New Airship-style Wind Turbine Can Find Gusts at Higher Altitudes for Constant, Cheaper Power

The S1500 from Sawes – credit, handout

A new form of wind energy is under development that promises more consistent power and lower deployment costs by adapting the design of a dirigible, or zeppelin.

Suspended 1,000 feet up where the wind is always blowing, it presents as an ideal energy source for rural communities, disaster areas, or places where wind turbines aren’t feasible to build.

The design has grown through multilateral innovation by dozens of engineers and scientists, but an MIT startup called Altaeros, and Beijing-based start-up Sawes Energy Technology have taken it to market. Both have already produced prototypes that boast some serious performance.

In 2014, Altaeros’ Buoyant Air Turbine (or BAT) was ready for commercial deployment in rural Alaska, where diesel generators are still heavily relied on for power. Its 35-foot-long inflatable shell, made of the same materials as modern blimps, provided 30 kilowatts of wind energy.

As a power provider, though, Altaeros could never get off the ground, and now has adopted much of its technology to the provision of wireless telecommunication services for civil and commercial contracting.

Heir to Altaeros’ throne, Sawes has managed to greatly exceed the former’s power generation, and now hopes to achieve nothing less than contributing a Chinese solution to the world’s energy transition.

Altaeros’ BAT – credit, Altaeros, via MIT

During a mid-September test, Sawes’ airship-like S1500, as long and wide as a basketball court and as tall as a 13-storey building, generated 1 megawatt of power which it delivered through its tether cable down to a generator below.

Conducted in the windy, western desert province of Xinjiang, the S1500 surpassed the capabilities of its predecessor turbine by 10-times, which achieved 100 kilowatts in October of last year.

Dun Tianrui, the company’s CEO and chief designer, called the megawatt-mark “a critical step towards putting the product into real-world use” which would happen next year when the company expects to begin mass production.

At the same time, the Sawes R&D team is looking into advances in materials sciences and optimization of manufacturing that will ensure the cost of supplying that megawatt to rural grids will be around $0.01 per kilowatt-hour—literally 100-times cheaper than what was theorized as the cost for Altaeros’ model from 10 years ago.

One of the major positives of the BAT is that by floating 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the ground, they render irrelevant the main gripe and failing of wind energy—that some days the wind doesn’t blow. A conventional turbine reaches only between 100 and 300 feet up, putting birds at risk as well as not collecting all the air that’s blowing over the landscape.

Sawes’ unit is about 40% cheaper to build and deploy than a normal turbine, presenting the opportunity for a 30% lower cost for buying the wind energy.According to a piece in the Beijing Daily, reported on by South China Morning Post, challenges remain before commercial deployment can begin, including what to do during storms, and whether or not it will compete in communities with existing coal-power supply. New Airship-style Wind Turbine Can Find Gusts at Higher Altitudes for Constant, Cheaper Power

Read More........→October 28, 2025

Resourceful Singapore Finds Perfect Place for 86 MW Solar Farm–its Biggest Reservoir

– credit, courtesy of Sembcorp

How do you decarbonize a city state? With so little space, so many demands on power, and so many citizens, generating any meaningful electricity from renewable energy is a major challenge for urban planners.

But over its history, the planners of Singapore have shown themselves to be nothing if not resourceful, and so maybe it’s no surprise they’re set to begin construction on an 86-megawatt solar farm.

The surprise though comes from where they’ve built it—on top of the country’s largest reservoir—forming a floating solar farm that will join two others already present on two other reservoirs.

The contractor, Singapore-based engineering firm Sembcorp Solar Singapore, won the bidding process with designs for an 86MW PV solar farm on Pandan Reservoir, issued by Singapore’s national water agency.

It will be the third such floating solar farm built by Sembcorp, with the other two located on Singapore’s two other reservoirs. One was built in 2021, and another was commissioned this year by Facebook parent company Meta to power the data center for its local subsidiary.

All tolled, the solar panels will generate 296 megawatts of clean energy.

“Floating solar projects at reservoirs like Pandan, Tengeh and Kranji are vital for Singapore’s land-scarce energy landscape,” said Ms. Jen Tan, CEO of Sembcorp Solar Singapore.

Floating solar installations have a unique benefit to terrestrially-mounted panel arrays, which is that the water underneath helps keep their electronics cool even while their black surfaces bake in the tropical sun. When properly cooled, panels can produce around 2% more power.Other installations such as rooftop panel arrays mean that Singapore actually generates over 1,000 megawatt-hours of solar energy, half of what the city-state plans to install by 2030. It will be fascinating to see where they put the next solar array, having run out of reservoirs. Resourceful Singapore Finds Perfect Place for 86 MW Solar Farm–its Biggest Reservoir

Read More........→September 16, 2025

Renewables are cheap. So why isn’t your power bill falling?

Tony Wood, Grattan Institute

Power prices are set to go up again even though renewables now account for 40% of the electricity in Australia’s main grid – close to quadruple the clean power we had just 15 years ago. How can that be, given renewables are the cheapest form of newly built power generation?

This is a fair question. As Australia heads for a federal election campaign likely to focus on the rising cost of living, many of us are wondering when, exactly, cheap renewables will bring cheap power.

The simple answer is – not yet. While solar and wind farms produce power at remarkably low cost, they need to be built where it’s sunny or windy. Our existing transmission lines link gas and coal power stations to cities. Connecting renewables to the grid requires expensive new transmission lines, as well as storage for when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.

Notably, Victoria’s mooted price increase of 0.7% was much lower than other states, which would be as high as 8.9% in parts of New South Wales. This is due to Victoria’s influx of renewables – and good connections to other states. Because Victoria can draw cheap wind from South Australia, hydroelectricity from Tasmania or coal power from New South Wales through a good transmission line network, it has kept wholesale prices the lowest in the national energy market since 2020.

While it was foolish for the Albanese government to promise more renewables would lower power bills by a specific amount, the path we are on is still the right one.

That’s because most of our coal plants are near the end of their life. Breakdowns are more common and reliability is dropping. Building new coal plants would be expensive too. New gas would be pricier still. And the Coalition’s nuclear plan would be both very expensive and arrive sometime in the 2040s, far too late to help.

