Lithium-ion batteries have been used commonly in laptop and tablet computers, electric vehicles and renewable energy systems for more than two decades.
#Researchers Enhance Efficiency of Ultrathin CIGSE Solar cells Using Nanoparticles Now, scientists at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have produced high quality ultrathin CIGSE layers
is inquiring how to use arrangements of such nanoparticles to improve solar cells and other optoelectronic devices.
Now the scientists report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society ACS Nano a considerable success with ultrathin CIGSE solar cells.
Problems add up below 1 micrometercigse solar cells have proven high efficiencies and are established thin film devices with active layers of a few micrometers thickness.
He then started to enquire how to implement nanoparticles between different layers of the solar cell.
No big effect by nanoparticles on topin a first step, the colleagues in Amsterdam implemented a pattern of dielectric Tio2-nanoparticles on top of Yin ultrathin solar cells;
But this did not increase the efficiency as much as proved in Si-based solar cells. Yin then continued testing and ultimately found out what worked best:
which corresponds to the back contact of the solar cell. On top of this structured substrate the ultrathin CIGSE layer was grown by Yin,
and subsequently all the other layers and contacts needed for the solar cell. With this configuration, the efficiency increased from 11.1%to 12.3,
In the RRAM chips metal oxides are changed between conductive and resistive states by the application of a small joly of electricity. in these RRAM chips.
The researchers used graphene to carrying the small jolts of electricity. Graphene is conductive even at very thin dimensions
Applying a small jolt of electricity to the alloy results in a change in its structure.
Globally, several clean energy policies and regulations have been implemented over the past decade to reduce the consumption of higher carbon fossil fuels.
When Bearings Inside Wind turbines Will Fail Engineers from the University of Sheffield have developed a novel technique to predict
when bearings inside wind turbines will fail which could make wind energy cheaper. The method, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A and developed by Mechanical engineering research student Wenqu Chen,
uses ultrasonic waves to measure the load transmitted through a ball bearing in a wind turbine. The stress on wind turbine is recorded
and then engineers can forecast its remaining service life. When a bearing is subject to a load
its thickness is reduced by a very small amount due to elastic deformation, and the speed of sound is affected by the stress level in the material.
which are a common problem in wind turbines. By removing the risk of a loss of production and the need for unplanned maintenance,
it can help to reduce the cost of wind energy and make it much more economically competitive."
and is currently being tested at the Barnesmore wind farm in Donegal, Ireland by the company, Ricardo.
oil and gas pipelines and nuclear plants has been developed by researchers at the University of Strathclyde with inspiration from the natural world.
If there are defects in a nuclear plant or an oil pipeline, we would be able to detect cracks that have a range of sizes
which uses the body as a vehicle to deliver magnetic energy between electronic devices. An advantage of this system is that magnetic fields are able to pass freely through biological tissues,
says Steelant. his has already been established by a Belgian supermarket chain where their forklifts are driven by hydrogen produced from an on-site wind turbine park.
David cameron and President Xi Jingping are expected to sign a deal this afternoon agreeing to Chinese investment in a new nuclear power station in Somerset.
The UK government has been criticised for guaranteeing the price that will be paid for any electricity the new Hinkley Point reactor produces.
The Solar Trade Association thinks solar power could provide the same amount of electricity for half the subsidy cost.
"The government needs to explain why it is drastically cutting support for solar energy whilst offering double the subsidy to Hinkley Point C."It also needs to explain why it is championing overseas state-backed utilities over British solar companies which given stable support would have considerable growth prospects."
The government has maintained all along that it will not provide any public subsidies to the nuclear industry. It would not actually be illegal to do so,
or £89. 50 if EDF develops another new reactor in Sizewell, Suffolk. This simply reflects the fact that EDF's costs will be lower per reactor
if it builds two of them. If the market price of electricity falls below this level, the government has said in effect it will make sure EDF receives the difference between the two prices.
The wholesale price of electricity at the moment is about £45/Mwh. If the wholesale price remains at this level
then EDF will receive an additional £47. 50/Mwh. In practice, this money will not come from taxpayers (that would count as a subsidy),
but from consumers of electricity. The strike price works the other way as well-EDF has to refund the difference
if the price of electricity is above £92. 50/Mwh. For example, if the wholesale price is £110/Mwh,
Nuclear reactors cost a lot of money, and EDF wants to build two of them. The final bill for just Hinkley is estimated at £24. 5bn.
For example, if the price of electricity falls, or becomes more volatile, the company could lose a lot of money.
For this reason, EDF needs an added incentive to build the reactors. Knowing it will receive a guaranteed price for the electricity generated at Hinkley provides some kind of certainty that the investment will be worthwhile-in other words, profitable.
