Renewables

Examining a newly significant off-grid energy market, IDTechEx has announced its latest report: High Power Energy Harvesting: Off-Grid 10Kw-100Kw 2016-2026. Sales of small off-grid wind turbines may make up just a tiny fraction of the $100bn wind turbine market, but there are many other electrodynamic ways of using ambient energy to generate electricity on location.

To address the need for a sustainable energy source for flexible electronics, a semi-transparent, bendable solar cell that is made entirely out of plastic is being developed by scientists. The cell, reported in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, is being developed by a team led by Professor Yinhua Zhou of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The efficiency of perovskite-based solar cells has been improved significantly in recent years. On the way towards maturity, however, some challenges remain as yet unmastered. Scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are undertaking research to advance the development of perovskite solar cells. By using special thin-film processes, for example, material consumption and costs can be reduced.

At ITF US, nano-electronics research centre imec announced a record 11.3% aperture and 11.9% active area efficiency for its thin-film perovskite PV module. The efficiency was measured over an aperture area of 16cm2. This achievement is the best conversion efficiency for perovskite modules in literature.

The materials in most of today’s residential rooftop solar panels can store energy from the sun for only a few microseconds at a time. A technology developed by chemists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks - an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells. 

A wireless energy monitoring system which gives businesses real time energy consumption statistics can significantly extend the energy savings achieved when replacing a traditional commercial lighting system with LEDs. The Minimise Monitoring and Control System, powered by Realtime Online, is available from Minimise Energy.

Engineers have developed an ultra-thin, super-strong membrane to filter liquids and gases, with the potential to cut energy consumption in industry. Membranes are selectively permeable barriers that can provide a filter for a range of processes, from removing salt from sea water in desalination plants, to filtering the blood of kidney patients in dialysis machines.

A novel technique, which enables researchers to visualise the activity of individual ions inside battery-like supercapacitors, could enable greater control over their properties and improve their performance in high-power applications. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, together with French collaborators based in Toulouse, have developed the method to see inside supercapacitors at the atomic level.

  First Solar has announced that it has signed an agreement to supply its high performance PV modules to power the 200MW AC second phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. 

HV-ModAL, a German research project to improve the power of EV drive trains, aims to create an electric drive train modular system toolbox which is suitable for a wide range of EVs, within three years. Thus, the ten partners from the whole automotive value chain and the sciences intend to further expand the global market position of the German automotive industry in the field of EVs – pure electric, PHEVs and small transport vehic...