Renewables are cheap, building a better grid is not

The reason solar is so cheap and wind not too far behind is because there is no fuel. There’s no need to keep pipelines of gas flowing or trainloads of coal arriving to be burned.

But sun and wind are intermittent. During clear sunny days, the National Energy Market can get so much solar that power prices actually turn negative. Similarly, long windy periods can drive down power prices. But when the sun goes down and the wind stops, we still need power.

This is why grid planners want to be able to draw on renewable sources from a wide range of locations. If it’s not windy on land, there will always be wind at sea. To connect these new sources to the grid, though, requires another 10,000 kilometres of high voltage transmission lines to add to our existing 40,000 km. These are expensive and cost blowouts have become common. In some areas, strong objections from rural residents are adding years of delay and extra cost.

So while the cost of generating power from renewables is very low, we have underestimated the cost of getting this power to markets as well as ensuring the power can be “firmed”. Firming is when electricity from variable renewable sources is turned into a commodity able to be turned on or off as needed and is generally done by storing power in pumped hydro schemes or in grid-scale batteries.

In fact, the cost of transmission and firming is broadly offsetting the lower input costs from renewables.

Does this mean the renewable path was wrong?

At both federal and state levels, Labor ministers have made an error in claiming renewables would directly translate to lower power prices.

But consider the counterpoint. Let’s say the Coalition gets in, rips up plans for offshore wind zones and puts the renewable transition on ice. What happens then?

Our coal plants would continue to age, leading to more frequent breakdowns and unreliable power, especially during summer peak demand. Gas is so expensive as to be a last resort. Nuclear would be far in the future. What would be left? Quite likely, expensive retrofits of existing coal plants.

If we stick to the path of the green energy transition, we should expect power price rises to moderate. With more interconnections and transmission lines, we can accommodate more clean power from more sources, reducing the chance of price spikes and adding vital resilience to the grid. If an extreme weather event takes out one transmission line, power can still flow from others.

Storing electricity will be a game-changer

Until now, storing electricity at scale for later use hasn’t been possible. That means grid operators have to constantly match supply and demand. To cope with peak demand, such as a heatwave over summer, we have very expensive gas peaking plants which sit idle nearly all the time.

Solar has only made the challenge harder, as we get floods of solar at peak times and nothing in the evening when we use most of our power. Our coal plants do not deal well with being turned off and on to accommodate solar floods.

The good news is, storage is solving most of these problems. Being able to keep hours or even days of power stored in batteries or in elevated reservoirs at hydroelectric plants gives authorities much more flexibility in how they match supply and demand.

We will never see power “too cheap to meter”, as advocates once said of the nuclear industry. But over time, we should see price rises ease.

For our leaders and energy authorities, this is a tricky time. They must ensure our large-scale transmission line interconnectors actually get built, juggle the flood of renewables, ensure storage comes online, manage the exit of coal plants and try not to affect power prices. Pretty straightforward.

Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→March 22, 2025

Scientists Turn Industrial Waste into Batteries for Storing Renewable Energy

Emily Mahoney, the new paper’s first author, in the lab – courtesy Malapit Lab

A team at Northwestern University has transformed an industrial waste product into a battery for storing sustainable energy.

While many iterations of these batteries are in production or being researched for grid-scale applications, using a waste molecule, in this case, triphenylphosphine oxide, (TPPO) has never been done before.

The batteries used in our phones, devices, and even cars rely on metals like lithium and cobalt, sourced through intensive and sometimes exploitative mining operations. Demand for these critical minerals is expected to skyrocket over the next few decades.

At the same time, thousands of tons of the well-known chemical byproduct TPPO are produced each year by many organic industrial synthesis processes, including the production of vitamin supplements, but it is rendered useless and must be carefully discarded following production.

In a paper published last week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a ‘one-pot’ reaction allows chemists to turn TPPO into a usable product with the powerful potential to store energy, opening the door for the future viability of a long-imagined battery type called “redox flow” batteries.

“Battery research has traditionally been dominated by engineers and materials scientists,” said Northwestern chemist and lead author Christian Malapit. “Synthetic chemists can contribute to the field by molecularly engineering an organic waste product into an energy-storing molecule. Our discovery showcases the potential of transforming waste compounds into valuable resources, offering a sustainable pathway for innovation in battery technology.”

The market for redox flow batteries is expected to rise by 15% between 2023 and 2030 to reach a value of $720 million worldwide. Unlike lithium and other solid-state batteries which store energy in electrodes, redox flow batteries use a chemical reaction to pump energy back and forth between electrolytes, where their energy is stored. Though not as efficient at energy storage, redox flow batteries are thought to be much better solutions for energy storage, if not in our cell phones, at the scale of the grid itself.

“Not only can an organic molecule be used, but it can also achieve high-energy density—getting closer to its metal-based competitors—along with high stability,” said Emily Mahoney, a Ph.D. candidate in the Malapit lab and the paper’s first author. “These two parameters are traditionally challenging to optimize together, so being able to show this for a molecule that is waste-derived is particularly exciting.”

To achieve both energy density and stability, the team needed to identify a strategy that allowed electrons to pack tightly together in the solution without losing storage capacity over time. They looked to the past and found a paper from 1968 describing the electrochemistry of phosphine oxides and, according to Mahoney, “ran with it.”

Then, to evaluate the molecule’s resilience as a potential energy-storage agent, the team ran tests using static electrochemical charge and discharge experiments similar to the process of charging a battery, using the battery, and then charging it again, over and over. After 350 cycles, the battery maintained remarkable health, losing negligible capacity over time.

“This is the first instance of utilizing phosphine oxides as the redox-active component in battery research,” Malapit said. “Traditionally, reduced phosphine oxides are highly unstable. Our molecular engineering approach addresses this instability, paving the way for their application in energy storage.”In the meantime, the group hopes other researchers will pick up the idea and begin to work with TPPO to further optimize and improve its potential. Scientists Turn Industrial Waste into Batteries for Storing Renewable Energy

Read More........→January 16, 2025

China building more wind, solar capacity than rest of world combined: report

BEIJING - China is building almost twice as much wind and solar energy capacity as every other country combined, research published on Thursday showed.

