Renewable Energy

June 2017
Table top plasma gets wind of solar turbulence

(a) A pump pulse creates the plasma on a solid while a probe pulse monitors the time evolution. The top panel in b shows the spatially randomized magnetic field in the plasma while the figure at the bottom shows the power spectrum of the magnetic field (magnetic energy density variation of with inverse of spatial length. The curve indicates magnetic turbulence in the plasma and mimics that from the solar wind.

Turbulent magnetic field dynamics that explain astrophysical phenomena like the evolution of stars could thus far be obtained only through observations via telescopes and satellites. Now a team of scientists from India and Portugal have recreated such magnetic turbulence on a table top in the lab, using a high in
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Date:
06/30/2017
Cellulosic Biofuels Can Benefit the Environment if Managed Correctly

'The climate benefit of cellulosic biofuels is actually much greater than was originally thought,' said Phil Robertson, University Distinguished Professor of Ecosystem Science at Michigan State University.

Could cellulosic biofuels - or liquid energy derived from grasses and wood - become a green fuel of the future, providing an environmentally sustainable way of meeting energy needs? In Science, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center say yes, but with a few impor
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Date:
06/30/2017
Exciting New Material Uses Solar Energy to Remove Man-Made Dye Pollutants From Water

Powders of tantalum nitride nanoparticles (left), tungsten oxide nanowires (centre) and the tantalum nitride/tungsten oxide composite (right).

A novel composite material has been developed by scientists in the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University which shows promise as a catalyst for the degradation of environmentally-harmful synthetic dye pollutants, which are released at a rate of nearly 300,000 tonnes a year into the world's wat
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Date:
06/30/2017
Biofuel From Waste

Zeolite HBEA 150 significantly reduces temperature and energy requirements of a key step in the chemical process from organic waste to fuels.

Fuel from waste? It is possible. But hitherto, converting organic waste to fuel has not been economically viable. Excessively high temperatures and too much energy are required. Using a novel catalyst concept, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now managed to significantly reduce the te
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Date:
06/29/2017
The hype around hydrogen fuel cells has died down, but scientists have continued to pursue new technologies that could enable such devices to gain a firmer foothold. Now one team has developed an electrocatalyst to replace the currently dominant, but expensive, one of choice -- platinum -- that could help boost th
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Date:
06/28/2017
Ruthenium Rules for New Fuel Cells

Rice University scientists have fabricated a durable catalyst for high-performance fuel cells by attaching single ruthenium atoms to graphene.

Rice University scientists have fabricated a durable catalyst for high-performance fuel cells by attaching single ruthenium atoms to graphene. Catalysts that drive the oxygen reduction reaction that lets fuel cells turn chemical energy into electricity are usually made of platinum, which stands up to the ac
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Date:
06/28/2017
Wireless Power Supply in the Smart Home of the Future

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Figure 1: The wireless power spots can be invisible, disappearing into the wall or floor. Easy monitoring and control of the power sources is enabled by communication with the info center and blends seamlessly into the smart home concept.

The Smart Home is one of the classic examples of the Internet of Things. While more and more networked items are becoming pervasive in our everyday lives, it is clear that the network will usually be wireless and mobile devices will often play a key role. Once you are rid of the data cable, the logical question is
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Date:
06/28/2017
A Brief Introduction is in Order

Ally Winning, European Editor, Power Systems Design (PSD)

As the July/August edition of Power Systems Design Europe is my first issue as European editor, I’d like to take a second to tell you a little about myself. Since I graduated in electronics from university, I have written for a variety of magazines in the UK, as well as worked in-house at a global catalogue dis
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Date:
06/28/2017
How to Program Slew Rate?

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Figure 1: Typical battery voltage profile for “cold crank”

Slew rate is defined as rate of change of voltage or current in a period of time.  It is a frequently used term in operational amplifier specifications, but it also applicable when discussing programmable power supplies. When performing repetitive production testing on say a vehicle engine management system, m
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Date:
06/28/2017
 The Transportation Connected Sensor

Kevin Parmenter, PSD Contributor

With more electronics in the vehicles than ever before, we’re seeing the industry move from a basic set of electronics applications, with some automation for safety and road assistance, to high and full automation and complete comfort driving. To make this work, the transportation industry is capitalizing on
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Date:
06/28/2017
ABB’s Microgrid to Power Aruba and Support Transition to Renewable Energy

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ABB microgrid will integrate wind and solar energy to provide electricity to Caribbean island that was previously fully dependent on fossil fuels

