The First Tidal Generator in North America Is Now Online
Avery Thompson for Popular Mechanics: The first tidal generator in North America has gone online this month in the Bay of Fundy, and is expected to generate enough electricity to power 500 homes.
While most hydro generators harness the energy of falling water, or the energy of the waves, tidal power uses the energy of the high and low tides. At the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, which has the largest tides in the world, that energy is being harnessed to generate 2 megawatts of electrical power.
In the Bay of Fundy, the difference between high and low tide is about 56 feet. Approximately 115 billion tons of water flow in and out of the bay every tidal period. Two renewable energy developers, OpenHydro and Emera, decided to build turbines on the seafloor that could harness that power. Cont'd...
Tesla powers a whole island with solar to show off its energy chops
James Vincent for The Verge: Tesla completed its $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity this week, and, to celebrate, the company has announced a major solar energy project: wiring up the whole island of Ta’u in American Samoa. Previously, the island ran on diesel generators, but over the past year Tesla has installed a microgrid of solar energy panels and batteries that will supply "nearly 100 percent" of power needs for Ta’u’s 600 residents.
The project seems intended to show off the potential benefits of the SolarCity acquisition, with Ta’u’s microgrid comprised of 5,328 solar panels from SolarCity and Tesla, along with 60 Tesla Powerpacks batteries for storage. But buying SolarCity remains a risky move for Tesla, with the purchase including billions of dollars of debt for a company that's far from profitable (SolarCity spends $6 for every $1 it makes in sales). Nevertheless, Tesla CEO Elon Musk describes the acquisition as "blindingly obvious" — a necessary step in his so-called "Master Plan" to integrate clean energy generation and storage. Cont'd...
Power to the people: Solar panel sales to soon surpass leasing
Lucas Mearian for ComputerWorld:  Direct ownership of solar power panels will overtake third-party ownership next year as more consumers are choosing to buy, rather than lease, their panels.
According to GTM Research's latest report, U.S. Residential Solar Financing 2016-2021, 55% of all U.S. residential solar capacity installed in 2017 will be purchased by customers paying either in cash, or through a solar loan financing arrangement; that number is expected to grow to 73% of all solar systems installed in 2021.  Cont'd...
Want to boost wind and solar power? Bring them together
Ben Jervey for GreenBiz: What’s keeping solar and wind power from fully taking over the electric grid? For starters, the sun only shines during the day. Wind blows intermittently, is seasonally variable, and is not always blowing when the energy is needed.
But what if solar and wind work together? "Wind resource tends to complement solar resource," said Sarah Kurtz of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Here in Colorado, for instance, the windiest time is during the winter and spring months. In winter, we don’t have as much sunshine, but we tend to get more wind and stronger wind."
A handful of enterprising renewable energy developers are exploring how solar and wind might better work together, developing hybrid solar-wind projects to take advantage of the power-generating strengths of each — with the two technologies in tandem serving as a better replacement for climate-warming fossil fuels than either could be alone. Cont'd...
BREAKING: Tesla, SolarCity merger approved with 85% shareholder support
Utility Dive: More than 85% of Tesla's unaffiliated shareholders voted in favor of the $2.6 billion deal with SolarCity, which will allow the companies to move forward with an integrated solar roof and battery storage offering. Cont'd...
Solar Power Turns Water and Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel
Seeker: Finish researchers are building a demonstration power plant that would use solar-generated electricity, water and carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere to create gas and liquid fuels.
The Lappeenranta University of Technology and VTT Technical Research Centre are working together on the SOLETAIR project, which is being built on the university campus and is scheduled for completion in 2017. Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology also is a player in the project. The project involves several different innovations. VTT will design equipment that will capture CO2 from the air and store it, while Lappeenranta researchers will build a device to produce hydrogen from water via electrolysis. Karlsruhe has developed a a microstructured, chemical reactor to convert the hydrogen produced from solar power together with carbon dioxide into liquid fuels, according to a press release. The reactor will be built by INERATEC, a spinoff company created by Karlsruhe. Cont'd...
Solar Power Meets Electric Vehicle Atop a VW Microbus
Brett Belan, Apparent Energy for MotherEarth News: The time is here for solar power to make its way to our vehicles. The state-of-the-art panels pose no weight limitation. At 6 pounds per 150 watts, thin flexible solar panels will weigh 600 pounds but give you 15 kilowatts! This is enough to directly drive from the sun.
However, the surface area is a limitation, because that much solar would require 10 feet around the vehicle on all sides. The solution, ironically, is a mechanical engineering question of how to accordion-style fold these panels to conveniently open them for charging while the vehicle is at a standstill. Cont'd...
Solar power proponents hopeful Trump sees benefit of growing industry
Ivan Penn and Rob Nikolewski for The LA Times: Longtime solar executive Barry Cinnamon got up Wednesday wondering what a Donald Trump administration will mean for his industry.
“I woke up this morning and walked to my car and took a picture of the sun coming up, and it did indeed come up,” said Cinnamon, president of Cinnamon Solar, one of the highest-profile solar companies in Silicon Valley.
Candidate Trump said a lot of things that heartened conventional oil and natural gas producers and worried the renewable energy business, which is growing fast but is still a tiny part of the energy landscape. Cont'd...
Self-drive delivery van can be 'built in four hours'
Jane Wakefield for BBC News: A self-drive electric delivery van, that could be on UK streets next year, has been unveiled at the Wired 2016 conference in London.
The vehicle's stripped-back design and lightweight materials mean it can be assembled by one person in four hours, the firm behind it claims.
The vehicles will be "autonomous-ready", for when self-drive legislation is in place, the firm said.