The world's second-largest economy is the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change.

China has committed to bring carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.

It has endured several waves of extreme weather in recent months that scientists say are rendered more severe by climate change.

China currently has a total of 339 gigawatts (GW) of capacity under construction, including 159 GW of wind and 180 GW of solar.

That is "nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined", according to the study by Global Energy Monitor, a US-based NGO.

The figure far exceeds the second-ranked nation, the United States, which is building a total of just 40 GW, the report said.

It said China has broken ground on a third of new wind and solar capacity it has announced to date, compared to a global average of just seven percent.

"The stark contrast in construction rates illustrates the active nature of China's commitment to building renewables projects," the study said.

China's national grid still relies on heavily polluting coal plants to deal with surges in power demand

AFP/File | HECTOR RETAMAL

Beijing's vast renewable energy buildout does have some drawbacks.

The national grid falls back on heavily polluting coal plants to deal with surges in power demand.

And it struggles to transmit renewable energy generated in remote northwestern regions to economic and population centres in the east.

However, China's combined wind and solar capacity is set to overtake coal this year, according to the report.

It said the rapid renewables expansion raises hopes that Beijing's carbon emissions will peak even sooner than expected, China building more wind, solar capacity than rest of world combined: report

Read More........→October 26, 2024

Incredible 60% of Europe’s Electricity Was Powered by Clean Energy in the First Two Months of 2024

Irish wind turbines – David de la Iglesia Villar, marked CC License.

According to an energy think tank, Europe’s generation of 516.5 terawatt hours of renewable electricity in January and February satisfied 60% of overall power demand. The generation is a year-over-year gain of 12% from the same period in 2023, and was driven by strong year-on-year growth in hydro and wind, and a rebound in nuclear. Coinciding with this was a 12% year-over-year fall in the use of fossil fuels, with a 15% drop in energy from coal-fired power plants, the think tank Ember, reports. Contrary to the assumption that this is the work of solar farms and wind turbines, the two fastest growing sources across Europe, the strong performance was led by nuclear, which grew 4% y-o-y, and hydropower which at 17.2% of total continental power demand was the highest percentage share of hydroelectricity ever generated in Europe. Hydroelectricity use grew 23% y-o-y to 152 terawatt hours, led by Norway, France, Switzerland, and Portugal. This was six times the amount of Europe’s total solar power yield, which topped out at 24 TWh. Wind power generated an impressive 137.5 TWh of electricity during the first two months of 2024, up 14%. Several countries, like Ireland and Portugal, are recording single days or multi-day stretches in which a two-thirds majority or greater of their populations are using renewable energy entirely.Additionally, European countries are coming up with clever as well as ambitious ideas for how to integrate more green energy sources into their communties; epitomized by Liverpool’s steadily advancing plan to build the world’s largest tidal power project across the Mersey river delta.I ncredible 60% of Europe’s Electricity Was Powered by Clean Energy in the First Two Months of 2024: 

Read More........→April 16, 2024

India's installed renewable energy capacity reaches 132.15 GW

Image by andreas160578 from Pixabay

• As of 29 February 2020, India’s cumulative renewable energy capacity stood at 132.15 Giga Watts, with an additional capacity of 46.69 GW under various stages of implementation and 34.07 GW under various stages of bidding.
• As on same date, the country had cumulative installed capacity of 138.93 GW from non-fossil fuels sources. The cumulative renewable energy capacity and cumulative capacity from non-fossil fuel sources constituted 35.80 per cent and 37.63 per cent of total electricity generation capacity of 369.12 GW installed in the country as on 29 February 2020, respectively.
• As part of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions as per the Paris Accord on Climate Change, India has undertaken to install at least 40 per cent of its total electricity generation capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
• India has set itself an ambitious target of 175 Giga Watts (GW) of renewable capacity by the year 2022, and is aiming at 450 GW by 2030.
• India’s primary energy consumption hit 809.2 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2018, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy. On this metric, the country is behind only China and the US.
• India’s installed capacity — for all energy sources — was a little under 369 GW at the end of January 2020, according to government figures. Source: https://www.domain-b.com/

