New Concentrating Mirrors to Cut by 50% the Cost of Solar Thermal Power Plants
I noticed that lately, Google tackles very serious projects related to renewable energy sources. They began to invest large sums of money in solar power plants and even more, they have hired engineers and scientists in order to develop the solar technology already existing. Google researchers have already announced that a new type of concentrating mirror was developed, in order to cut in half the cost of solar thermal plants.
German Team Wins First Prize At The Solar Decathlon
Hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Solar Decathlon is a competition held for three weeks in October, where 20 teams of college and university students from Canada, U.S.A. and Europe, compete to design and build the most energy efficient and effective house, using solar technology. The event is also intended to be open for the public, so they can observe the latest solar equipments and technology used to create one of the most efficient houses in the world.
Listen “Green Music” with Sunny Song Solar-Powered Bluetooth Speaker
Tryi Yeh designed a new clever device, named Sunny Song, a Bluetooth speaker system, powered by solar energy. This Bluetooth speaker system is compatible with several types of portable devices (music players generally), so wherever you are you can listen music without thinking to your batteries life-length.
Sahara Desert Could Change World’s Energetic Future
Nowadays, solar energy is the most important alternative energy source on the planet. Solar centrals will be the main electricity suppliers in the near future. The perfect areas, where these solar centrals would work at maximum capacity are deserts. In deserts the intensity of solar radiation during the day is very high and solar systems would reach maximum efficiency.
Largest solar plant in the world – on the brink of construction
The small city of Cle Elum, situated in Central Washington, could be the area where the largest solar photovoltaic power plant yet to be designed will find it’s place. The only thing standing in the way of the construction is the approval of the Kittitas County, to whom the city belongs to. Teanaway Solar Reserve, the company hoping to get “green lights” for starting the project, has in plan building a 75 megawatt plant, using a total of over 400,000 photovoltaic cells on an area of about 400 acres. That will be enough to ensure electrical power to more then 45,000 houses and homes. If all works according to plan, the plant could be put in action in less then three years, said the officials. With an investment of about $100 million, the company is optimistic that this will spark the interest of others to envision other large solar projects all over the US and the world.
Solar Impulse present a Zero Fuel Solar Airplane
Yesterday, the 26 of June, represented a milestone in solar and renewable energy developments. It was the day Solar Impulse presented the first solar powered plane to fly both day and night without producing any pollution at all. At the Dübendorf airfield in Switzerland, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the main characters revolving the project, unveiled the HB-SIA, a prototype airplane, a marvellous piece of engineering, to the public.
All Recent Applications of Solar PV Panels
Photovoltaics (PV) solar electricity is the most elegant method to produce electricity without moving parts, emissions or noise, no water for cooling system and generating no by-products – and all this by converting abundant sunlight without practical limitations.The amount of solar radiation is actually the amount of solar energy that arrives on the earth.The last estimation made by National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists proves that the entire world’s electrical needs could be supplied if only one percent of the land in the U.S. would be covered with solar panels. Read more
Green Treasures – Solar Project DESERTEC – a real possibility
Some important investors such as Siemens AG, Deutsche Bank or the Energy supplier Eon, have shown keen interest in the DESERTEC Concept. The project is designed to build large wind farms and solar parks and other alternative energy sources such as Geothermal around the North African continent coastlines and mainly on desserts. It will cost about 400 billion euros (that is $552 billion) and and will be capable of delivering electricity to Europe and other areas in ten years.
The Project will use the available technologies that have already been proven to work efficiently.
Super-Fast Charging Batteries from Japan
Japan takes a big leap into making the world of transport cleaner, less fuel-powered and more environmental-friendly. With the help from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Kawasaki Heavy Industries has announced the production of a battery that charges in matters of minutes, 10, to be more exact.
NASA presents new Eco-friendly building
The George Marshall Space Flight Center from NASA, located in Huntsville, Alabama, opens it’s new environmental-friendly building, one of three designed and the second one to be ready.
Coming after Building 4600 (shown in the picture to the left) , being the first energy efficient structure from the facility and rated with “Silver” by the Green Building Rating System™ LEED, Building 4601 is designed to rely more on solar power and alternative Read more
Roofing Tiles with New Solar Cell Modules
When solar cells are used to provide electric power, system design, including installation, is important. In particular, the installation method has a large effect on the cost of the solar cells. Thus, solar cells that are unified with building materials have been developed. The main merits of such integration are:
- Installation does not require additional land.
- No structure is required to support the solar cells.
- The solar cells also serve as building materials. Read more
Output Amplification Devices for PV Installations
Industries producing alternative energy are evolving more and more, so solar systems launched on the markets are more efficienct and cheaper than systems used until now.Recently SolarEdge and BP Solar announced that they will reduce solar energy production costs by creating smart devices able to increase solar panels output.