The government wants to see self-drive cars on the roads by 2020.
"We find trucks today totally unacceptable. Loud, polluting and unfriendly," said Denis Sverdlov, chief executive of Charge, the automotive technology firm behind the truck.
"We are making trucks the way they should be - affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe." Cont'd...
Is The Best Analogy For The Energy Storage Business--Eeek!--Hard Drives?
Michael Kanellos for Forbes: The optimism in the energy storage industry is based on soaring demand, rapid technological advances, expanding capacity and, for some, what will likely be a scary competitive environment.
First, the good news. Lithium ion battery packs over the last ten years have declined faster than the cost of solar, said John Carrington, CEO of Stem, which makes behind-the-meter storage systems for hotels and other commercial customers looking to shave peak power costs, during a hallway meeting at Finance West sponsored by the American Council of Renewable Energy this week.
Solar panels have declined by 50% or more in the last five years. Batteries have declined by 80% in three years, he said. Battery packs hit the under $300 per kilowatt hour mark last December, Carrington added. By 2020, battery pack prices could drop to $190 per kilowatt hour. (In 2007, lithium ion battery packs in the wholesale markets sold for around $1,000 per kilowatt hour.) Cont'd...
Batteries That Make Use of Solar Power, Even in the Dark
Stanley Reed for the NY Times: A new cash crop has sprung up on Nicholas Beatty’s enchanting farm near here. Rows of gray solar panels range over about 25 acres, turning sunlight into electricity, as dog-size muntjac deer hop by.
The panels themselves, trouble-free money earners that feed into the electric grid, are no longer unusual on farms in Britain or other countries. What’s new in Mr. Beatty’s field is a hulking 40-foot-long shipping container.
Stacked inside, in what look like drawers, are about 200 lithium-ion cells that make up a battery large enough to store a substantial portion of the electricity the solar farm puts out.
The battery and its software give Mr. Beatty an advantage over other solar panel farmers. Power prices in Britain and elsewhere rise and fall, sometimes strikingly, during the day and over the year, depending on the supply and demand. Cont'd...
New York set for offshore wind after environmental review
Daniel J. Graeber fro UPI: Areas off the New York coast will be open for offshore wind energy bidders, but some area is reserved because of ecological concerns, the U.S. government said.
The U.S. Interior Department, in coordination with its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said it would open 79,350 acres off the coast of New York up for a commercial wind energy lease sale. About 1,780 acres was removed because of environmental concerns associated with a subsea feature known as the Cholera Bank.
"In a comment letter, the National Marine Fisheries Service identified the Cholera Bank feature as a sensitive habitat to be avoided for the placement of structures," an Interior Department stated read. "As a result of this removal, the revised lease area will be approximately two percent smaller than the lease area considered in the proposed sale notice." Cont'd...
Elon Musk wants to sell you a better-looking solar roof amid slowing growth for panels
Ivan Penn and Russ Mitchell for The LA Times: Like some kind of 21st century Willy Wonka, audacious entrepreneur Elon Muskchose a prime spot on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot tour to unveil his latest attempt to energize an industry — roofs that generate solar power but look like no other.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity, showcased a line of high-design solar roof tiles that would replace clunky solar panels and tie into an upgraded version of the Tesla wall-mounted battery for those times when the sun doesn’t shine. The glass solar shingles resemble French slate, Tuscan barrel tile or more conventional roofing materials with a textured or smooth surface.
“The key is to make solar look good,” Musk said during the product introduction staged on the old set of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” series, where he had re-roofed four of the Wisteria Lane houses. “If this is done right, all roofs will have solar.” Cont'd..
Half a million solar panels were installed every day in 2015.
Katie Herzog for GRIST: Half a million solar panels were installed every day in 2015. According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy, mostly solar and wind, accounted for more than half of all new electric capacity added in the world last year, a 15 percent jump from 2014. Globally, there is now more renewable power capacity than coal power capacity.
Clean energy growth was especially high in China, which was responsible for about 40 percent of all new clean energy capacity. Get this: In China in 2015, two wind turbines were installed every hour.
This surge in renewables, according to the IEA, can be attributed to policy changes, lowered costs, and improvements in technology. Cont'd...
Bike Path In Poland Can Glow For 20 Years Using Solar Power
Andrew Conrad for PSFK: It’s no Yellow Brick Road, but residents of Olsztyn, a town along the Lyna River in northern Poland, can now follow along this glowing bike path to travel safely to their destination. Using solar power, it is said that the path can remain illuminated for up to 20 years.
The engineering breakthrough, developed by Polish firm TPA, was unveiled in late September as a 100-meter trial section with plans for expansion. The asphalt in the path is blended with particles that absorb energy from the sun during daylight hours and then glow for up to 10 hours once the sun goes down. The plan is to increase the shorter section following winter. Cont'd...
Records 916 to 930 of 2076
First | Previous | Next | Last
Featured Product
HPS EnduraCoilTM Cast Resin Medium Voltage Transformer
HPS EnduraCoil is a high-performance cast resin transformer designed for many demanding and diverse applications while minimizing both installation and maintenance costs. Coils are formed with mineral-filled epoxy, reinforced with fiberglass and cast to provide complete void-free resin impregnation throughout the entire insulation system. HPS EnduraCoil complies with the new NRCan 2019 and DOE 2016 efficiency regulations and is approved by both UL and CSA standards. It is also seismic qualified per IBC 2012/ASCE 7-10/CBC 2013. Cast resin transformers are self-extinguishing in the unlikely event of fire, environmentally friendly and offer greater resistance to short circuits. HPS also offers wide range of accessories for transformer protection and monitoring requirements.