Read More........→June 21, 2020

Can Artificial Trees Generate Renewable Power

Credit: Tech Briefs

New tools for harvesting wind energy may soon look less like giant windmills and more like tiny leafless trees. A project at The Ohio State University is testing whether high-tech objects that look a bit like artificial trees can generate renewable power when they are shaken by the wind--or by the sway of a tall building, traffic on a bridge or even seismic activity. In a recent issue of the Journal of Sound and Vibration, researchers report that they've uncovered something new about the vibrations that pass through tree-shaped objects when they are shaken. Specifically, they've demonstrated that tree-like structures made with electromechanical materials can convert random forces--such as winds or footfalls on a bridge--into strong structural vibrations that are ideal for generating electricity. The idea may conjure images of fields full of mechanical trees swaying in the breeze. But the technology may prove most valuable when applied on a small scale, in situations where other renewable energy sources such as solar are not an option, said project leader Ryan Harne, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State, and director of the Laboratory of Sound and Vibration Research. The "trees" themselves would be very simple structures: think of a trunk with a few branches--no leaves required. Early applications would include powering the sensors that monitor the structural integrity and health of civil infrastructure, such as buildings and bridges. Harne envisions tiny trees feeding voltages to a sensor on the underside of a bridge, or on a girder deep inside a high-rise building. The project takes advantage of the plentiful vibrational energy that surrounds us every day, he said. Some sources are wind-induced structural motions, seismic activity and human activity. "Buildings sway ever so slightly in the wind, bridges oscillate when we drive on them and car suspensions absorb bumps in the road," he said. "In fact, there's a massive amount of kinetic energy associated with those motions that is otherwise lost. We want to recover and recycle some of that energy." Sensors monitor the soundness of a structure by detecting the vibrations that pass through it, he explained. The initial aim of the project is to turn those vibrations into electricity, so that structural monitoring systems could actually be powered by the same vibrations they are monitoring. Today, the only way to power most structural sensors is to use batteries or plug the sensors directly into power lines, both of which are expensive and hard to manage for sensors planted in remote locations. If sensors could capture vibrational energy, they could acquire and wirelessly transmit their data is a truly self-sufficient way. At first, the idea of using tree-like devices to capture wind or vibration energies may seem straightforward, because real trees obviously dissipate energy when they sway. And other research groups have tested the effectiveness of similar tree structures using idealized--that is, not random--vibrations. But until now, researchers haven't made a concerted effort to capture realistic ambient vibrations with a tree-shaped electromechanical device--mainly because it was assumed that random forces of nature wouldn't be very suitable for generating the consistent oscillations that yield useful electrical energies. First, through mathematical modeling, Harne determined that it is possible for tree-like structures to maintain vibrations at a consistent frequency despite large, random inputs, so that the energy can be effectively captured and stored via power circuitry. The phenomenon is called internal resonance, and it's how certain mechanical systems dissipate internal energies. In particular, he determined that he could exploit internal resonance to coax an electromechanical tree to vibrate with large amplitudes at a consistent low frequency, even when the tree was experiencing only high frequency forces. It even worked when these forces were significantly overwhelmed by extra random noise, as natural ambient vibrations would be in many environments. He and his colleagues tested the mathematical model in an experiment, where they built a tree-like device out of two small steel beams--one a tree "trunk" and the other a "branch"--connected by a strip of an electromechanical material, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), to convert the structural oscillations into electrical energy. They installed the model tree on a device that shook it back and forth at high frequencies. At first, to the eye, the tree didn't seem to move because the device oscillated with only small amplitudes at a high frequency. Regardless, the PVDF produced a small voltage from the motion: about 0.8 volts. Then they added noise to the system, as if the tree were being randomly nudged slightly more one way or the other. That's when the tree began displaying what Harne called "saturation phenomena": It reached a tipping point where the high frequency energy was suddenly channeled into a low frequency oscillation. At this point, the tree swayed noticeably back and forth, with the trunk and branch vibrating in sync. This low frequency motion produced more than double the voltage--around 2 volts. Those are low voltages, but the experiment was a proof-of-concept: Random energies can produce vibrations that are useful for generating electricity. "In addition, we introduced massive amounts of noise, and found that the saturation phenomenon is very robust, and the voltage output reliable. That wasn't known before," Harne said. Harne will continue this work, which he began when he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan. There, his colleagues and co-authors on the paper were Kon-Well Wang and Anqi Sun of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/

• Contacts and sources: Ryan Harne, The Ohio State University, 
• Written by Pam Frost Gorder 
• The initial phase of this research was supported by the University of Michigan Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering program and the University of Michigan Collegiate Professorship. 

Read More........→February 05, 2016

Rain Power Microturbine And Lights Home

Credit: Investigación y Desarrollo

By collecting rainwater, students of the Technological University of Mexico (UNITEC) were able to generate electricity using a microturbine and supplying the vital liquid to homes in a poor community in Iztapalapa, in Mexico City. This system is similar to that used in dams, which uses rainwater to rotate a microturbine and generateelectricity. Currently, it is only possible to recharge portable 12 volt batteries, whose energy is sufficient to power LED lamps but not to provide power to the entire 

Microturbine and rain water illustration, Credit: Investigación y Desarrollo

house. The system called "Pluvia" collects rain from the roof of the house, where the surface must be adapted so the water will flow into a gutter, if unable to modify the ceiling, sheets to simulate a slope are added, routing fluid in one direction, said Omar Enrique Leyva Coca , who developed the project with Romel Brown and Gustavo Rivero Velázquez . To choose the right pipe, an arithmetic operation that determined the diameter of the tube in relation to the roof area was performed. Thus the liquid reaches the first filter, which is responsible for separating the water from the first two weeks of the season, which generally contains higher acidity, soil and contaminants, sending it to a storage tank. Through a pump the necessary water pressure is exerted to drive the microtrubine that was designed with the purpose of generating electricity, which is accumulated in portable rechargeable 12-volt batteries, used to power LED lamps, Coca Leyva added. Through a half-inch pipe the connection is made so when the microturbine turns, the battery is loaded. The power generator has the shape of a cylinder and its measures do not exceed two inches wide by ten inches high. After the water passes through the turbine, it is directed to an activated charcoal filter, which removes smells, flavors, colors, and excess. "With this latest filter the liquid is equal to or cleaner than the water in the networksupply system of Mexico City," Coca Leyva finished . This energy can power LED lamps and other small appliances such as refrigerators or table fans that occupy a maximum of 12 volts. However, architecture students at UNITEC are looking to increase the power of both the storage system and the microturbine to supply power and water to more homes. This "Pluvia" system illustrates the theme "Generation and Transmission of Water and Energy" that is promoted by this year's United Nations World Health Day to be held on March 22. Contacts and sources: Investigación y Desarrollo, Source: inffableisland.com

Read More........→March 14, 2015

Google and SunEdison to develop new solar project on an old oil field

Google recently finalised an investment to install an 82MW solar power plant on top of an old oil and gas field in California. The new installation will be located in California’s Kern County after Google signed a deal with solar company SunEdison. The Regulus solar plant will generate enough energy to power 10,000 homes and will be SunEdison’s largest developed and constructed project in North America. It is expected to begin operating later this year. The site was once the home of 30 oil wells but now there are only five as the oil resources were depleted. The solar project will be funded with the help of Google’s $145 million equity commitment and will bring 650 jobs to Kern County as well as feeding 82MW of clean solar energy into the grid via a 20-year power purchase agreement. Prudential Capital Group also provided financing for the project. The structured financing arrangements were developed, designed and executed by SunEdison which will be responsible for construction of the plant itself. It will consist of over 248,000 SunEdison mono-crystalline solar PV modules. California is committed to increasing the amount of energy it generates from renewable sources. The Kern County project is the latest of 17 renewable energy investments Google has made since 2010, including 5 in California. “We’re continually looking for newer, bigger and better projects that help us create a clean energy future” a company spokesperson said. “The more than $1.5 billion we’ve brought to these projects to date not only helps provide renewable energy to the grid and to the public, but as they perform, they allow us to invest in more renewable energy projects. This cycle makes financial sense for Google and our partners while supporting construction jobs in local communities and clean energy for the planet we share.” Bob Powell, president, North America at SunEdison added that Regulus is a prime example of how the company’s end-to-end approach benefits everyone involved in a solar project. For additional information: Google, SunEdison, Source: Article

