Renewables

A 5W solar charger suitable for charging smart phones, tablets, and multi-media players has been introduced by IXYS. Measuring 230mm in length, 160mm in width and 17mm in height, and weighing only 170g, the Solarade is claimed to be the smallest and lightest 5W solar charger on the market.

A comment from Juliet Davenport OBE, CEO and founder of renewable electricity company Good Energy, surrounding the decision by government to end subsidies for new onshore wind farms.

  Our phones emit large amounts of energy in the form of RF signals like WiFi, 4G, 3G and Bluetooth. When a phone is transmitting, only a small fraction of the phone’s signal actually reaches the receiver (Cell tower, WiFi router), while the majority of the signal is wasted to the air.

Escalating energy demand and improving wind turbine technologies are fuelling the wind energy market and encouraging wind turbine installations. In turn, this is boosting the consumption of high-performance and lightweight blade materials, such as fibre, resins and core foam materials that can be used to increase blade length while keeping blade weight low.

The 'first' electric moped is set to launch this summer. Gogoro introduced the Gogoro Smartscooter EV and the Gogoro Energy Network earlier this year. The scooter is the world’s first high-performance, smart electric two-wheel vehicle with swappable batteries. The integrated network is an advanced battery-swapping infrastructure for cities.

At Intersolar Europe, imec introduced a thin-film perovskite PV module with a power conversion efficiency of 8% over an aperture area of 16cm2. The remarkable geometrical fill factor of more than 95% for this size of module demonstrates the potential of scaling up this thin-film PV technology from cell to module level. The achievement is an important breakthrough in realising a marketable thin-film solution for applications such as Building Integ...

Bentek continues to see its PowerRacks gaining customer acceptance on U.S. solar projects. The PowerRack has recently been chosen by Vista Solar for a few rooftop installations. The rack provides installers the flexibility to install inverters within 10 feet of the array while facilitating compliance with NEC 2014 requirements.

At Intersolar Europe, imec announced an efficiency record for its large area n-type Passivated Emitter, Rear Totally diffused (PERT) crystalline silicon (Cz-Si) solar cell, now reaching 22.5% (calibrated at ISE CalLab). It is the highest efficiency achieved for a two-side-contacted solar cell processed on 6" commercially available n-type Cz-Si wafers without the use of passivated contacts.

The European Commission is launching three new research projects aimed at making electromobility cheaper, more efficient and more reliable in order to facilitate more environmentally-friendly vehicles on Europe's roads. Europe will be the site for the continued development and production of EVs under these projects, which will run until 2018 and are headed by Infineon Technologies. 

Yole Développement has released a technology & market analysis, entitled Energy Management for Smart Grid, Cities and Building: Opportunities for Battery Electricity Storage Solutions, confirming the impact of EVs/HEVs on the development and deployment of stationary battery electricity storage systems. Tesla's recently-announced battery storage solution, Powerwall, confirms the trends towards massive deployment of distributed...