Home: Renewable Energy News: Monday 08 February, 2010

Renewable Energy News

MONDAY 08 FEBRUARY, 2010 |

Australia A Smart Grid World Leader

Smart grids and smart meters
Australia has a habit of sparking innovation within its borders, only to see the talent behind it disappear overseas; then leaving us to play catch-up when the technology goes to market.

However, according to a report from Companies And Markets, Australia is now considered to be one of the world leaders in a technology to play a critical role in addressing how the world utilises energy in the future - smart grid development.

Smart Grid Australia last year received AU$100 million from the Federal Government for a National Energy Efficiency Initiative to develop a smart-grid energy network. The demonstration project combines intelligent grid technology with residential smart meters to enable greater energy efficiency and better integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar power and wind energy.

Companies And Markets states the most interesting aspect of the Australian smart grid demonstration project is that it is linked to the National Broadband Network (NBN) which it says clearly shows the trans-sector thinking the Australian government has embarked upon.

The USA Government has also dished out major funding for smart grids, awarding over USD$3.4 billion of matching grants for the development of smart grids. The funding will underpin more than $8 billion worth of intelligent energy technology projects and will provide a significant stimulus to growth of this sector.

No doubt, many other countries will be monitoring Australia and the USA's progress in smart grid technology closely. Cities that hold more than one million people have increased from around 20 to 450 in the last century and this has created challenges for electricity infrastructure, with issues such as line loss seeing a great deal of electricity being lost "in transit" between power generation facilities and the end consumer or simply being wasted through the need to maintain spare capacity that is often never used.

An interesting piece of trivia from the report: According to New Zealand's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), there is enough spare capacity in the national grid during off-peak times to allow recharging of all New Zealand’s cars and other light vehicles if these were replaced by electric vehicles.

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Indoor Solar Panels For The Office?

CubeTube solar panel
The idea of indoor solar panels may sound a little like the concept of deck chairs on submarines, but U.S. based Solaroad Technologies may be onto something with their "CubeTube" cylindrical solar panels.

The company says CubeTube can power computer workstations by harvesting wasted energy from office lighting. The device can be clipped to cubicle walls, or placed on desktops or windowsills. Given the shape of the device, CubeTube can utilise ambient light for the production of energy from all directions.

Computers can be plugged directly into the CubeTube and the device also contains battery banks within the unit, so it can be used as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with enough on tap when fully charged to run a work station for a few hours.

If there is not enough power available to run a workstation from the device, an automated inbuilt system switches the workstation back to the mains grid until the CubeTube system is charged enough to provide power again. These cycles will occur seamlessly, without the user even realizing that the switch occurred. Desktop computers are notoriously power hungry, so the system may be more suited to notebook workstations.

Being an indoor panel and likely often used within an air-conditioned building, the CubeTube should operate at high efficiencies - heat is usually a major enemy of solar panels and extremely high solar cell temperatures, such as experienced in direct sunlight during summer, can have a huge impact on solar panel output.

As to CubeTube's output under normal office lighting conditions, conversion efficiency, other technical details and price, no further information is available on their web site at this stage.

Solaroad anticipates the CubeTube will be available for purchase in 2011

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