Read More........→October 04, 2014

Global offshore wind power market to reach 40 GW by 2020

Robin Whitlockin: The global offshore wind power market is expected to grow from 7.1 Gigawatts (GW) in 2013 to 39.9 GW by 2020 according to research company GlobalData. More countries around the world are utilising offshore wind potential, creating at least a fivefold rise in global offshore wind capacity – a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 28 percent. GlobalData’s latest report states that the sector registered substantial growth between 2006 and 2013, rising from 0.9 GW in 2006 to 7.1 GW in 2013. Of this 1.6GW came online in 2013, driven mainly by the UK, Germany, Denmark and Belgium. Offshore wind is now expected to become one of the largest renewable power market segments by 2020 with significant contributions by the UK, Germany and China, thanks to a number of projects currently in the planning and construction stages. “Offshore wind power is increasingly being explored for its high yield, due to stronger and more consistent winds compared to onshore, and the scope that this provides for the construction of large-scale projects” said Swati Singh, GlobalData’s Analyst covering Power. “An additional benefit is the fact that future offshore wind power technology development will ensure a decline in the average cost per megawatt, although overall project costs are expected to rise in countries with wind farms planned in deeper water and further from the shore.” Singh added that the main obstacles that will hinder market growth are environmental concerns, the lack of skilled personnel and sophisticated technology catering to offshore requirements. Despite these barriers, GlobalData expects offshore wind’s share in the global wind power market to climb from 2.2 percent in 2013 to 6.1 percent by 2020, as more countries embrace the technology. GlobalData is a global research and consulting firm that offers advanced analytics to help clients make better, more informed decisions utilising data based on the expert knowledge of over 700 qualified business analysts and 25,000 interviews conducted with industry insiders every year. For additional information: GlobalData, Source: Renewable Energy Magazine, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→September 28, 2014

Clean Energy Ministerial highlights major impact of EVs in India

Robin Whitlock: Clean Energy Ministerial, the high-level global forum focused on promoting global clean energy, has released a report highlighting the significant positive potential impact of EV deployment in India. The report by Clean Energy Ministerial’s Electric Vehicles Initiative (EVI) reveals that the benefits of widespread EV deployment in India are greater than expected when real world driving conditions are taken into account. The analysis was conducted by the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and supported by EVI. It is helping to inform the Government of India’s National Mission on Electric Mobility which has set deployment targets of 5 to 7 million hybrid and electric vehicles in the country by 2020. The report demonstrated that real-world driving conditions amplify the benefits of EVs in India due to the superior ability of electric powertrains to maintain high efficiency in highly transient operation. The country could potentially save 4.8 million barrels of oil and 270 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 if the passenger car EV adoption rates necessitated by the government targets continue into the decade beyond 2020. “Electric vehicles are one of the most promising technology pathways to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption around the world” said lead researcher Anand Gopal of LBNL. “As vehicle ownership in India is set to rise substantially, this new study underscores the important opportunity that exists to diversify India’s transportation fuel mix and reduce CO2 emissions.” The research also found that EVs could be manufactured for the Indian market at lower costs due to the much lower range requirements for urban car users. For example, an EV with a 100-kilometer range is sufficient for more than 99 percent of journeys made in the country. When factoring in fuel cost savings from switching to electricity, 100 km EVs could become cheaper than conventional vehicles on a life cycle cost basis prior to 2030. For additional information: Clean Energy Ministerial. Source: Article, Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org

Read More........→September 19, 2014

Nissan develops stylish ?Bladeglider? EV

Car manufacturer Nissan has developed a new and stylish ‘wedge’ shaped electric car called the ‘BladeGlider’ which it describes as a proposal for the future direction of Nissan EV development The company developed the vehicle in order to give both the driver and passengers a new, sustainable and exhilarating driving experience. It has a unique architecture which Nissan describes as ‘targeting the visionary individual’ and incorporates a ‘pioneering’ spirit that distinguishes it from anything yet envisioned for EV’s. “The goal was to revolutionise the architecture of the vehicle to provoke new emotions, provide new value and make visible for consumers how Zero Emissions can help redefine our conception of vehicle basics” said Francois Bancon, division general manager of Product Strategy and Product Planning at Nissan. The car has a narrow front track which is designed to challenge the orthodoxy of car design that the company says has dominated the roads since the earliest days of the internal combustion engine. The concept has its roots in the aerial images of a soaring, silent, glider and the triangular shape of a high performance "swept wing" aircraft. This means that the main developmental focus was aerodynamics in order to achieve low drag and generating a road-hugging down force. “BladeGlider was conceived around delivering a glider-like exhilaration that echoes its lightweight, downsized hyper-efficient aerodynamic form” said Shiro Nakamura, Nissan's senior vice president and chief creative officer. “This design is more than revolutionary; it's transformational, applying our most advanced electric drive-train technology and racetrack-inspired styling in the service of a new dimension of shared driving pleasure.” The BladeGliders front wheels are set close together in order to reduce drag and enhance manoeuvrability for high-G cornering power. This in turn is assisted by a 30/70 front/rear weight distribution ratio while the aerodynamic downforce is created by a highly rigid yet lightweight carbon-fibre underbody. In-wheel motors provide rear-wheel propulsion with independent motor management, while also contributing to freedom of upper body design and space-efficient packaging. Once the BladeGlider matures into a production car, it will be the first time Nissan has used in-wheel motors. The car’s electric motors employ lithium-ion batteries which have already demonstrated proven performance in the Nissan LEAF EV. In the Blade Glider the battery modules are mounted low and towards the rear to enhance stability and handling. The cockpit inside the car’s canopy seats three occupants in a triangular configuration with the driver sat centre-forward. The steering wheel is like that inside an aircraft and the dashboard incorporates state-of-the-art instrumentation technology which includes an IT system displaying relief maps and atmospheric data. “I think that the excitement of the racing car should be mirrored in the excitement of driving the road car” said Ben Bowlby, director of Nissan Motorsport Innovation, who has supported the BladeGlider's development. “I think there are elements we can bring from the race track to make these future road cars more exciting, more fulfilling and give greater driving pleasure.”For additional information: Nissan Source: Renewable Energy Magazine, Image

