Showing posts with label Solar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solar. Show all posts

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Adding Solar Power to Public Space – A Futuristic Approach


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Adding Solar Power to Public Space – A Futuristic Approach

By Jenny Xie
www.theatlanticcities.com
2-28-14

     Imagine walking down the street and stumbling upon a glowing cube that looks like it came straight out of TRON. But what you see is not exactly from the future — it’s e-QBO, a modular invention of a group of Italian designers who have been searching for a better way to harness solar power for public spaces.

Born out of a collaboration between Romolo Stanco from design firm T°RED and energy research institution Ricerca Sistema Energetico, e-QBO is autonomous and off-grid, but integrated into the city through the services it provides. Installed on top of a wood and steel structure, custom-designed solar panels soak up sunlight during the day and store energy in battery packs of up to 90 kWh. The e-QBO can then power services like video-mapping installations, charging ports for mobile devices and electric vehicles, and WiFi. Customizable LED lights also offer public lighting.

The unit's design theoretically allows it to adapt to all sorts of urban conditions and needs. The base PV panels are 1 x 1 meter, but can easily be built up to cubes that are 3 x 3 meter, 6 x 6 meter, and so on. This means the e-QBO can just sit there like a power-generating rock or scale up to become an inhabitable space—a lounge, pop-up shop, or visitor information center, for example:
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Friday, May 24, 2013

It's Not a UFO!


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Strange Solar-Powered Plane

It's Not a UFO! A Strange Solar-Powered Plane Is Crossing the U.S.

By www.businessweek.com
5-22-13

      Shortly after midnight in early May, a strange aircraft approached Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport. It had the wingspan of a jumbo jet but flew at only about 40 miles per hour; 16 bright, bluish-white lights shone along the leading edge of its spindly wings. Concerned Phoenicians called the police to report an alien landing.

Sky Harbor’s air traffic control explained to Phoenix police that the ostensible UFO was really a solar-powered airplane: the Solar Impulse, an experimental aircraft completing the first, 19-hour leg of a flight across the United States. Then the police asked how it could fly at night if it’s solar-powered. (Batteries.)

The Solar Impulse is scheduled to take off on Wednesday for its next leg, from Phoenix to Dallas. The 830-mile trip would be the longest ever for a piloted solar aircraft.

The part of the UFO story that most pleases Dr. Bernard Piccard, the Swiss explorer who flew the Solar Impulse into Phoenix is that so many people noticed the lights, which are made from energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Together, all 16 lights consume just 150 watts, Piccard says. . . .
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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Nanotechnology Almost Triples New Solar Cell Efficiency | SMART ENERGY NEWS

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Solar Panels

By Grant Brunner
www.extremetech.com
12-11-12
     There is huge potential in solar power. The sun is a giant ball of burning hydrogen in the sky, and it’s going to be sticking around for at least a few more billion years. For all intents and purposes, it’s a free source of energy. Sadly, humanity hasn’t been very good at harnessing its power directly. Our current methods of capturing the sun’s energy are very inefficient. For example, modern silicon and indium-tin-oxide-based solar cells are approaching the theoretical limit of 33.7% efficiency. Well, a research team at Princeton has used nanotechnology to create a mesh that increases efficiency over organic solar cells nearly three fold.

Led by Stephen Chou, the team has made two dramatic improvements: reducing reflectivity, and more effectively capturing the light that isn’t reflected. As you can see by the illustration below by Dimitri Karetnikov, Princeton’s new solar cell is much thinner and less reflective. By utilizing sandwiched plastic and metal with the nanomesh, this so-called “Plasmonic Cavity with Subwavelength Hole array” or “PlaCSH” substantially reduces the potential for losing the light itself. In fact, it only reflects about 4% of direct sunlight, leading to a 52% higher efficiency than conventional, organic solar cells.

PlaCSH is also capable of capturing a large amount of sunlight even when the sunlight is dispersed on cloudy days, which results in an amazing 81% increase in efficiency under indirect lighting conditions when compared to conventional organic solar cell technology. All told, PlaCSH is up to 175% more efficient than conventional solar cells. . . .

Continue Reading . . .



See Also:

Germany Sets New Solar Power Record | SMART ENERGY NEWS

SMART ENERGY NEWS | "Solar Panel Prices Have Plunged by Two-Thirds Since 2008 . . ."

SMART ENERGY NEWS | VIDEO: Concentrated Solar Power Tower In Seville, Spain: The Future Of Electricity?


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