Imagine if all the windows of a building, and perhaps even all its exterior walls, could be put to use as solar collectors. Soon, you may not have to imagine it, as the Norweigan solar power company EnSol has patented a thin film solar cell technology designed to be sprayed on to just such surfaces. Unlike traditional silicon-based solar cells, the film is composed of metal nanoparticles embedded in a transparent composite matrix, and operates on a different principle. EnSol is now developing the product with help from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.
“One of the key advantages is that it is a transparent thin film that can be coated onto window glass so that windows in buildings can also become power generators,” said Chris Binns, Professor of Nanotechnology at Leicester. “Obviously some light has to be absorbed in order to generate power but the windows would just have a slight tinting (though a transmission of only 8-10% is common place for windows in the ‘sun belt’ areas of the world). Conversely the structural material of the building can also be coated with a higher degree of absorption. This could be side panels of the building itself, or even in the form of ‘clip-together’ solar roof tiles.”
Research partners are developing prototype squares of the material, measuring 16 square centimeters each. Ultimately, EnSol hopes to achieve a cell efficiency of at least 20 percent, and have its product ready for the commercial market by 2016.
This development is reminiscent of Sphelar cells – solidified silicon drop-based solar cells recently developed by Kyosemi Corporation. Although the technology is different, they are also intended to be used in solar panels that double as windows.
It’s tough work to find a small scale wind energy charger that works. While we’ve seeninnovative designs pop up over the last few years, it’s simply difficult to get enough wind coming through such a little device to charge devices. However, thanks to a company called Humdinger Wind Energy LLC, that might change with their new device called the microBelt. It is a piezoelectric turbine-based system that is purportedly 10 times more effective at gathering energy than other systems of the same size.
Humdinger is a start-up of of just 6 people, and they’ve developed a new method of gathering wind energy on a small scale. The system uses aeroelastic flutter and vibration of a membrane - rather than a spinning turbine - is at the core of the Microbelt, which is intended to replace the batteries used in wireless sensor networks (WSN). It can be used in applications such as HVAC systems, using the airflow to power the device and therefore skipping the need for more expensive batteries. And because the system doesn’t mess with spinning turbines that can break more easily, it expects a long lifespan - as much as 20 years.
It’s inexpensive as well as efficient. Ecofriend writes “Power is produced in air flows from as little as 3 m/s. At 5.5 m/s of wind flow the power output is 2mW. Apart from efficiency, another advantage of the system is that it is cheap to produce, as the materials are very simple. Humdinger is progressing applications such as building monitoring and transit monitoring that will rely on such wind turbines.”
Despite its current impracticality, Honda keeps plugging away at its hydrogen vehicle prototype. The company just revealed a component that brings its hydrogen vehicle closer to reality — a more compact solar hydrogen-making machine that you install in your personal garage, turning water into hydrogen fuel .
The Honda Solar Hydrogen Station uses solar power to perform this alchemy, able to produce a half a kilogram of hydrogen during the day (or using cheaper electricity at night), and refueling that car when you park it in the garage that night.
The idea is to create enough hydrogen for a car to make its round-trip daily commute without using any fossil fuels. We can only hope mass production will someday bring the price of each vehicle below the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs now.
How about a DIY electric car, with one of these Trexa EV platforms and start build your own electric car! Trexa is gunning to be the first electric vehicle devlopment platform, with a battery, driveline and power electronics built-in.
The Trexa platform offers an unprecedented level of versatility because it contains an entire vehicle’s drivetrain within one low-profile enclosed structure. The platform is highly scalable, so features such as range, suspension, torque, acceleration, and top speed can all be tailored to suit the vehicle’s intended purpose. For starters, the standard platform has an acceleration of 0-60mph in 8 sec, a top speed of 100mph, a 105 mile range, and a charge time of 4 hours (based upon an efficiency of 200Wh per mile — comparable to a Prius in electric mode).
You just add the passenger compartment on top. Want a pickup truck or a hot rod? The choice is yours, provided you’ve got the chops to put it together.
Egyptian naval architecture and design studio Pharos Marine has unveiled plans for a sleek new 60 metre eco-friendly superyacht dubbed the Orcageno, driven by an innovative hydrogen diesel-electric system that could theoretically deliver an incredible-sounding range of up to 13,000 nautical miles. Hydrogen fuel contains three times the energy of diesel fuel and produces no carbon monoxide or dioxide in the exhaust. The yacht is based around an advanced slender hull form with an axe bow, offering lower resistance due to low angle of entrance, inspired by Orca the killer whale and the gentler sperm whale (don’t ask us).
