Smart Power Grid

May 2016
NREL announces 2015 Top Ten Utility Green Power Programs

"Top 10" ranking of utility green power programs for 2015

Which utilities are having the greatest success with their green power programs? NREL has compiled extensive data on utility green power programs and produced the following "Top Ten" lists of program characteristics and results: total sales of renewable energy to program participants, total number of
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Date:
05/25/2016
IRENA Report shows renewable energy employs 8.1 million worldwide

More than 8.1 million people worldwide are now employed by the renewable energy industry

More than 8.1 million people worldwide are now employed by the renewable energy industry – a five percent increase from last year – according to a report released today by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) at its 11th Council meeting. The report, Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 20
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Date:
05/25/2016
DOE explores potential of wind to stabilize grids

Jim Ahlgrimm has been a manager in the U.S. Department of Energy Wind and Water Power Technologies Office since 2002

When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) commissioned a 1.5-megawatt (MW) wind turbine in 2009, it became a key player in our research to improve the performance and lower the costs of wind energy systems. In 2015, researchers at the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) near our National Renewable Energy Laboratory (N
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Date:
05/24/2016
Nevada rooftop solar marketplace analysis published

Solar goes up on a rooftop in Nevada

NRDC and SolarCity have published a new analysis on costs and benefits of rooftop solar energy in Nevada that shows it’s benefitting all utility customers in the state and benefits could significantly increase under good solar policies. The results of the paper, coauthored by Dylan Sullivan, show that Neva
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Date:
05/24/2016
At this year's Intersolar exhibition KOSTAL is introducing two new functions for three-phase PIKO string and battery inverters. A new shadow management feature, part of the PIKO smart optimisation concept, ensures maximum yield from partially shaded PV systems, providing better flexibility. Especially advantageo
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Date:
05/23/2016
UNSW engineers achieve milestone in solar cell efficiency

A diagram of the spectrum-splitting, four-junction mini-module developed at UNSW

A new solar cell configuration developed by engineers at the University of New South Wales has pushed sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency to 34.5% – establishing a new world record for unfocused sunlight and nudging closer to the theoretical limits for such a device. The record was set by Dr Mar
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Date:
05/23/2016
Energy Department expands Solar Ready Vets training

Solar Ready Vets program

the Energy Department announced five additional military bases will join Solar Ready Vets, a solar jobs training program that prepares service members for careers in the solar industry when they leave active duty. The Department is also awarding $10 million to 10 new projects through its Solar Training and Education fo
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Date:
05/18/2016
The Power Electronics Industry Collaborative (PEIC – pronounced peak) announced that Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has joined its growing list of members working together to accelerate innovation and advocate for investment in new power electronics technologies. “We are excited to be joining PEIC as o
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Date:
05/17/2016
The U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $10 million in funding for six projects representing innovative technologies and solutions to advance bioenergy development. These projects, located in Arizona, California, North Carolina, Delaware, and Illinois, will support the Bioenergy Technologies Office's (BETO) wor
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Date:
05/17/2016
PSDcast - Ranbir Singh of GeneSIC on their latest Silicon Carbide tech

Ranbir Singh of GeneSIC

In this PSDcast Dr. Ranbir Singh, founder of GeneSiC, talks to Alix Paultre of Power Systems Design about their position and products in the wide-bandgap semiconductor space. GeneSiC is a pioneer and little-known IP leader in Silicon Carbide technology, and their Silicon Carbide Junction Transistor (SJT) de
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Date:
05/16/2016
IEEFA says wind on the rise, coal on the wane

Energy split in the US

As coal dependence falters in the U.S., wind-powered electricity generation is on the rise. In less than a decade, the mix of fuels used for generating electricity has gone a major shift. Twelve states, most of them in the wind-rich Great Plains or the upper Midwest, are getting more than 10 percent of their po
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Date:
05/13/2016
Solliance demonstrates a record 10% aperture area power conversion efficiency for its up-scaled thin-film perovskite photovoltaic modules. The efficiency was measured on an aperture area of 168 cm2. Twenty-five cells were serial connected through an optimized P1, P2, P3 interconnection technology. The PV module wa
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Date:
05/09/2016
Now more than ever, the blooming of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been putting emphasis on the longevity of battery life. Every IoT node demands a battery to operate. A household of two people can have anywhere from 20 to 60 batteries in use at any time, and consumers can’t be burdened with the need to ch
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Date:
05/07/2016
Isolated power supply systems are prevalent in server systems, industrial applications, and telecommunication and networking equipment. In this bandwidth-hungry age of the Internet of Things (IoT), a growing number of these systems need to be efficiently powered, driving up the need for power-efficient, cost-effective so
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Date:
05/07/2016
In the age of the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) economy, smartphones are replacing hotel keys, and facilities managers (FM) are beginning to notice the reward in using big data to monitor customer behavior in hotels, shops and restaurants, as well as monitoring employee engagement and wellbeing in offices. By
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Date:
05/07/2016
Part 1 of this article provided an overview of TT Electronics’ AEC Q200 qualified and certified transformers, which are optimized for use with a gate drive optocoupler to improve and simplify the design of isolated power supplies. This introduction looked at the theory of operation and how this impacts on ke
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Date:
05/07/2016
Overvoltages and the associated high surge currents can damage, or even destroy electrical and electronic devices. Reliable overvoltage protection is therefore essential. On the basis of a new ceramic material, TDK has now developed a high-surge series of multilayer varistors that combine compact dimensions wi
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Date:
05/07/2016
The reason that power is sexy again isn’t because everyone suddenly fell in love with half-bricks, it’s that designers finally realized en masse that energy management is not only important, it is both a core infrastructure and enabler in this new generation of intelligent systems. A system cannot truly be in
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Date:
05/04/2016
Wuerth's REDline Power Boxes offer custom configuration in a standard housing

Wuerth's REDline Power Boxes offer custom configuration in a standard housing

A novel approach to enabling power distribution, signal transmission, and function management in commercial vehicles, the REDline Power Box family is the name of the new system solution from Wuerth Elektronik ICS. With this series, the leading development partner and supplier of circuit-board-based central electrical sy
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Date:
05/04/2016
Conductive adhesives to enable low-temperature electronics

Rachel Gordon, IDTechEx

Materials are needed to replace the estimated 50,000 metric tons of tin-lead solder currently used each year, but there are no "drop-in" replacements for eutectic tin-lead solder. $1.2 billion of electrically conductive adhesives (ECAs) are already selling each year, and they are becoming increasingly co
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Date:
05/04/2016
The term “hot swap” refers to the practice of inserting or removing modules from a powered system. Hot-swap controllers are sometimes categorized together with power distribution switches; however, there are key differences that must be understood for proper system design. A hot-swap controller uses an external se
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Date:
05/04/2016
Being a Sci-Fi geek, I am a fan of the late 1950’s Hollywood “cheesy” low budget Ed Wood movies typical of this genre. One of my favorite films is “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” in which aliens come to Earth to stop humanity from building a doomsday weapon that could destroy the entire universe. However, th
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Date:
05/04/2016
Artesyn's cost-effective, long-life DIN Rail supplies suit industrial apps

ADNB DIN rail power supply family

Artesyn Embedded Technologies announced the ADNB series, a cost-effective addition to its DIN rail power supply family, that offers high efficiency, reliability and long life for a wide range of industrial applications. With power ratings of 40, 60 and 96 W, the new ADNB series is ideal for applications such as
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Date:
05/03/2016
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