Renewables

Under which conditions are EVs less expensive than diesel vehicles? What are the positive environmental effects? And what about their acceptance by users and reliability in practice? The RheinMobil project, co-ordinated by KIT, answers these questions in a study of a fleet test covering two and a half years of operation with 300,000 electrically driven kilometers. The results were presented at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt.

Microsemi has announced the LX2410A IDEAL solar bypass device, designed to provide a bypass path in PV module applications. Featuring the company's patented CoolRUN technology, the LX2410A reduces the cost and increases the reliability of photovoltaic solar modules by replacing the Schottky diodes in junction boxes with an under the glass, higher performance solution.

ZephIR Lidar has announced the release of a fully-marinised wind lidar, ZephIR 300M, for the offshore wind and meteorological industries, founded on the company’s successful and finance-approved remote wind measurement device, ZephIR 300.

Progress towards renewable energy sources is slow, in part because their efficiency is much lower than that of conventional energy sources. The efficiency of commercially available photovoltaic cells, for instance, is about 20%. Scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have published an unconventional approach to increasing the efficiency of the panels. Optical invisibility cloaks guide sunlight around objects that cast a sh...

Solar cells capture up to 40% more energy when they can track the sun across the sky, but conventional, motorised trackers are too heavy and bulky for pitched rooftops and vehicle surfaces. Now, by borrowing from kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed solar cells that can have it both ways.

A major project to create a modular energy storage system that reduces the barriers to installing EV rapid chargers is making use of inverter technology supplied by Parker. The project is spearheaded by Future Transport Systems and its subsidiary Connected Energy, a market leader in energy storage technologies. Along with Parker, it involves a European automotive OEM giant, Renault and Ricardo, a global strategic, technical and environmental cons...

Featuring a new and improved housing design and an ergonomically designed handle to fit security enclosures, TE Connectivity has redesigned its EV charging cable assembly for Type 1, 32A. The cable assemblies offer high mating cycles and magnetically operated activated solid-state switches, as opposed to a mechanical switch, allowing for an increased life expectancy.

A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a rechargeable battery that could make storing electricity from intermittently available energy sources (e.g., sun and wind) safe and cost-effective for both residential and commercial use. The research builds on earlier work by members of the same team that could enable cheaper and more reliable electricity storage at the grid level.

Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe. Heat from the top of your head radiates into space as infrared light. 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.

Infinis has announced the adoption of wind lidars from ZephIR Lidar as an alternative to traditional met masts to be deployed on a number of new sites within Infinis’ growing wind energy portfolio.