ABB microgrid will integrate wind and solar energy to provide electricity to Caribbean island that was previously fully dependent on fossil fuels ABB will provide an advanced microgrid to WEB Aruba N.V., the main power utility serving the DutchCaribbean island of Aruba. ABB’s software, automation and con
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Date:
06/28/2017
Under anaerobic conditions, certain bacteria can produce electricity. This behavior can be exploited in microbial fuel cells, with a special focus on wastewater treatment schemes. A weak point is the dissatisfactory power density of the microbial cells. An unconventional solution is now presented by Singaporean an
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Date:
06/27/2017
ECS and Toyota announce fellowship winners for projects in green energy technology

This is Dr. Ahmet Kusoglu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Pennington, NJ - The ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship Selection Committee has chosen three winners who will receive $50,000 fellowship awards each for projects in green energy technology. The awardees are Dr. Ahmet Kusoglu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Professor Julie Renner, Case Western Reserve Un
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Date:
06/26/2017
DOE grant continues research into rare-earth elements extraction from coal
In 2016, a team of Penn State and U.S. Department of Energy researchers discovered a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to extract rare earth elements (REEs) from coal and coal byproducts. Now, through a $1 million grant from DOE's Office of Fossil Energy, this research may be headed one-step closer to
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Date:
06/26/2017
Santa Clara event parking includes electric vehicle charging stations
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Heading to an event at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Levi's Stadium, or California's Great America theme park and running low on your electric vehicle (EV) charge? There are no worries in Santa Clara as the city has one of the largest public multi-standard EV charging facilities in Cali
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Date:
06/23/2017
As charge carriers, electrons and ions play the leading role in electrochemical energy storage devices and converters such as batteries and fuel cells. Proton conductivity is crucial for the latter; protons, i.e. positively charged hydrogen ions, are formed from hydrogen, which is used to power the fuel cell. Em
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Date:
06/22/2017
Multifunctional catalyst for poison-resistant hydrogen fuel cells

Reaction mechanism with a catalyst for fuel cells that use hydrogen and carbon monoxide as fuels.

Kyushu, Japan--Demand for eco-friendly fuel sources is increasing as the goal of weaning off our reliance on fossil fuels becomes commonly recognized. Hydrogen represents a possible sustainable fuel source when it is produced from water and burned with oxygen because only water is released as a by-product. The ox
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Date:
06/22/2017
Deceleration of runaway electrons paves the way for fusion power

Although the vacuum chamber in the British fusion reactor JET has a wall made of solid metal, it can melt if it gets hit by a beam of runaway electrons. It is these runaway elementary particles that doctoral students Linnea Hesslow and Ola Embréus have successfully identified and decelerated.

Fusion power has the potential to provide clean and safe energy that is free from carbon dioxide emissions. However, imitating the solar energy process is a difficult task to achieve. Two young plasma physicists at Chalmers University of Technology have now taken us one step closer to a functional fusion reactor. Th
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Date:
06/21/2017
Australian scientists have paved the way for carbon neutral fuel with the development of a new efficient catalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air into synthetic natural gas in a 'clean' process using solar energy. Undertaken by University of Adelaide in collaboration with CSIRO, the research co
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Date:
06/21/2017
Corn better used as food than biofuel, study finds

In a new study, Professor Kumar and graduate student Meredith Richardson find that using corn for biofuel comes with greater environmental costs and fewer benefits than using corn for food.

Corn is grown not only for food, it is also an important renewable energy source. Renewable biofuels can come with hidden economic and environmental issues, and the question of whether corn is better utilized as food or as a biofuel has persisted since ethanol came into use. For the first time, researchers at th
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Date:
06/20/2017
Getting the biggest bang out of plasma jets

This is a diagram of the mechanical structure of the capillary.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Bursts of plasma, called plasma jets, have numerous uses ranging from the development of more efficient engines, which could one day send spacecraft to Mars, to industrial uses like spraying nanomaterial coatings on 3-D objects. Capillary discharge plasma jets are those that are created b
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Date:
06/20/2017
Changing how solar power rolls

Smaller and lighter than traditional solar panels, the Roll-Out Solar Array, or ROSA, consists of a center wing made of a flexible material containing photovoltaic cells to convert light into electricity.