This type of devices will appear in the near future more and more because inventiveness is the key to success in this field.Better than manufacturing other cheaper solar panels to reduce costs,researchers will attach amplification and monitoring devices on existing panels.
“The company states that losses due to problems such as shading, dust and a problem in any one panel in an array accounts to a total power reduction of as much as 20%. While solar companies have not succeeded in reducing the cost of panels by much, reducing these losses seems the need of the hour. The team is expected to soon test new products that should help reduce the cost of solar energy by making the panels more efficient. ” – www.ecofriend.org
Solmetric SunEye Photovoltaic Power Optimizer
Do you want your solar panels to work at maximum parameters? Do you want to have a better monitoring system of these solar panels? You want to optimize the performances of your solar panels depending on solar radiation? National Semiconductor with Solmetric Corp managed to create a software tool able to answer these questions in the most efficient way.
“Solmetric Corp,has developed a software tool to estimate the amount of energy generated by a photovoltaic array and hence enhance it by outfitting the system with National’s SolarMagic ™ power optimizers, which are used to enable solar panels to produce maximum energy regardless of whether other panels in the array are under-performing due to shade, debris, panel mismatch and aging.
Diamonds Used to Produce Solar Electricity
When I first read the title of this article I said: This is not possible! How to build a photovoltaic system with diamonds? It is not too expensive? Not require advanced technology too? And then I found out that Dr. Neil Fox from the University of Bristol’s School of Chemistry using thermionic energy converters (TECs), managed to create an efficient solar system (equipped with some parabolic dishes), able to generate a large amount of electricity (multi-megawatts).“The plan is to make use of devices called thermionic energy converters (TECs), which carry special electrodes using nano-particles of industrial diamond powered, which isn’t that expensive and is readily available as well. TECs are commonly used in spacecrafts where they require temperature well above 1,500˚C to produce sufficient electricity to power the craft.” - www.ecofriend.org
How to Check the Solar Radiation for Your Solar Panel
The Pyranometers are mechatronic devices suitable for measurement of solar irradiance on plane surfaces.ISO already stablished performance specifications for the pyranometers.These devices incorporate thermocouple-sensing elements that are imprinted on a thick film substrate.At his turn, this substrate is housed under Schott glass domes.The output signal cording to the specific design lies in the range of mV, which is directly proportional to the incoming radiance.
Pyranometers are a class of instruments used for measuring energy fluxes in the solar spectrum.These instruments are configured to measure what is referred to as global solar radiation, direct plus diffuse(scattered) solar radiation incidence on a horizontal surface.The sensing element of the typical pyranometers is protected by the clear glass dome that together protects the sensing element, and functions as filter and prevents the entry of energy outside the solar spectrum.The glass domes used on typical pyranometers are transparent to wavelengths in the range of 0,28 to 2,8 microns.Filters can be used instead of the clear glass dome to measure radiation in different spectral intervals.
World’s Largest Solar Energy Plant Proposed for Australia
We all know that Australia the fifth largest country in the world and the also smallest continent. It is also known as a dry, arid continent because solar energy is very high in the largest part of the country. Because the temperatures generally reach 38 degrees Celsius, Australia is a good place to mount solar panels in a very large area.
Same thinking has been adopted by Austalian , Kevin Rudd, which will invest $ 1.05 million for building the world’s largest solar energy plant.With an output power of 1000MW this solar power plant will be three times larger and more efficient than the largest solar central from California.
Australian Government hopes to obtain the first place in the green energy production field. “We do not want to be followers worldwide clean energy, we want to be clean energy leaders worldwide…The government plans to invest with industry in the biggest solar generation plant in the world, three times the size of the current world’s biggest, which is in California” Prime Minister Rudd said.
Konarka’s Flexible Solar Cells.Electricity-Generating Windows
In an earlier post we talked about some solar blinds that were designed to light your room with some solar panels that convert solar energy into electricity.”These SuniT solar blinds have been designed by Yoon Lee designer and have a lot of advantages that are very useful every day.These solar blinds can warm and light any room where are installed in the cheapest way possible.The exterior of these blinds are equipped with solar cells which can transmit solar energy in an efficient way behind of the blind” – http://www.mygreentreasure.com/2009/04/solar-powered-window-blinds-sunit/Solar Powered Window Blinds SuniT
These SuniT solar blinds have been designed by Yoon Lee designer and have a lot of advantages that are very useful every day.These solar blinds can warm and light any room where are installed in the cheapest way possible.The exterior of these blinds are equipped with solar cells which can transmit solar energy in an efficient way behind of the blind.There is located the intelligent system that heats the room.This rear part consists of 5 panels, OLED and DSSc panels separated by 3 plastic panels.These blinds are made from organic material, very cheap, as is the installation.The light that is produced in the room can be set by user preference (density,color, contrast).
European Union Wants Only Green Buildings in 2019
Solar Powered Gramo Speakers
