Category Archives: Alternative Energy
Samsung launches mobile solar powered health centers in Africa
Rural areas are usually detached from proper health-care facilities, causing a rise in the number of diseases and illnesses and the casualties that result from these. South Korean electronics giant, Samsung, has recently come up with solar-powered health centers that will cater to the people of areas as such. Samsung Electronics Africa unveiled its Solar-Powered Health Centre model in Cape Town as a kick-start to its large-scale medical initiative.
Posted in Alternative Energy on March 19, 2013
Indian solar power project uses canals to generate renewable energy
The state of Gujarat in western India has come up with a fantastic way to make use of free space to generate green juice. Up ahead, the Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, will inaugurate an innovative project that simply works as a canopy over the Narmada canal. This canopy sports solar panels and works as a full-fledged array! Called the Canal Solar Power Project, the project could very well use the 19,000 km-long network of Narmada canals to its advantage.
This Heat-electricity Conversion Storage Device is practical and stylish
Heat energy is usually given out during the generation of electricity. However, this energy is usually allowed to go waste, without being tapped into as an additional source of renewable energy. Recently, designers Shuguang Li and Xiaoping Chen decided to make the most out of this untapped energy source and came up with a Heat-electricity Conversion Storage Device. This device uses a thermoelectric conversion material to transfer and then store electricity from heat waste.
Posted in Alternative Energy on February 15, 2013
Wind Energy Goes Micro, with the Mini Turbine
British designed and made micro turbine, the Urbine, looks set to take off. Ecotricity, Britain's first green energy company, has turned towards micro wind turbines after the poor design and performance of regular wind turbines has threatened the future of wind energy as a reliable alternative energy source. The micro turbine should be up to 40% times more efficient than its bigger brothers, provided it passes the next six months of rigorous testing planned for it in the UK. Not only would its success give the wind energy sector an ego boost, but also the flailing British economy. It is estimated that in the last ten years, almost 12,000 jobs were created in this sector.
Solar Power Charges Wind Power Plant in Arizona
The Clean Wind Energy Downdraft Tower is a skyscraper-sized wind power plant powered by solar energy. It has close to zero carbon footprint, produces almost no waste and consumes virtually no fuel. By harnessing the power of the sun to make wind energy, it can be used in areas with little breeze of its own. It works like this: a fine mist of water is sprayed across the top of the hollow tower to cool hot air as it enters, as it cools, it falls more heavily and faster, so by the time it reaches wind turbines at the bottom, it is powerful enough to generate electricity. This first tower in Arizona could make up to 1000 megawatts of energy per hour, approximately 600 megawatts of which would go back into the national grid.
Posted in Alternative Energy on February 6, 2013
Solar Shed to Keep India's Food Chilled
Inadequate transport, poor roads, soaring temperatures – these are just a few reasons why around 40% food in India spoils before it reaches a dinner table. What people in developed countries would throw in the dustbin with barely a thought, can lead to mass starvation or keep farmers living at poverty levels in India. To help combat this, business students, engineers and corporate in Ohio have put their heads together to address this issue, and come up with a very effective, but crazily expensive solar powered fridge-shed thingy that no small farmer in India would ever be able to afford! Priced at $5,000, the SolarCool runs on eight solar panels that can keep food chilled, even at night, thanks to a battery that gets charged in the daylight.
Posted in Alternative Energy on January 29, 2013
Wind Powered Battery Storage Pilots in Texas
Duke Energy Renewables has developed a way of saving extra power generated by batteries at its Notrees Windpower Project in Texas. The $44 million battery-storage system holds excess energy from the 153-megawatt Notrees farm and releases it when power supplies dip. This innovation is particularly helpful because winds often blow more strongly at night, when power needs are less, and more gently during the day, when power demands are higher. With this battery storage system, wind generated power can be kept and used, as and when needed, thus stablising the grid. Data from the project is being collected and analysed for scale-up by the US Department of Energy, who helped fund Duke Energy Renewables' wind power, storage battery.
Evonik Pioneer Solar Kite Journey Across Australia
Evonik have pioneered a solar powered journey across Australia, by kite! The 3,000 mile trip across Aussie was braved by extreme sportsmen Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer, of Germany, and used less than $15 worth of fuel. Powered by exclusive technology from Evonik, that is a complex mixture of lithium-ion batteries, Evonik's Litarion electrodes and Separion ceramic separators which allow the battery cells to store energy generated from a wind turbine, the Wind Explorer covered up to 225 miles per day in its pilot test down under. A body made from Evonik's Rohacell sandwich carbon fiber, and tires made from lightweight materials and a special rubber formula that reduces resistance, also contributed to the energy efficiency of the Wind Explorer.
World's Largest Single Unit Solar Plant to Launch in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is taking big steps in the direction of renewable energy. Within the first quarter of this year, Shams 1, otherwise known as the world's largest single unit concentrated solar power plant, is due to light up its facilities. It is hoped that Shams 1 will reduce carbon emissions in Abu Dhabi by 175,000 tons every year, which would be the same as taking 15,000 cars off the road. It works like this: parabolic trough collectors track the sun throughout the day, directing the sunlight onto embedded tubes filled with a synthetic oil-based heat transfer fluid. The fluid can reach up to 400 degrees celsius in the tubes, before it is heated a further 140 degrees in a natural gas powered booster. The heat is then used to boil water and produce steam for steam turbines.
Japan Plans World's Largest Renewable Energy Farm
The epicentre of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan is undergoing drastic changes. Following the disaster in Fukushima, Japan is shifting its reliance on controversial nuclear power to renewable energy. The largest development is a proposal for 143 wind turbines on platforms 10 miles off the coast of Fukushima. If plans go ahead, this will be the world's largest wind farm, surpassing Britain's Greater Gabbard farm on the Suffolk coast, which has 140 wind turbines.
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