2016 A Big Year For Utility Scale Solar In India
Utility scale solar capacity addition in India during the first quarter of this year has been forecast to be equivalent to the entire capacity added in 2015. Research from Bridge To India indicates utility scale solar projects totaling up to 4.8 GW of capacity will be brought online during 2016, a jump of 140% over […]
Strong Renewable Energy Support In Key LNP Electorates
The passion for renewables in Australia isn’t waning, but support for coal appears to be – particularly when it comes to new mines. This is a continuing trend among voters of all political leanings. 72-77% of voters recently polled in conservative electorates support Australia becoming a 100% renewable energy powered nation by 2030. A ReachTEL-conducted […]
Meteorite Retrieval Assisted By Solar Power
Solar power played an important role in the discovery of a meteorite in South Australia’s outback that made headlines around the world. At around 9:15 pm on November 27th, 2015, a lump of rock estimated to be 80kg entered Earth’s atmosphere, travelling at about 50,000km/hr. The visitor was around 4.5 billion years old, older than […]
£1 Million UK Battery Storage Project Announced
A £1 million project will see the construction of one of the first industrial-scale battery storage facilities in the UK. A joint venture of National Solar Centre, British Solar Renewables (BSR) and Western Power Distribution (WPD), the project seeks to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of connecting an energy storage facility at a solar […]
Solar Mills Hammer Down The Price Of Staple Food
It’s stories like this that really highlight solar power’s potential for improving lives in developing nations. Back in September last year, we reported on an initiative in Zambia where solar powered hammer mills were to be used to create jobs in milling and reduce the cost of mealie-meal, a coarse flour made from maize that […]
UK Blows Away Wind Power Records
2015 was a record year for UK wind power, with both onshore and offshore wind farms supplying enough electricity to meet the needs of 8.25 million homes – more than 30 percent of the nation’s households. National Grid statistics supplied to renewable energy lobby group RenewableUK show wind generated a whopping 11 percent of the […]
Water Decontamination With Solar Power And A Stick
A team from Carnegie Mellon University have proposed an interesting and very simple conceptual device for solar-assisted water sanitation. Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Venkat Viswanathan and fellow researchers believe simply placing a rod composed of tin oxide or titanium dioxide into a bucket of water that is then exposed to the sun may do […]
Solar Powered, Jumping Robots A Step Closer
Researchers at Tel Aviv University have constructed a locust-inspired robot that can jump double the height of existing robots of its type. The TAUB is just 13 cm long and weighs less than 28 grams, but can jump 3.35 metres high and cover a horizontal distance of 1.37 metres. Crucial to its development was the […]
New Dual-Junction Solar Cell Efficiency Record
A team of American and Swiss scientists have set a new world efficiency record in solar energy conversion for a dual-junction silicon solar cell. The record conversion level of 29.8 percent was achieved by stacking a top cell made of gallium indium phosphide (GaInP), developed by researchers at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), […]
Climate Change Threatens Electricity Generation Globally
The impact of climate change on water resources could affect electricity production associated with the majority of the world’s hydro and thermoelectric power stations in the not too distant future. A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at data from 24,515 hydropower and 1,427 thermoelectric power plants worldwide. Both types depend […]