For its part, the government has been unable to play different energy companies off against each other, as German power giants RWE and E on decided long ago against building new plants in the UK.
Until we know the price of electricity on the open market when Hinkley Point C starts generating power,
If the electricity price is below the strike price, then bills will probably be higher than they would otherwise be.
In other words, how much of your electricity is generated by nuclear power. At the moment, almost 20%of the UK's power is generated by nuclear reactors
but this is likely to fall in the short term as the UK's current nuclear capacity is decommissioned.
but why are we building new nuclear power plants? Precisely because there will be a shortfall in electricity generation as a result of existing nuclear-and coal and gas-power stations shutting down.
The question then is how to make up this shortfall. The government is committed to renewable energy, such as solar and wind power,
but to get enough generating capacity from these sources will take too long, it says,
so another solution is needed. In theory, it could simply increase power generation from traditional fossil fuels such as coal and gas,
paving the way for other power companies to invest in new reactors in the UK, because two new reactors will not be enough
#Boy, 15, held in NI over Talktalk hack Metropolitan Police said a house had been searched in County Antrim on Monday afternoon at about 16:20 GMT.
#Electricity from the air-Drayson's big idea Free energy from the air. It sounds like a fantasy but that is
Cigarette pack reactors Rao team has created 3d printed designs for their next goal: flat-chip bioreactors the size of cigarette packs for continuous processing.
Small molecules also are key elements in technologies like solar cells and LEDS. However, small molecules are notoriously difficult to make in a lab. Traditionally
electricity, heating, and, perhaps most worryingly, airplanes and trains. Boisvert told Infiltrate he was concerned initially that a deadly July 2013 train crash in Spain was caused by a hacker (it turned out to be human error.
"The sound energy dissipates in a ring around the plane, parallel to the ground, so that no shockwave hits the ground.
one-step process involving electricity and DNA. The technique could give rise to a proliferation of new so-called point-of-care medical tests blood tests that can be performed in the field, possibly even by patients themselves,
which plants use solar energy to reduce carbon dioxide to acetate, a ubiquitous biochemical uilding block. In the second step, acetate is converted to more complex chemical precursors.
said the CEO of the country Clean energy Finance Corporation, adding that both the residential and commercial solar industries are ramping up.
Oliver Yates, CEO of the Clean energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), spoke at the Australian Solar Council Solar 2015 Conference in Melbourne,
y financing the innovative use of solar technologies across a broad range of industries. The country already has 4 GW of rooftop solar PV installed
Solar homes typically use solar for about 30 per cent of their electricity needs. With battery storage
The ICMS tax is said to average 20%to 30%of the value of renewable energy that homes
said Rodrigo Lopes Sauaia, executive director of the Brazilian Photovoltaic Solar energy Association. As for the possible threshold of 2 GW by 2024, figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance calculate that approximately 700
000 homes and small businesses would have to install solar panels to reach the figure. Solar power is already beginning to be a hope for the future in Brazil,
with numerous solar power plants being initiated and funded over the past few months. A 350 MW floating solar plant was announced earlier in April,
and a few days ago Minas gerais, the southeastern state of Brazil, announced that it will start the process to auction bids for the development of solar PV power plants P
#New Battery technology Will Fundamentally Change The Way The Grid Operates Originally published on Energy Post.
and businesses treat electricity. Along the way, these batteries will improve the efficiency and reliability of the grid overall.
Electric energy storage allows a two-way flow of power which offers some significant advantages for support of the power grid.
Homes with rooftop solar panels and batteries can actually use energy from their solar systems during power outages and
which utilities purchase the excess electricity from solar panels that fed into the grid. In combination with net metering,
when excess power reduces the real-time price of power to less than zero sometimes associated with excessive wind generation conditions.
and provide a buffer for variable wind and solar power. For the consumer, energy storage enables a whole new way to look at home electricity use.
It can provide energy security, lower energy costs and eventually offer an opportunity to become part of the market for buying
and solar electricity generators to sell their power in specific time-blocks, increasing their ability to compete with traditional power plants.
#How Sunport Delivers Solar energy Without the Panels At of the end of 2014, the amount of electricity from solar power being generated in the US was only 0. 8%of the total energy mix in our electrical grid.
Last year, nearly 645,000 US homes and businesses were using power from the sun. That like saying every person in Nashville,
what you see in the chart above to about 3%of our grid energy mix coming from solar by 2040 (note that the chart above doesn account for rooftop solar power).
President Obama Clean Power Plan, announced last week, seeks to rive more aggressive investment in clean energy technologies than the proposed rule,
with the hope of boosting all renewable energy generation by 2030 by 30%.%Yet, even with these measures, nonrenewables will still dominate our energy mix
but today most people are locked simply out of participating in solar energy, says Paul Droege inventor of the Sunport. he expense of solar panels and required ownership of a roof limit solar growth.
