Category Archives: Alternative Energy
The largest roof-mounted solar array in the United States has finally reached completion. Put together by Avidan Management, the system compromises of 17,745 high-performance SolarWorld solar panels and boasts a capacity of 4.26-megawatt. With this, Avidan Management will now be up front in clean renewable energy usage in the industrial real estate industry. The array set up on the roof of a company-owned distribution facility in Edison will generate more than 5 kilowatt hours of power on an annual basis and covers nearly 17-acres of roof space of the 656,255-square-foot facility.
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Researchers Soobum Lee from the University of Notre Dame in the US and Byeng Youn from Seoul National University in South Korea have developed a new way to harvest vibration and thermal energy. The researchers have submitted a study recently on what is known as an EH skin. The Energy Harvesting skin allows for a power-generating skin structure that could be used for multiple applications, generating renewable energy in the bargain. The material could be used to harness piezoelectricity from structures like buildings, staircases, bridges and can also be used on the human-body itself with clothing, machines and other such places fit for piezoelectricity harvesting.
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The United States of America is going down hard on fossil fuels and seems desperate to make a change, brining in renewable energy on a larger scale than ever. The U.S. Department of Energy is now pumping in a whopping sum of $2.1 billion in conditional loan guarantees to aid the world’s largest solar power plant, to be constructed near Blythe in California. Using the big bucks, two units of Solar Trust of America’s 1,000 megawatt solar thermal Blythe Solar Power Project will be constructed. A joint venture by German companies Solar Millennium and Ferrostaal, the project will generate about 484 MW of electricity using solar thermal trough technology, besides creating over 1,000 construction jobs and 80 operations jobs!
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Australia will soon play home to the world’s largest coal and solar power project, with the Prime Minister Julia Gillard fiving the nod ahead for an addition of solar energy to Queensland’s largest solar power plant. Located in South West Queensland, the 750 megawatt coal-fired Kogan Creek Power Station will have an added touch of green, in the form of solar panels. A 44 MW solar thermal system will be hooked up to the grid at this plant, soaking in the sun to generate power. Using solar power technology from French firm AREVA Solar to convert the sun’s energy into super-heated steam which will drive the plant’s turbines, the project called the Kogan Creek Solar Boost costs $4.5 million and will reduce carbon emissions by good 2% to 5%, a considerable amount indeed.
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A farm in Ceredigion is literally making hay while the sun shines! The family-run Blaencamel Farm in Aberaeron is soaking in the sun’s heat, using the energy to power up most of its electrical needs. Using 39 solar panels set up on the barn, the farm will soon make use of solar irrigation. Also, an electric tractor is being chiselled into being at this farm house. With the solar panels, this farm has achieved near-self-sustainability, generating enough energy from the sun to fulfil almost 80% of its electricity needs. The 8.2 kilowatt solar system cost organic vegetable farmer Peter Seggers and his partner Anne Evans £30,000, an expenditure that’ll prove profitable in the long-run.
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Line up nine London City buses and you’d probably figure out just how long each of these off-shore turbine’s blades are, destined to be set up far out in the North Sea. By Vestas, these colossal wind turbines will tower up high, catching the winds as they blow off-shore, spinning around and generating some green renewable energy which will be sent back to land and added onto the grid. The rotors boast a 538 feet diameter and are strong enough to face the elements at their worse without so much as a shudder. Plans are being drawn out to install these rotors with prototypes in the North Sea by the next year.
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Search-engine giants Google, has brought us some pretty green tidings recently. The company has invested a whopping $168 million in a sparkling new solar energy power plant, which is to be the biggest in the world, being developed by BrightSource Energy. To be developed far off in the Mojave Desert in California, a strategic place for a power plant that depends solely on the sun for its energy generation, this plant called the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) will generate 392 gross MW of solar energy and will live for about 25 years. With this, Google has invested a total of $250 million in clean energy alone, a staggering amount indeed. The plant will make use of Power Towers, essentially structures with solar receivers on which energy is beamed and concentrated upon by mirrors.
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The world has come to realise the need for alternative energy sources, with fossil fuels constantly depleting and the environment being destroyed gradually, owing to the use of these polluting fuels. Now scientists at CalTech are working on a technology that’ll help convert water, air and sunlight into fuels that could power just about everything, from cars to mobile phones! With help from the Swiss Federal institute of Technology, the new technique involves the use of ceria as a catalyst while converting energy. Ceria is readily available and using it could help pull down prices too.
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The United States will play home to a factory dedicated to manufacturing thin-film solar cells by General Electric not too far off into the future. With a conversion efficiency of 12.8%, these cells were developed by Prime Star in a cooperative research program with the Department of Energy’s National Centre for Photovoltaics. The cells will be manufactured using cadmium telluride and are cheaper to manufacture then silicon made cells that have higher efficiencies.
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To be the first of its kind in Australia, Galaxy Resources, a Western Australian mining firm is busy drawing plans for a mine powered completely by renewable energy! Currently, the Mt Cattlin lithium mine belonging to Galaxy Resources uses solar tracking panels developed by Swan Energy that provide for 15% of the mine’s energy requirements. The array set is set up 540km from Perth, near Ravensthorpe and helps the company save 200 tons of carbon emissions on a yearly basis. That’s not all. Up ahead, the firm plans to install wind turbines, each capable of generating 1.2 megawatts, to exploit the ever-blowing winds in the area. Shifting away from regular fuels like diesel and coal used on a large basis to power up mines in Western Australia that spew out a load of pollution, Galaxy Resources is making every effort to clean up its mining activities.
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