Read More........→April 01, 2014

Energy-dense biofuel from cellulose close to being economical

A new Purdue University-developed process for creating biofuels has shown potential to be cost-effective for production scale, opening the door for moving beyond the laboratory setting. A Purdue economic analysis shows that the cost of the thermo-chemical H2Bioil method is competitive when crude oil is about $100 per barrel when using certain energy methods to create hydrogen needed for the process. If a federal carbon tax were implemented, the biofuel would become even more economical. H2Bioil is created when biomass, such as switchgrass or corn stover, is heated rapidly to about 500 degrees Celcius in the presence of pressurized hydrogen. Resulting gases are passed over catalysts, causing reactions that separate oxygen from carbon molecules, making the carbon molecules high in energy content, similar to gasoline molecules. The conversion process was created in the lab of Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue's Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering. He said H2Bioil has significant advantages over traditional standalone methods used to create fuels from biomass. "The process is quite fast and converts entire biomass to liquid fuel," Agrawal said. "As a result, the yields are substantially higher. Once the process is fully developed, due to the use of external hydrogen, the yield is expected to be two to three times that of the current competing technologies." The economic analysis, published in the June issue of Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery, shows that the energy source used to create hydrogen for the process makes all the difference when determining whether the biofuel is cost-effective. Hydrogen processed using natural gas or coal makes the H2Bioil cost-effective when crude oil is just over $100 per barrel. But hydrogen derived from other, more expensive, energy sources - nuclear, wind or solar - drive up the break-even point. "We're in the ballpark," said Wally Tyner, Purdue's James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics. "In the past, I have said that for biofuels to be competitive, crude prices would need to be at about $120 per barrel. This process looks like it could be competitive when crude is even a little cheaper than that." Agrawal said he and colleagues Fabio Ribeiro, a Purdue professor of chemical engineering, and Nick Delgass, Purdue's Maxine Spencer Nichols Professor of Chemical Engineering, are working to develop catalysts needed for the H2Bioil conversion processes. The method's initial implementation has worked on a laboratory scale and is being refined so it would become effective on a commercial scale. "This economic analysis shows us that the process is viable on a commercial scale," Agrawal said. "We can now go back to the lab and focus on refining and improving the process with confidence." The model Tyner used assumed that corn stover, switchgrass and miscanthus would be the primary feedstocks. The analysis also found that if a federal carbon tax were introduced, driving up the cost of coal and natural gas, more expensive methods for producing hydrogen would become competitive. "If we had a carbon tax in the future, the break-even prices would be competitive even for nuclear," Tyner said. "Wind and solar, not yet, but maybe down the road." The US Department of Energy and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research funded the research. Agrawal and his collaborators received a US patent for the conversion process.Source:  Renewable Energy Magazine

