Lifeboat Foundation

A transition to a carbon-free economy is the reality of the modern energy industry. Reduction in CO₂ emission is one of the main challenge in energy engineering in the last decades. Renewable energy sources are playing an important role on the way to a zero-carbon economy [1,2]. Solar energy is one of the main and almost unlimited energy sources in the World. The different technologies of solar energy use have been developed in the last years [[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]]. However, even though the progress in the development of solar energy technologies is notable, there are a lot of challenges for energy science. One of them is the fact that more than 60% of electricity is produced by conventional technologies via hydrocarbon fuel combustion: steam turbines, gas turbines, etc. While the share of electricity produced by using solar energy is no more than a few percent [9].

Among various ways of utilization of solar energy for electricity generation, a combination of solar energy with the traditional steam and gas turbine cycles can be highlighted. The power plants where solar energy is combined with conventional power cycles are named integrated solar combined cycle systems (ISCCS). In these systems, solar energy is used to produce heat and after that heat is used to generate mechanical work or electricity.

Combined cycle power plants (CCPP) show one of the highest energy efficiency among conventional power plants [10]. The modern cycles with high-temperature gas turbines have an efficiency up to 70% and even higher. In such cycles, the high-temperature gas turbines with the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) up to 1,600 °C are applied [11,12]. In the last years, a lot of various integrated solar combined cycle systems (ISCCS) were developed by various scientists and engineers. The main way to use solar energy in such cycles is a steam generation in CCPP [[13], [14], [15], [16]]. In other words, solar energy in such ISCCS is utilized as an energy source in a steam turbine cycle.

You may not have heard of piezoelectric materials, but odds are, you have benefitted from them.

Piezoelectric materials are solid materials —like crystals, bone or proteins—that produce an electric current when they are placed under mechanical stress.

Materials that harvest energy from their surroundings (through light, heat and motion) are finding their way into solar cells, wearable and implantable electronics and even onto spacecraft. They let us keep devices charged for longer, maybe even forever, without the need to connect them to a power supply.

On May 4, the first photovoltaic solar farm to connect directly to the UK’s National Grid transmission network went online.

Larks Green is a 200-acre solar farm located on the Severn Vale next to the hamlet of Itchington, to the north of Bristol, and with the addition of a big battery energy storage facility, it’s being heralded as a game-changer in creating a future where solar power is a consistent supplier of much of Britain’s electricity.

The 50 MW solar farm is owned and operated by Cero Generation and Enso Energy and was connected to the National Grid’s Iron Acton substation.

Researchers have resolved the mechanism of exciton fission, which could increase solar-to-electricity efficiency by one-third, potentially revolutionizing photovoltaic technology.

Photovoltaics, the conversion of light to electricity, is a key technology for sustainable energy. Since the days of Max Planck and Albert Einstein, we know that light as well as electricity are quantized, meaning they come in tiny packets called photons and electrons. In a solar cell, the energy of a single photon.

A photon is a particle of light. It is the basic unit of light and other electromagnetic radiation, and is responsible for the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Photons have no mass, but they do have energy and momentum. They travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, and can have different wavelengths, which correspond to different colors of light. Photons can also have different energies, which correspond to different frequencies of light.

A solar-powered motorhome, shaped like a huge elongated teardrop, silently rolled into Madrid on Friday as part of a month-long journey from the Netherlands to southern Spain to highlight more sustainable modes of transport.

Engineering students at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands created the blue and white vehicle, named Stella Vita – Latin for “star” and “life” – to inspire car makers and politicians to accelerate the transition toward green energy.

Continue reading “This solar-powered motorhome was designed by students” »

It can generate enough energy to power 1.5 million households a year.

The first of China’s wind and solar energy projects being built in the desert areas is now connected to the electricity grid and has begun generating power, media outlet ChinaDaily.

With the planet needing to reduce carbon emissions, countries are now innovating in generating greener energy. Interesting Engineering reported earlier this year how Switzerland installed 5,000 solar panels on the highest dam in Europe. On its part, China is looking to convert the arid regions of its geography into power generation zones.

An artificial photosynthesis system that combines semiconducting nanoparticles with a non-photosynthetic bacterium could offer a promising new route for producing sustainable solar-driven hydrogen fuel.

Other artificial photosynthesis systems that integrate nanomaterials into living microbes have been developed before, which reduce carbon dioxide or produce hydrogen, for example. However, usually it is the microorganism itself that makes the product via a metabolic pathway, which is aided by a light-activated nanomaterial that supplies necessary electrons.

Now, the labs of Kara Bren and Todd Krauss at the University of Rochester, US, have turned this concept on its head. They have designed a new hybrid bio-nano system that combines a finely-tuned photocatalytic semiconducting nanoparticles to make hydrogen with a bacterium which, while it does not photosynthesise or make hydrogen itself, it provides the necessary electrons to the nanomaterial to synthesise hydrogen.

All-perovskite tandem solar cells, stacks of p-n junctions formed from perovskites with different energy bandgaps, have the potential of achieving higher efficiencies than conventional single-junction solar cells. So far, however, most proposed all-perovskite tandem cells have not achieved the desired power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), often due to difficulties associated with creating suitable narrow-and wide-bandgap subcells.

Researchers at Nanjing University and University of Toronto recently developed new inorganic wide-bandgap perovskite subcells that could increase the PCEs and stability of these promising solar cells. Their design, introduced in a paper in Nature Energy, involves the insertion of a passivating dipole layer at the interface between organic transport layers and inorganic perovskites within the cells.

“Our research group has been focusing on improving the PCEs of all-perovskite tandem solar cells, which have broken the world record several times and have been included in the ‘solar cell efficiency tables,’” Hairen Tan, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore.

WangAnQi/iStock.

But now we’re learning that researchers in Sydney may have found a way to tackle this issue.