Traditional solar panels used to power satellites can be bulky with heavy panels folded together using mechanical hinges. An experiment that recently arrived at the International Space Station will test a new solar array design that rolls up to form a compact cylinder for launch with significantly less mass an
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Date:
06/20/2017
In accordance with an EU directive, conventional automotive diesel is supplemented with seven percent biodiesel. This proportion is set to rise to ten percent by 2020. However, this presents a significant technical challenge: biodiesel vaporises at higher temperatures, which can lead to problems with electronic fu
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Date:
06/19/2017
DOE Awards Six Research Contracts Totaling $258 Million to Boost US Exascale Technology
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced that six leading U.S. technology companies will receive funding from the Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project (ECP) as part of its new PathForward program, accelerating the research necessary to deploy the nation's first exascale supercomputers. The awardees wi
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Date:
06/16/2017
ANN ARBOR--In what could be a major step forward for a new generation of solar cells called "concentrator photovoltaics," University of Michigan researchers have developed a new semiconductor alloy that can capture the near-infrared light located on the leading edge of the visible light spectrum. Easier to manufa
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Date:
06/15/2017
New Technology Will Enable Properties to Share Solar Energy

Dr. Mahmoud Dhimish's research will mean low energy bills for consumers.

In the UK alone, some 1.5 million homes are equipped with solar panels, and it has been estimated that by 2020 the figure could soar to 10 million, with the prospect of lower energy bills for consumers and massive reductions in CO2 emissions. Now, a University of Huddersfield researcher is developing new technologies th
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Date:
06/14/2017
One of the biggest hurdles to the widespread use of hydrogen fuel is making hydrogen efficiently and cleanly. Now researchers report in the journal ACS Nano a new way to do just that. They incorporated a photocatalyst in a moisture-absorbing, semiconducting paint that can produce hydrogen from water in the air w
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Date:
06/14/2017
Power Distribution, Inc. Targets Ohio and Kentucky Data Centers With new Greensource Cincinnati Partnership
Richmond, Virginia – Power Distribution, Inc. (PDI) announced its partnership with greensource Cincinnati. The new alliance underscores PDI’s commitment to Ohio and Kentucky-based mission-critical facilities by aligning the industry’s most innovative power distribution solutions with the regions’ most not
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Date:
06/13/2017
Savings are also being achieved by levelling out power consumption peaks. Under VTT's leadership, Finland has the world's most energy-efficient supermarket, which consumes only 40% of the energy of a normal grocery store. A new solution is saving the retailer around EUR 180,000 in energy costs. The technology
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Date:
06/13/2017
Ammonia On-Demand? Alternative Production Method for a Sustainable Future

Proton hopping plays an important role in the reaction, as it activates nitrogen gas even at low temperatures and moderates the harsh condition requirements.

Our society is in need of ammonia more than ever. Chemical fertilizers, plastic, fibers, pharmaceuticals, refrigerants in heat pumps, and even explosives all use ammonia as raw material. Moreover, ammonia has been suggested as a hydrogen carrier recently because of its high hydrogen content. In the Haber-Bosch
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Date:
06/13/2017
The power grid's physical components are continuously improving, with the integration of renewable power sources and advances in physical technology. The software underlying the safe function of the upgraded grid, however, isn't keeping up. Engineers depend on the software to predict and correct for potential e
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Date:
06/12/2017
Tailor made solutions in capacitor markets

Performance Inverters used in Railway Applications

More and more customers in different markets require customized solutions for power electronic capacitors. Last generation of high performance inverters used in Railway, (See Figure 1) Renewable Energy, Heavy Industry applications, to name a few, need more and more customized capacitors to satisfy their hi
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Date:
06/11/2017
At present, the usage of alternative energy sources by major countries is: Spain, at an impressive 40.1%; Germany at 26.2%, Great Brittan at 19.4%, France at 16.1% (using hydro and nuclear for their entire remaining usage); and, finally, the US at 12.9% and Japan at 12.8%.   Why are some countries good at a
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Date:
06/11/2017
Power Film Capacitors Prove Effective in Renewable Energy and Smart Grid Technology

AVX’s six-terminal FFLC Series power film capacitor is ideal for DC filtering in wind turbines.

