Well, at least they’re having fun with it.
Most sun oriented homesteads adjust their sunlight based exhibits in lines and segments to shape a matrix.
Continue reading “China Just Built a 250-Acre Solar Farm Shaped Like a Giant Panda” »
Ultra high-res displays for gadgets and tv sets may be coming. 😃
By expanding on existing designs for electrodes of ultra-thin solar panels, Stanford researchers and collaborators in Korea have developed a new architecture for OLED—organic light-emitting diode—displays that could enable televisions, smartphones and virtual or augmented reality devices with resolutions of up to 10,000 pixels per inch (PPI). (For comparison, the resolutions of new smartphones are around 400 to 500 PPI.)
Such high-pixel-density displays will be able to provide stunning images with true-to-life detail—something that will be even more important for headset displays designed to sit just centimeters from our faces.
Continue reading “Scientists borrow solar panel tech to create new ultrahigh-res OLED display” »
Netherlands-based technology companies Avy and Wattlab have conducted the first test flight of a drone prototype that is planned to be used in medical projects in Africa.
Wattlab, a Dutch clean-tech start-up founded by Sweden-based power utility Vattenfall and Delft University of Technology, and Netherlands-based drone manufacturer Avy have announced that a drone equipped with special solar foils produced by Wattlab has successfully performed its first test flight.
“The solar-powered prototype is designed to be used for urgent medical transportation, emergency services, and nature conservation,” the two companies stated, adding that the solar films were installed on the wings while maintaining aerodynamics and without increasing significantly the weight. “The solar technology developed in this project is fully integrated into the wing shape and adds no extra weight,” explained Bo Salet, founder of Wattlab.
Continue reading “PV-powered drone for emergency services” »
“We’re not moving heat from the surface to the atmosphere. We’re just dumping it all out into the universe, which is an infinite heat sink,” said Xiangyu Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked on this project as a Ph.D. student in Ruan’s lab.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — What if paint could cool off a building enough to not need air conditioning?
Continue reading “This white paint could reduce the need for air conditioning” »
It looks like Australia with be exporting solar power to other countries with less space.
A major renewable energy project in Australia billed as the world’s largest solar farm in development has had its proposed location revealed.
The AUD$20 billion facility – the heart of an ambitious electricity network called the Australia–ASEAN Power Link – will be built at a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory, roughly halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs.
Windows are great for letting in light, but in summer months that comes with an unwanted side order of heat, causing many people to run the air conditioning non-stop. Now, researchers have developed windows that can change color automatically when heated by sunlight, to keep buildings cool – and to top it off, they’re solar panels as well.
Color-changing glass has been around for a long time, most commonly as transition lenses for eyeglasses that tint automatically under bright light. More recent developments have made it electronic and switchable on demand, and scaled it up to window size. At the same time, transparent (or semi-transparent) solar cells are getting more efficient, to the point where they can be fitted into windows.
In the new study, researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has combined the two technologies into one window. The “thermochromic photovoltaic” tech, as they call it, can switch colors when heated up by sunlight to block glare and reduce the need for cooling, and when it does it also starts harvesting energy from that light.
Continue reading “Smart windows darken and become solar cells when heated” »
A simple way to improve efficiency…
Solar panels offer huge potential to move more people away from electricity generated from burning coal, and a new innovation devised by scientists stands to more than double the amount of light captured by conventional solar cells.
In a new study, a team of scientists from the UK, Portugal, and Brazil discovered that etching a shallow pattern of grating lines in a checkerboard design on solar cells can enhance the current generated by crystalline silicon (c-Si) by as much as 125 percent.
Continue reading “Etching a Simple Pattern on Solar Panels Boosts Light Absorption” »
All of Earth’s civilization could be powered purely on solar energy, says Elon Musk on Twitter. Discover the reason behind his love for solar energy.
Solar panel recycling.
America’s largest solar panel maker is also the world’s largest recycler of panels, with their program recovering 95% of materials for reuse.
