Sheerwind claiming 3 to 6 times increased power output with their ducted Involex wind turbine

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Sheerwind INVELOXSheerwind, the wind power company based in Minnesota, has just released the results of tests on their INVOLEX bladeless wind turbine, and the results are very encouraging.   Their testing shows a 300-600% increase in wind power generated compared to traditional type wind turbines.

The INVOLEX is a ducted wind turbine that captures and concentrates the wind from any direction and channels it to a turbine located on the ground.   Sheerwind claims higher output at lower wind speeds along with decreased installation and maintenance costs (since the turbine is located at ground level rather than several hundred feet up in the air, and you don’t need to build and transport massive turbine blades).

Last December, Sheerwind announced the completion of their first large scale prototype, and last week they came out with the results of testing.   Over the course of testing in various wind conditions, they’re claiming that INVOLEX can produce an average of 314% increased power output over traditional wind turbines.   Depending on wind conditions, they saw increases from 81% to 660%, with the average increase being 314%. Sheerwind says that their INVOLEX wind turbine can generate power at very low wind speeds, as low as 1 mph.   Their turbines are much smaller than other wind turbines, and Sheerwind is claiming a low installation cost of about $750 per KW.

In announcing the testing results, Sheerwind CEO Dr. Daryoush Allaei said, “This exciting performance superiority over traditional wind and competitiveness with natural gas and hydroelectric generation is attracting significant interest from fortune 500 and moderately sized companies; government entities; industry experts; and others. Our ability to operate efficiently and effectively in areas never considered viable with traditional wind energy and at costs as low as $10 MWH makes SheerWind a true game-changer in electric power generation.”

Based on the results of testing, Sheerwind is targeting next year (2014) for the deployment of utility scale INVOLEX turbines.

via: Gizmag

Sheerwind press release

Reviews of the new 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid

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2013 Jetta HybridReviews of the new 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid are starting to hit, and it seems like all reviewers are giving it very positive reviews – while not getting as great gas mileage as the Prius, it sounds like its a lot more fun to drive. The New York Times is calling the new VW Jetta hybrid “an affordable, fuel-efficient Volkswagen aimed at the large market of family-car buyers.”   Here’s some links to the reviews, if you’re interested:

Automotive.com

Wired.com

Chattanooga Times Free Press

NY Times

IBM developing an 80 percent efficient solar power collector

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By combining their experience on cooling supercomputers with a concentrated photovoltaic solar collector, IBM thinks that they can hit 80 percent efficiency with its new High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system.   With HCPVT, you get energy in two forms – electricity plus hot water.

IBM HCPVT solar concentrator prototypeThe system consists of a mirrored parabolic dish that tracks the sun to focus sunlight by a factor of 2,000X onto triple-junction solar cells.    Each solar cell converts up to 30 percent of sunlight into electricity.   Of course magnifying the sun’s rays by 2000 times is going to generate a whopping amount of heat, and that’s where IBM gets its system up to 80 percent efficiency.   IBM developed a thermal cooling system for HCPVT based on the cooling design for its Aquasar supercompter.   Built into each unit are tiny micro-channels filled with water that carry away heat from the solar cell, and this heat can be used to provide hot water, or heat buildings, or provide the energy to purify water.

So far, IBM’s built a small prototype HCPVT system, which consists of 4 small (1-cm square) solar cells, each generating about 200-250 watts.  Overall, the prototype generates about 1 kW of electricity.   Their next step is to build a larger system with a 100-square meter dish that would crank out about 25kW of electricity plus hot water.

IBM has also put a lot of thought into reducing the cost of its system, by using low cost materials wherever possible.  For example, instead of using steel to build the parabolic dish, they will make it out of concrete, which is then covered by simple pressurized metalized foils.  While the higher-tech components of the system need to be made centrally, IBM feels that the dish and the rest of the construction and assembly can be done at the same location the system will be used.   That means lower costs and local jobs.

In the video below, Dr. Bruno Michel of IBM explains more about the HCPVT system.

 

via: ARSTechnica , eWeek

Will thermoelectric Power Felt soon be providing you power?

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Power FeltBased on an idea from his ten year old daughter, nanotechnologist David Carroll of Wake Forest University has developed a flexible thermoelectric fabric he calls Power Felt that generates electricity from both heat and movement.     There’s been other thermoelectric products made before, but they’ve usually been made out of ceramic material – heavy, brittle, and expensive.    Power Felt is thin, lightweight, and feels just like wool felt – it’s even washable, as Carroll found out by accident.   It’s cheap too – it costs about a quarter to make enough to cover a laptop.