The Sunport smart device plugs into the wall between the electricity grid and your powered devices
serving as a portal to the solar energy on the grid. Sunport is the world first smart grid solar delivery device,
instantly providing 100%solar for anything it is used with. e are democratizing solar and bringing this clean energy to the masses,
Droege says. unport is putting the power of choice in people hands, giving everyone the ability to choose renewable over traditional energy,
It does this by leveraging the same solar renewable energy certificates (SRECS) market that large corporations use to reduce their carbon footprints.
Solar panels are required still to make this solar energy, but you don need to own them. Sunport platform lets you access expensive solar infrastructure,
since it just for the upgrade and not the electricity itself. As an example, a month solar upgrade for your laptop from a Sunport will cost no more than $2 extra,
plugged into an enabled Sunport consumes solar energy without requiring any additional steps. Sunport simply measures the power from the wall
validated solar energy. In the late 1990s, the government created renewable energy credits (RECS) as a way to separate renewable from nonrenewable energy.
Serving as tradable environmental commodities, RECS represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWH) of electricity was generated by an eligible renewable energy source.
A certifying agency gives each REC a unique identification number to make sure it doesn get double-counted.
but money goes to a solar power producer when you buy an SREC. Today SRECS are used primarily to help fund a portion of new solar projects.
and legitimately claim use of any grid-connected renewable energy. This process matches energy use against a solar energy supply (using SRECS) in strict accordance with
what the US Federal trade commission (FTC) requires to claim use of solar energy. Moreover, for each dollar Rechoice spends to acquire SRECS,
it spends a matching dollar to install new solar on other nonprofits, which get free electricity from those installations.
That way, each Sunjoule micro credit upgrades a little bit of power today, helps add a little more new solar production to the grid
#First Offshore wind farm In U s. Under Construction In July, American offshore wind developer, Deepwater Wind, installed the first foundation for
what is expected to be the first offshore wind farm in the United states. The project will be located three miles southeast of Block island, Rhode island.
the Block island Wind farm is expected to come online in 2016. Deepwater Wind, the developer, is also planning two larger offshore projects along the Atlantic coast,
The National Renewable energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that the United states has 4 200 gigawatts (GW) of developable offshore wind potential, compared to its estimate of 11,000 GW of onshore wind potential.
Wind resources are classified on a scale of zero to seven based on their power density, and more than 66%of offshore wind in the United states is in wind power class six or seven.
In addition, offshore wind turbines are built to take advantage of the more consistent wind speeds present over the ocean,
allowing higher utilization rates for offshore generation capacity when compared with similarly sized onshore wind turbines.
However, offshore wind is significantly more expensive to build and maintain than onshore wind. Although there are currently no operating offshore wind projects in the United states
offshore wind turbine technology has grown steadily in Europe, and, to a lesser extent, in Asia. As of 2014, Europe accounted for 90%of the estimated 8. 8 GW of installed global offshore wind turbine capacity.
Offshore wind power development in Europe began in 1991 when the first offshore farm was installed off the coast of Denmark,
although the industry had little growth from that point until the 2000s. In the United states, developers have proposed building nearly 4. 9 GW of offshore wind capacity off the coasts of nine different states,
but some challenges remain even for projects that have advanced through key regulatory and market milestones.
For example Cape Wind, a 486-MW project proposed in 2001, faced significant challenges and litigation that halted its progress.
In 2014, National grid and Eversource Energy terminated the power purchase agreements with Cape Wind because of missed project development deadlines.
This past March, Cape Wind canceled its lease in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for its planned project-staging area.
Other projects such as the Virginia Offshore wind Technology Advancement Project and Fisherman Energy Wind of New jersey have faced development hurdles despite making significant progress in project development.
Compared with Western europe, the current leader in offshore wind energy the United states is estimated to have more abundant and favorable onshore wind resources,
which are located largely in areas with low population density. So far, the high cost of domestic offshore wind projects has made them economically unattractive,
despite the availability of federal tax incentives and state policies to promote use of renewable energy.
In contrast, onshore wind capacity has grown by more than a factor of 25 since 2000. Building and maintaining offshore wind technology is compared expensive with onshore wind projects because of challenges such as transporting equipment and workers to the sites
securing turbines to the seafloor, and operating in fewer periods of fair weather. The harsher offshore environment not only makes it difficult
the Kochi airport in the south Indian state of Kerala switched to solar power and created headlines across the world.
Now, another airport is set to adopt solar power to meet a majority of its power needs.
The Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose airport in Kolkata will have a utility-scale solar power project of 15 to 20 MW capacity.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) recently announced that major airports in the western state of Rajasthan would also set up solar power projects to meet a part of their power demand.
