Renewables

The Evolt EV charge point infrastructure supplied and installed by APT Controls at the Dundee taxi company 203020 has become an ‘ideal model’ for cab firms looking to go electric, according to its CEO David Young. 203020 is increasing its fleet to 100 fully electric vehicles, making it the largest EV taxi fleet in the UK.

A carbon-based active material produced from apple leftovers and a material of layered oxides might help reduce the costs of future energy storage systems. Both were found to have excellent electrochemical properties and stand for the environmentally compatible and sustainable use of resources. Now, these materials are presented by researchers of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in the journals ChemElectroChem and ...

Lithium-ion batteries are a rapidly growing energy storage method due to their high energy density, especially in mobile applications such as personal electronics and electric cars. However, the materials currently used in Li-ion batteries are expensive, many of them, like lithium cobalt oxide (belonging to the EU Critical Raw Materials, CRMs), are difficult to handle and dispose of. Batteries using these materials also have relatively short life...

U.S. defence firm Boeing Co. has ventured into the energy storage business for its latest research and development project for the U.S. military. After nearly a year and a half in development, the company shipped the new fuel cell system to the U.S. Navy last week. Based on reversible solid oxide fuel cell technology, Boeing said its system stores energy by using power from renewable sources such as wind or solar to compress and store hydrogen.

skytron energy has been selected to fit out one of the largest solar power plants on the African continent with its monitoring, control and supervision technology. The Mulilo Sonnedix Prieska Photovoltaic (PV) plant will be completed in July 2016, with a capacity of 86.2MWp. The plant is located just outside Prieska, in the high-lying Northern Cape region and will provide approximately 30,000 homes with clean energy.

A research team from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Engineering has achieved a world’s first by successfully converting paper waste into green cellulose aerogels that are non-toxic, ultralight, flexible, extremely strong and water repellent. This novel material is ideal for applications such as oil spill cleaning, heat insulation as well as packaging, and it can potentially be used as coating materials for dru...

Swedish researchers have just produced the world's first model car with a roof and battery made from wood-based carbon fibre. Although it's built on the scale of a toy, the prototype vehicle represents a giant step towards realising a vision of new lightweight materials from the forest, one of the benefits of a so-called bioeconomy. The demo is a joint project of KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the Swedish Innventia and Swerea, a research...

Liverpool City Region’s (LCR) drive towards creating an eco-friendly environment is being helped by APT Controls, which has completed the installation of 28 of its Evolt EV charge points. Merseytravel, the executive body that provides professional, strategic and operational transport advice to the LCR’s Combined Authority, and the body responsible for coordinating bids and projects, chose Evolt after a full tender process.

Energy harvesting can significantly extend the lifetime of installed batteries, especially when power requirements are low, reducing long term maintenance costs and down-time. Dave Salerno, Design Section Leader, Power Products, Linear Technology Corporation explains.

In the not-so-distant future, when you’re out and your smartphone battery is low, you could charge it simply by plugging it into your shoe. An innovative energy harvesting and storage technology developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison mechanical engineers could reduce our reliance on the batteries in our mobile devices, ensuring we have power for our devices no matter where we are.