Right now he’s envisioning using Power Felt to help extend the life of a battery.    If it’s embedded in a laptop casing, then the heat that the laptop generates would be recycled back into the battery.   Putting it on the back of a cellphone and letting your cellphone bounce around in your pocket (and absorb body heat) would put some juice back in the battery.   But he’s thinking about much bigger applications.   If Power Felt is cheap enough, it could be wrapped around your house, just like Tyvek insulation is now.   All houses leak heat – with Power Felt you can use that heat loss to generate power.  Making it part of a solar cell means that you generate electricity both from sunlight and the heat that the solar cell absorbs.

Carroll says that he hopes to make Power Felt commercially available by next year.   They’re in the process of signing contracts with various companies to make it – he can’t name names, but he says that “the chances are extremely good that they make something that’s in your house right now.”

Business Insider has a couple of articles on David Carroll’s Power Felt along with some short interviews.

Business Insider: This Magical Electricity-Creating Fabric Will Soon Be Everywhere

Business Insider: Electricity-Creating Fabric Will One Day Help Power Your Home

 

 

 

Recap of U.S. utility sized solar projects that came online in 2012

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has a nice recap of 5 large scale utility sized solar projects that came online in 2012.    Last year was a really good year for U.S. solar installations – it was up 76 percent over 2011.

Utility-scale solar projects grew by more – up 134 percent over the previous year.  Some of the largest projects were supported by the Energy Department’s Loan Guarantee Program.  Below are 5 of the largest.

  •  Agua Caliente Phase I-IV – 287 MW.  Located in Yuma County, Arizona
  •  Alamosa Solar Project – 37 MW.  Located in San Luis Valley, Colorado, it’s the world’s largest concentrating photovoltaic solar farm.
  • Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One – 100 MW (230 MW when complete in 2013).  80 miles north of Los Angeles.
  • Mesquite Solar 1 – 124 MW.   Located in Maricopa County, Arizona
  • California Valley Solar Ranch Phase I-IV – 22 MW in 2012, 250 MW by then end of 2013.   Located in San Luis Obispo, California

via: U.S. Department of Energy – Energy.gov

World’s largest offshore wind farm now online and producing power

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The London Array became the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm last week when the 175th and final turbine was connected to the grid and turned on.   Construction on the London Array was completed in December- on April 6th, 2013, the last turbine was switched on and now all 175 turbines are supplying power to the UK national electric grid.

The new wind farm is located about 12 miles off the Kent coast, which is on England’s south eastern coast.   The 175 turbine array is spread out over an area of about 35 square miles, and has a total generating capacity of 630 MW.   It can power about half a million UK households.

via: The Guardian

New recyclable solar cells made from trees

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Georgia Tech CNC solar cell

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have come up with a new type of organic solar cell made out of wood. Their new thin film cells are made out of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) which they make using softwood from trees.

Most organic solar cells are built using either glass or plastic as the substrate.  Neither plastic nor glass is easily recyclable, and they’re difficult to manage (glass panels can easily break).  But these CNC cells can be recycled simply by dissolving them in water.

“The development and performance of organic substrates in solar technology continues to improve, providing engineers with a good indication of future applications,” said Professor Bernard Kippelen, the director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE).  “But organic solar cells must be recyclable. Otherwise we are simply solving one problem, less dependence on fossil fuels, while creating another, a technology that produces energy from renewable sources but is not disposable at the end of its lifecycle.”

Right now these wood based solar cells have hit an efficiency level of 2.7%, which doesn’t sound like all that much, but represents a leap over other recyclable paper based cells.   They’re now working to improve the efficiency to the 10% level, by optimizing the “optical properties of the solar cell’s electrode.”  They also plan on coating their cells with an “eco-friendly, thin environmental barrier coating to protect the cells from water and oxygen when operating in the field.”

via: Georgia Tech

Multi-Use Titanium Dioxide nanofibers can generate hydrogen, produce clean water, and more

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Professor Darren Sun at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University has developed what he calls Multi-Use Titanium Dioxide (TiO2), by turning titanium dioxide crystals into nanofibers.  These nanofibers can easily be made into flexible filter membranes by combining them with carbon, copper, zinc, or tin, depending on the application.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  Professor Sun has been able to use Multi-Use Titanium Dioxide nanofibers treated with iron oxide to create membranes that produce clean water from wastewater, with one additional major benefit.  When exposed to sunlight, the nanofibers in the membrane take some of that wastewater and produces hydrogen, which can be used as fuel.   He says that they’ve been able to produce hydrogen from water at about three times the rate of hydrogen produced when using platinum catalysts, which is the typical way that sunlight is used to split water.   And titanium dioxide (it’s also called titania) is pretty cheap, certainly much cheaper than platinum.

The research team has found other uses for Multi-Use Titanium Dioxide.   They’ve developed a black titanium dioxide polycrystalline sheet that can function as a flexible solar cell.   They’ve also found that using another blend of titanium dioxide and carbon as the anode in a lithium ion battery, it doubles the capacity of the battery.

Professor Sun’s team has recently spun off a start-up company to further develop and commercialize multi-use titanium dioxide nanofibers.

via: AZoNano

 

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