Read More........→June 19, 2013

Clothes of the future: where hi-tech meets high fashion

Photo: EPA

It seems impossible to survive in the modern world without going either “smart” or digital, and clothes are no exception. The fashion industry is now working on technology to bring dressing habits to a completely new level. We're still in the stone age of nano-fibres and networked apparel but, in the not too distant future, you can count on having a coat which tells your mom where you are and having the Encyclopaedia Britannica embedded in your underwear! According to IMS Research, about 14m wearable tech devices were produced in 2011; by 2016, the global market could reach $6bn. Nancy Tilbury, designer to the stars and one of the creators of the futuristic Studio XO, predicts, “Generation Digital are constantly connected and live their lives digitally. Clothes are the next logical step”. Though thought of now as innovation, tampering with textiles and technology has been going on for over a thousand years. Artisans have been wrapping fine golden and silver foil around fabric threads since as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. At the end of the 19th century, with the advent of electric appliances, designers and engineers sought to combine electricity with clothing and jewellery; the so-called Electric Girl Lighting Company hired out young ladies wearing light-adorned evening gowns to brighten up cocktail parties. In 1968, the Body Covering exhibition in New York City presented new fruits of the tech-fashion relationship, that is, clothing that could inflate and deflate, light up, heat and cool itself. In the mid-1990s, a team of MIT researchers led by Steve Mann developed the so-called wearable computers, traditional computer hardware attached to and carried on the body. The baton was later handed over to another MIT group, including Maggie Orth and Rehmi Post, who explored the plausible integration of such devices into clothing. Modern e-textiles are distinguished by either classical electronic devices such as conductors, integrated circuits, LEDs, and conventional batteries embedded in garments or fabrics, or by Internet connectivity. Smart clothes have many virtues: they are universal, customised, and eco-friendly. More than that, designers promise to make their dresses change colour by the mere touch and never wear out; I can see the last quality being debated by fashionistas though. Nanotech fabric will repel stains that normal cloth would absorb, thanks to molecular nano shields against stains, without changing the texture of the fabric. Digitalised and web-enabled apparel in health care, sports, and military service will, and already do, facilitate collecting physiological data and diagnostics. By now, smart textiles and Web-enabled clothing have passed the R&D stage and are on the verge of throwing themselves into mass production. However, many of the finest examples of this symbiosis already wow audiences with their alien hi-tech looks or versatility. Wanda Nylon makes transparent raincoats which can change colour like a bug's wing and are also 90% recyclable and totally nature-friendly. Another eco-friendly project is Orange Power Wellies, created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind. The unique sole of these wellies converts heat from the feet into an electrical current, which can be used to re-charge a mobile phone. The more their owner moves, the more energy they generate. CuteCircuit a couture recruited by stars, specialises on dresses with hundreds of LED lights embedded in the fabric and USB rechargeable. The company made a statement by creating a powered dress which could receive and display tweets in real time. This Twitter Dress contained 2000 LED lights and 3,000 Swarovski crystals. It was introduced at the launch party of EE, the U.K. first 4G mobile network, the commissioner of this wonder-garment. Among wearable tech garments that do serve a purpose is the Hovding bicycle helmet created by Swedish industrial designers. It only inflates at the moment of danger, otherwise stowed around a person's neck in the form of a stylish shawl. The sensors gather data from around the cyclist and should danger present, a futuristic helmet of tough nylon covers the rider's head. Some designers are more hung up on devising ways of incorporating social networking in a dress in the discreetest way possible. Seattle-based Electricfoxy came up with a Ping garment, which can connect to Facebook wirelessly and from anywhere. Functions are performed by lifting a hood, tying a bow, zipping or buttoning. If a friend sends a comment or a message back, the garment will notify its owner with a tap on the shoulder. To surprise and stand out, any technology goes, based on the classic lie detector test, SENSOREE has crafted the so-called "mood sweater" which changes colour depending on mood through a number of sensors on the person's hands. When the sweater's owner is nervous, it lights up red and when calm in blue. The smart use of body heat was discovered by the Netherlands-based company Studio Roosegaarde, its high-tech garments entitled 'Intimacy White' and 'Intimacy Black' are made out of opaque smart e-foils which turn from black or white to transparent when exposed to body heat. Smart garments are not solely designed to turn heads, though, the armed services are one area in need of innovation. Smart uniforms will instantly detect gunshot wounds or even traces of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks in blood and sweat; they can report a fallen soldier's location with GPS coordinates and pass along other critical information for battlefield medics. Sensatex Inc. is already working with the military, emergency workers, and doctors to design what it calls a “smart shirt”; clothing featuring tiny microscopic wires interwoven with the fabric itself. This garment, turned into a communication device, could one day perform remote physiological monitoring or even heat up or cool down depending on the weather. "Throughout society, the ability to unplug from wires and utilise smart textiles to gather information through wireless communication will really be the textile of the future," said Sensatex CEO, Robert Kalik. The use of web-enabled clothing is vastly explored and introduced in areas like medicine and sport where continuity and precision of data are vital. Smart fibres are used to monitor systems in maternal and paediatric units where precise observation is constantly needed. Several companies, like Intelligent Clothing, are already engaging in these activities and create the first tele-monitoring systems, with Internet connectivity, for infants. A group of Ukrainian developers at the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition in 2012 made another smart use of smart fabrics. Their Enable Talk gloves help translate the sign language used by deaf-mute people. The glove sensors read gestures and translate them into words transmitted through bluetooth to a smartphone screen. Electricfoxy has developed the special MOVE technology for sports apparel which focuses on measuring precision in exercises such as yoga or pilates. The sensors transmit information to a mobile app which analyses the position and helps eliminate future errors. Besides, it stores all the information from previous training sessions to keep track of progress. It's clear that one day, while getting dressed in front of the mirror we might catch ourselves thinking how right the Star Wars author was. E-foils, nano cells, glowing LEDs and going online just by, quite literally, lifting your finger. People are however willing to go a long way in revealing their own physiological data; the fact that marketeers may be taking personal data and using it to support their advertising efforts might seem disturbing. When advertisers, and anyone else for that matter, have records of the customers' sleeping and eating habits, daily routine and physical activity and even certain medical conditions they acquire a certain power. Giving away information to strangers through social networks is already an issue, though seemingly inevitable in the modern world of computerised records, it still needs to be treated with caution. Source: Voice Of Russia

Read More........→May 21, 2013

India will soon be in the geothermal energy business

India will soon start a project to produce electricity through earth heat or geothermal energy, according to a report in the Hindu Business Line. The news service quotes Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah as saying the country was planning to produce 80 per cent renewable energy through biomass, sun and ethanol, to reduce dependence on coal imports from Australia, Africa and Indonesia. Abdullah spoke to the Business Line during the kick off of the two-day Northern Regional Science Congress in New Delhi. He said wind energy was another area where there were plans to increase generation by 300 MW every year. Abdullah suggest that for this to happen, linkages to Denmark are being considered. Is there a replicant in your future? Or at least a very humanoid robot? The 1982 film Blade Runner depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered organic robots called replicants – visually indistinguishable from adult humans – are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other "mega–manufacturers" around the world. Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty. Source: Renewable Energy Magazine, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→March 30, 2013

BSR developing biogas plant to fuel garbage truck fleet

Having gained consent from Berlin’s Senate Department for Health, Environment and Consumer Protection in July, the German waste collection service provider, BSR Ruhleben, has commenced construction of a biogas plant in Berlin-Westend. The facility will ferment organic waste to produce biomethane to power its fleet of refuse collection trucks. Berlin’s Senator for Health, Environment and Consumer Protection, Katrin Lompscher; Spandau district councillor Carsten-Michael Röding (Department of Building, Planning and Environmental Protection); and BSR CEO Vera Gade-Butzlaff attended the recent ground-breaking ceremony of a new biogas plant in Berlin being constructed by BSR Ruhleben to provide biomethane to power its fleet of compressed natural gas (CNG) powered refuse collection vehicles. Vera Gade-Butzlaff, CEO of BSR, says the new plant will be capable of displacing 2.5 million litres of diesel per year. “About half of all collective kilometres of BSR in the future will be accomplished as climate-neutral. This usage also makes us less dependent on – predictably upward trending – price development of fossil fuels,” Gade-Butzlaff explains. By the end of 2012, and every year thereafter, the biogas generated from organic waste by BSR will be the equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5,000 tonnes. When utilised as a diesel-substitute, the company reveals that the biomethane (upgraded biogas) it will produce will be tax free until the end of 2015. During her speech at the ground-breaking ceremony, Senator Lompscher said the use of biomethane to power the company’s fleet will also contribute to reducing noise and dust pollution, since “the biogas garbage trucks emit no diesel and they are clearly quieter than conventional diesel vehicles”. In a climate protection agreement set for the 2005 – 2010 period, BSR was hired by Berlin city council as the first municipal company to set ambitious climate targets. The company aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 121,000 tonnes and build a fleet of fully equipped low emission waste collection vehicles. As the final report of this agreement showed, the goal was not only met but exceeded, with the saving equivalent to 130,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being achieved. BSR has operated a fleet of 50 Daimler CNG waste collection trucks, a filling station and a CNG fast filling a mobile station that has been operational since 2002, also adding another 30 vehicles and a second Fast Fill station in 2010. It plans to expand the fleet of 140 CNG vehicles and build another fast-fill CNG station in 2012. Source: Renewable Energy Magazine