The cost of renewable energy technology has significantly decreased since the early 1990s due to continual developments in enabling technologies, and the relatively recent evolution of smart grid technologies has allowed renewable energy sources to legitimately contend with fossil fuels. The primary advantage th
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Date:
06/10/2017
Finnish Demo Plant Produces Renewable Fuel From Carbon Dioxide Captured From the Air
The unique Soletair demo plant developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) uses carbon dioxide to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. The pilot plant is coupled to LUT's solar power plant in Lappeenranta. The aim of the project is to demonstrate the techni
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Date:
06/09/2017
There might be a better way to use wind power, according to a recent paper in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (JAS), a joint publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Chinese Association of Automation. Scientists from the University of Rhode Island, Florida Atl
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Date:
06/09/2017
Researchers Compute their way Toward Cleaner Coal Plants

Using the HLRS Hazel Hen machine, RWTH Aachen University researchers were able to run a DNS simulation on a system of 45,000 particles at the Kolmogorov scale. To the team's knowledge, this is the direct-particle simulation for the largest number of particles at this scale to date, and serves as a benchmark for how other researchers studying this process can get more realistic simulation results.

When you think of turbulence, you might think of a bumpy plane ride. Turbulence, however, is far more ubiquitous to our lives than just air travel. Ocean waves, smoke from fire, even noise coming from jet engines or wind turbines are all related to turbulence. A team of researchers at RWTH Aachen Universit
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Date:
06/09/2017
Chinese scientists have made good use of waste while finding an innovative solution to a technical problem by transforming rusty stainless steel mesh into electrodes with outstanding electrochemical properties that make them ideal for potassium-ion batteries. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the rust is
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Date:
06/09/2017
Scientists from the University of Geneva are using the rules of genetics to better understand how to incorporate wind and solar power into the current electrical grid to produce a renewable power system. The researchers published their study in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (JAS), a joint publication of the IEEE
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Date:
06/07/2017
1200 V Discrete IGBT Product Portfolio Comes in TO-247PLUS Package
Munich, Germany – 6 June 2017 – Infineon Technologies AG expands its 1200 V discrete IGBT product portfolio by offering up to 75 A. The devices are co-packed with a full rated diode in a TO-247PLUS package. The new TO-247PLUS 3pin and 4pin packages serve the growing demand for higher power density and highest ef
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Date:
06/06/2017
Wind is powerful, but it doesn't always blow where and when it's needed. To make it more reliable and widely available, scientists have developed a two-prong approach to ensure wind-generated power doesn't die down as a renewable resource. The collaborative team includes scientists from the University of Connectic
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Date:
06/06/2017
Keeping the Hydrogen Coming

A high-resolution electron microscope image (right) of the platinum electrocatalytic layer coated with molybdenum. The platinum catalyzes the hydrogen-evolution reaction (left) in acidic medium from protons in the electrolyte while the molybdenum layer inhibits water-forming reactions.

A novel molybdenum-coated catalyst that can efficiently split water in acidic electrolytes has been developed by researchers at KAUST and could help with efficient production of hydrogen. When burned, hydrogen is converted into water and heat to make an entirely clean power source. Thus, in the quest for green
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Date:
06/06/2017
Chemical 'Dance' of Cobalt Catalysis Could Pave way to Solar Fuels

Argonne chemists Dugan Hayes, Lin Chen, and Ryan Hadt have identified a rapid electronic process that could aid the water-splitting reaction in cobalt-containing catalysts. Cobalt catalysts are relatively inexpensive and could replace more expensive precious metal catalysts in the production of clean energy, most notably solar fuels.

By splitting a water molecule into two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, scientists can use the boundless energy of the sun to make a clean fuel. In a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Harvard University, scientists have for the first time been able to see an
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Date:
06/05/2017
  It is with great pleasure that we are announcing the appointment of Ally Winning as European Editor, PSD. Ally’s background brings a wealth of knowledge and experience relevant to PSD and our market position. Click image to enlarge Ally W
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Date:
06/03/2017
We tend to focus on the efficiency and aesthetics of rooftop solar panels, but as it turns out, placing giant, potentially electrified devices on top of your home impedes a very specific group – firefighters. Wired has more…. Solar panels can “get in the way of cutting ventilation holes ... first responder
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Date:
06/01/2017
Recently, solar steam and vapor generation is attracting a lot of attention with promising prospect in desalination, sterilization and chemical purification. Tremendous progress has been achieved as absorber designs (PNAS, 110, 11677-11681 (2013), Nature Comm. 6, 10103, (2015), Nature Photonics, 10, 393-398, (2016)) and ther
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Date:
06/01/2017
Ultra-Stable Perovskite Solar Cell Remains Stable for More Than a Year

This is a schematic representation of the findings of this study.

Perovskite solar cells promise cheaper and efficient solar energy, with enormous potential for commercialization. But even though they have been shown to achieve over 22% power-conversion efficiency, their operational stability still fails market requirements. Despite a number of proposed solutions in fabrication te
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Date:
06/01/2017
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