit the cells
while shunting heat away Now three Stanford engineers have developed a technology that improves on solar panel performance by exploiting this basic phenomenon.
Their invention shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.
The work by Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, research associate Aaswath P. Raman and doctoral candidate Linxiao Zhu is described in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences. The group's discovery tested on a Stanford rooftop, addresses a problem that has bedeviled long the solar industry:
The hotter solar cells get, the less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful electricity.
The Stanford solution is based on a thin, patterned silica material laid on top of a traditional solar cell.
The material is transparent to the visible sunlight that powers solar cells, but captures and emits thermal radiation,
or heat, from infrared rays.""Solar arrays must face the sun to function, even though that heat is detrimental to efficiency,
"Fan said.""Our thermal overlay allows sunlight to pass through, preserving or even enhancing sunlight absorption,
In their new paper, the researchers applied that work to improve solar array performance when the sun is beating down.
The Stanford team tested their technology on a custom-made solar absorber-a device that mimics the properties of a solar cell without producing electricity-covered with a micron-scale pattern designed to maximize the capability to dump heat
Their experiments showed that the overlay allowed visible light to pass through to the solar cells, but that it also cooled the underlying absorber by as much as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
For a typical crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 20 percent, 55 F of cooling would improve absolute cell efficiency by over 1 percent,
which are preferred also sites for large solar arrays. They believe they can scale things up so commercial and industrial applications are feasible
"Electrical energy storage in batteries is essential not only for consumer products such as cell phones and computers,
"While we had shown previously that palladium would do related reactions in a closed reactor system, this work with platinum is our first demonstration of operation in a flow reactor at industrially relevant conditions.
We believe this approach is also applicable to other precious metals if added as minority components in copper."
"Environmental Benefits Because platinum is at the center of many clean energy and green chemicals production technologies, such as fuel cells, catalytic converters,
A faster means of changing the VO2 phase--perhaps using electricity instead of a laser--could make the system much faster still.
#Production of Special Coating to Increase Efficiency of Solar cells in Iran Results of the experiments prove the increase in the efficiency of the produced cells.
The solar cells can be used to produce electricity for industrial applications, including domestic appliance, automotive and aerospace after being produced mass.
In recent years, dye sensitized solar cells have become very important as the third generation of solar cells. The cheap equipment has very simple production technology
and study the performance of a type of coating to be used in dye sensitized solar cells. Titanium dioxide nanoparticles doped with elements such as strontium
chemical structure and composition of the coatings have been controlled in a way that it increases the current density in short circuits of dye sensitized solar cells.
for some materials to conduct electricity without resistance, even at"high temperatures approaching-100 degrees Celsius."
and solar cells also rely on small molecules. mall molecules have had already a big impact on the world,
when it conducts electricity, the material transforms its lattice structure causing it to contract like a muscle,
The team's next step is to use the same strategy for increasing the material's light absorption abilities to create a better material for solar cells and photodetectors."
As a result, the material conducts electricity better when temperature increases. The scientists submitted a patent application for their sensor.
#Thermal properties of nanowires-Follow the heat A mathematical model of heat flow through miniature wires could help develop thermoelectric devices that efficiently convert heat even their own waste heat into electricity.
meaning the electricity going in was only slightly less than the heat coming out. Since the 1960's there have been incremental advancements in alloy technology used in Peltier devices.
it is becoming increasingly necessary to have more efficient systems for localized electrical power generation and effective cooling mechanisms.
3-D images of nanoscale objects (w/video)( Nanowerk News) To design the next generation of optical devices, ranging from efficient solar panels to LEDS to optical transistors,
or in solar panels to improve the absorption of light by the active materials.""The technique could even be modified for imaging biological systems without the need for fluorescent labels.
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