Read More........→February 24, 2013

University spinoff does geothermal with a carbon sequestration twist

Renewable Energy Magazine: The University of Minnesota is the US has launched a startup it says will provide renewable energy more economically than existing technologies by using sequestered CO2 rather than water to extract heat from geothermal wells. Heat Mining Company LLC, said in a written statement that the use of sequestered carbon dioxide will allow electricity to be provided from many more sites than would be possible with conventional water-based systems and does it more economically. “CO2 Plume Geothermal technology makes production of power using geothermal heat financially feasible, where water isn’t,” said Ken Carpenter, Managing Partner of South Dakota-based Heat startup. “This technology sits at the convergence of two conflicting demands in our society: the need to burn fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and the desire to reduce carbon emissions,” Carpenter said. CO2 Plume GeothermalTM (CPGTM) technology is an attractive solution for conventional fossil-fueled power plants, as it prevents emitted CO2, an environmental liability in the atmosphere, from being released to the air and uses it instead as the underground working fluid to extract geothermal heat for additional electricity production and/or district heating. In the process, the CO2 is permanently stored underground, resulting in a geothermal power plant with not only a neutral, but even a negative carbon footprint. The geothermal power facility can produce base-load power or provide peak-load power and thus also serve as a type of high-efficiency back-up “battery” for only intermittently available wind or solar power. “This technology has the potential to introduce a new era of electrical power production from renewable wind, solar, and geothermal energy as well as from traditional fossil fuels, while significantly reducing emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,” said Martin Saar, co-inventor and earth sciences professor in the university's College of Science and Engineering. The University of Minnesota submitted the technology for patents in March 2009 and licensed it exclusively, worldwide to Heat Mining Company LLC through the Office for Technology Commercialization. The approach was invented by Saar, Postdoctoral Fellow Jimmy Randolph, and Mechanical Engineering Professor Thomas Kuehn. Carbon capture and geologic CO2 sequestration is a fairly new solution for preventing CO2 emissions at fossil-fueled power plants. A typical coal-burning power plant produces between 3.5 and 5 million tons of CO2 per year, and it’s possible to retrofit existing plants, and design new plants, that capture the CO2 and sequester it underground. With a CPGTM system tapping into the underground CO2 and using it as a heat extraction fluid, power produced from earth's underground heat can be used for CO2 injection pumps while revenue from additional geothermal electricity sales can offset the very high costs of capturing the CO2 in the fossil-fueled power plant. In addition to producing renewable energy and preventing emissions, CPG could someday provide large scale storage of solar and wind energy. The technology could also supply power for enhanced oil recovery projects that produce oil from fields that have nearly reached the end of their productive lives. The CPG method has been demonstrated in computer simulations and details have been investigated in laboratory experiments. The next step is to build a pilot plant to test it in the field. Saar's research leading to the new technology was originally funded by the Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE), a signature program of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE). The initial research resulted in a significant federal grant from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Source: Renewable Energy Magazine

Read More........→October 09, 2012

Pacific agency sees climate change as "most serious long-term threat"

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) stressed here Monday that climate change is potentially the most serious long-term threat to the development and survival of the Pacific people today. Kosi Latu, SPREP Deputy Director-general highlighted the issue at the on-going annual conference of the New Life Churches of Fiji on protecting the environment as God's creation and gift to humankind, which was attended by more than 300 delegates at the Suva Civic Centre. Latu told the conference that when bigger countries talked about climate change, it was really about changing their economy from being a fossil fuel-based economy to a renewable energy-based economy because the burning of fossil fuels was the primary contributor to climate change."But for us here in the region, it' s much more than that. It's about our survival." Latu noted that Pacific island countries were highly dependent on fossil fuel to meet their energy needs, spending between 30-40 percent of their annual national income on energy sources such as oil and gas, but contributed only 0.03 percent to the total global emissions. "The impact is incredible" and relocation has already happened in some islands in the Pacific, Latu said. "While the impact will vary from country to country, the low lying islands of the Pacific are going to be more affected because they're much more vulnerable." "Our food systems, our agriculture patterns, even health, our fisheries, infrastructure, water, tourism which we depend on so much -- all those sectors of the economy are going to be potentially affected," he said, adding there would also be interesting political and legal and political questions and issues of sovereignty in relating to relocation. "What if the people of Kiribati then decide to relocate to Australia or New Zealand? .. What will happen to the land that's under water? These are the kinds of issues that governments need to think about," Latu questioned. Source: Sam Daily Times

Read More........→October 09, 2012

Honda to recycle rare earths to be green

TOKYO — Honda Motor Co said Wednesday it will start recycling rare earths and other key materials in hybrid auto batteries this year—a key innovation in the Japanese automaker’s effort to be green. Japan is dependent on imports, mostly from China, for rare earth elements, which are essential for making high-tech products, but a steady supply has been periodically threatened over political disputes with China. Honda officials said the company was targeting September or October to begin recycling of rare earths. They said it would be a first for the auto industry. Honda President Takanobu Ito said: “In the long term, we hope to move to renewable energy sources that won’t harm the environment.” Ito outlined Honda’s efforts to reduce pollution and global warming, including experimental projects to combine solar with its fuel-cell cars—what he called the Honda “dream” to derive energy solely from nature and emit just water. Fuel cells are powered by the energy created when hydrogen combines with oxygen to produce water. They are still too expensive for commercial use and remain experimental. Ito said Honda’s roots lie in its determination to develop a fuel-efficient gasoline engine to clear U.S. pollution-control regulations of the 1970s. Honda’s CVCC engine was the first in the world to clear the standard. Japan later adopted similar pollution regulations. Honda recovered from last year's earthquake and tsunami, which disrupted the supply of auto parts and sent sales plunging. January-March profit rose 61% from the previous year, and it’s projecting record global sales of 4.3 million vehicles for this fiscal year.Source: Sam Daily Times

Read More........→July 28, 2012