The Jaipur airport already has a 100 kw rooftop solar power system and is planning to set up a 1. 8 MW ground-based power project.
Other Indian airports have also set up solar power projects to meet a part of the demand, as well as earn additional revenue.
has a solar power project registered under the Renewable energy Certificates schemes. Large commercial and industrial consumers in India are increasingly looking to set up renewable energy projects to meet their power demand,
instead of relying on traditional supply from utilities. Power tariffs levied by utilities have been increasing rapidly,
#Introducing The First Portable Wind turbines The idea of taking your fficeoutdoors has taken just on a new meaning, thanks to the manufacturers of the world first portable wind turbines.
Janulusportable Wind turbines Janulusceo, Einar Agustsson, carries one around in his backpack. He and his brother Agust own the Icelandic company Janulus.
and they say it can supply enough electricity to service a large cottage. hen it is closed it is about one meter,
if you ran out of electricity somewhere, you would have your own personal power station, he said l
#Stanford Engineers Develop Solar cell Cooling Coating To Boost Efficiency A report published by Stanford details the development of a novel cooling technology that its engineers claim can improve solar panel performance.
that at higher temperatures resultant from prolonged exposure to sunlight, solar cells become increasing inefficient at converting sunlight photons into electricity.
In response to this problem the engineers developed a visibly transparent overlay more technically a silica photonic crystal overlay that increases solar cell efficiency by radiating the heat of cells away from them much like how we naturally radiate heat from our bodies to prevent overheating.
This design means that the overlay can be laid on top of an unaltered solar cell this is important since it infers that the new solution requires no additional tampering with the solar cells themselves to achieve cooling effects and enhanced cell performance.
The critical feature of the silica overlay is found in its micron-scale pattern, which is designed to maximise the radiating of heat, in the form of infrared light, out and away from the cell into space.
thereby preserving the energy that required to produce electricity. But as the researchers noted in a statement,
During testing, an overlay was fitted to a solar absorber a device that provides an analogue to the properties of a solar cell and measures absorption of solar radiation,
but doesn actually produce electricity. Several other absorbers were also set up in control conditions. The photograph above kindly provided by Linxiao Zhu,
The bare solar absorber here has structure similar as solar cell, and is bluish. ne can observe that the structure with verlay (the second from left) has same color as the other samples,
in a typical solar cell that difference would confer a significant improvement in overall cell efficiency.
he experimentally demonstrated temperature reduction of 13°C (23°F) would translate to an absolute solar cell efficiency improvement larger than one percentage point a significant solar cell efficiency improvement.
The Stanford Report additionally noted that such a gain in energy production is predicted for a typical crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 20%.
we are actively looking into directly demonstrating solar cell efficiency improvement from our cooling strategy, by measuring the generated electricity,
explained Zhu. Clearly this is an important step. The overlay has demonstrated successfully its ability to cool a solar absorber,
when paired with a solar cell that is at the same time generating electricity. But still this must be shown under controlled conditions before we may imagine the technology being applied to the production of solar PV cells.
Investigating radiative cooling has been the primary focus of the researchersaims with the solar panel demonstration merely one,
The scientists also consider their findings to hold great potential for application over a wide range of electronic products which could benefit from passive cooling. esides solar cell,
where sunlight absorption is required either for functional (such as solar cells) or aesthetic reasons (such as maintaining the colors for cars, clothes etc
#Africa Could Quadruple Renewable energy Capacity By 2030 These are the primary conclusions from a new report published by the International Renewable energy Agency (IRENA), Africa 2030,
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,
solar and wind, said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin. his, combined with the precipitous drop of renewable energy technology costs,
Africa could see renewable energy ealistically meet22%of its energy needs by 2030, which equates to a more than fourfold increase on the 5%of 2013.
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
, hydropower, wind, and solar power. 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
if the report suggestions are implemented. Hydropower and wind could each grow to around 100 GW capacity,
while solar could grow to around 70 GW, resulting in an overall tenfold renewable energy capacity increase,
and a reduction of 310 megatonnes of CO2 in emissions by 2030. A shift to biomass-based cooking would reduce the use of traditional cook stoves by more than 60,
%and save the continent between $20 to $30 billion annually by 2030 through the reduction of health complications commonly caused by current cooking methods,
causing indoor air quality issues. apping into renewable energy resources is the only way African nations can fuel economic growth,
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.
'As well as tourism, the elevator could also be used for wind energy generation and communications. The mastermind behind the project is inventor Dr Brendan Quine.
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
while creating renewable energy in the process. his energy-positive, carbon-negative method could potentially contain huge benefits for a number of emission-heavy industries,
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,
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