The interior features are just as stunning, with a spa and health centre positioned within the curved glass superstructure. A sun deck with Jacuzzi is surrounded by a leather-covered lounging area. The dining room is positioned forward with a fabulous view of the dual-level swimming pool and its hydraulically-operated glass sunroof. There are accommodations for 12 guests and 14 crew in total with the owner’s quarters being of course the most luxurious. The 13,000 nautical mile range is based on a cruising speed of 10 knots, while at the maximum speed of 18 knots the figure drops to a still impressive 7,100 NM.
Well isn’t this the prettiest thermostat you’ve ever seen? It’s the SilverStat 7 from SilverPAC, the same folks who created that elaborate Evolution 5500 remote control we showed you a few weeks ago. This is the smartest thermostat yet, communicating with utility companies, eliminating that pesky meter reading chore they must do every month. It keeps tabs on your energy usage, and similar to that TED 5000 system we reviewed last month, it helpfully displays to you in pretty graphics exactly how much power you’ve been sucking lately.
This is not just for the benefit of the energy mongers and treehuggers. Its Wi-Fi interface and 7-inch display makes it a highly capable network player, showing streaming photos, music and content from your PC or the Internet. It has built-in speakers, Z-Wave home automation so you can manage your lighting and appliances, FM radio, and heck, you can even check your email on the thing.
Look at the gallery full of screenshots of all the various functions this spectacular thermostat can perform. Oh yeah, one more thing: It’s a seven-day programmable thermostat that controls your heating and air conditioning. The wizards at SilverPAC aren’t talking price yet.
You can now harvest WiFi signals and turn it into power to charger up your mobile phone or netbooks.
This little box has, inside it, some kind of circuitry that harvests WiFi energy out of the air and converts it into electricity. This has been done before, but the Airnergy is able to harvest electricity with a high enough efficiency to make it practically useful: on the CES floor, they were able to charge a BlackBerry from 30% to full in about 90 minutes, using nothing but ambient WiFi signals as a power source.
Fast food lovers may finally feel a little less guilty about getting greasy burgers. One New Jersey Burger King recently equipped its drive-thru with a speed bump that harvests electricity from cars that pass by. The speed bump is part of a pilot project from New Energy Technologies, and if all goes well, drivers could see energy-harvesting speed bumps at drive-thrus, toll plazas and even shopping centers.
The speed bumps, or “MotionPower Energy Harvesters,” look much different from your typical concrete humps. The “bump” is actually flat, with long, skinny pedals running across the top. As cars drive over the speed bump, it pushes the pedals down and turns the gears inside. The spinning creates about 2,000 watts of electricity from a car moving at five miles per hour.
Energy created by the cars is instantaneous (like solar and wind power), meaning that speed bump developers must also figure out a way to store power for later use. To that end, developers at New Energy Technologies are currently experimenting with mini-flywheels (a device that stores energy by spinning), and also plan to look into supercapacitors and other energy-storing mechanisms. Eventually, once storage is perfected, the speed bumps could be used to power street lamps or even feed power directly to the grid.
While the pilot project has seen encouraging results, don’t expect to see energy-harvesting speed bumps at your local Mickey D’s anytime soon: The devices won’t be commercially available til sometime next year. Still, it’s intriguing to think that those midnight french fry cravings may help create clean, renewable power.
Outside of Israel and Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure company Better Place, the Middle East doesn’t have much of an electric car industry. That might change soon now that a team of Iranian scientists from Tehran’s Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology have developed the country’s first EV, a mini two-seater called “Qasedak-e Nasir”, or the dandelion of Nasir.
Powering our cars with algae-based fuel could be the next Apollo mission.” That’s what Rebecca Harrell, co-founder of the Veggie Van Organization and producer of the upcoming film FUEL, told me yesterday in front of San Francisco’s City Hall. Over the next 10 days she’ll be joined by Fuel director and Veggie Van Organization cofounder Josh Tickell as they take the Algaeus, along with a caravan of other green energy vehicles (including the Veggie Van and the biodiesel-powered big green energy bus), on a cross-country road trip. “It hit us that we needed to drive the car across the country,” Harrell said. “People think of algae fuel as this long-term, far off thing. But seeing is believing.
