Solar Powered Soccer Ball

Source :Greenmuze

Taiwan-based Greendix solar panel designer and manufacturer recently released images of the world’s first solar powered soccer ball . The traditional black pentagonal-shaped leather patches, which make a soccer ball instantly recognizable, have been replaced with solar cells of the same size and shape.

“The main goal of this project was to prove that solar panels can be integrated into any object that we interact with on a daily basis and to push the limits of what is possible with solar panels,” explained Joseph Lin fromGreendix.

The ball's solar panels power the built-in motion sensors and audio device, which could possibly enable visually impaired people to play soccer/football. The ball prototypes emit a tracking sound each time they get kicked.

“We hope this solar football will strike the imagination of designers everywhere as solar power can now be seamlessly integrated into any imaginable device. In the future, footballs could be integrated with other sensors or LEDs and get their power from the sun,” added Michael Yu at Sonelis Technologies. California-based Sonelis Technologies is handling the distribution for the Greendix produce line.

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Solar Cell Efficiency Breakthrough Achieved By Channeling LEGO

Source: theenergy collective

Chalk up another score for aluminum. The humble — as in, cheap and abundant — metal has been popping up all over the sustainable tech field, and in the latest development, an international research team has demonstrated that nanoscale LEGO-style array of aluminum studs can improve solar cell efficiency by up to 22 percent. If the labwork translates into commercial development, that will help drive the rapidly sinking cost of solar power down even farther.

That’s a significant breakthrough, because until now gold and silver have been the focus of attention in the solar cell efficiency field due to their vigorous interaction with light.

LEGO bricks by mcamacama.

However, the research team, spearheaded by Imperial College in London, compared the results of theirLEGO-style aluminum array with identical arrays made of gold and silver. They found that the more expensive metals did not boost solar cell efficiency as much as aluminum, and in fact resulted in reduced efficiency.

How A LEGO-Like Array Builds Solar Cell Efficiency

The new research was recently published in the journal Nature under the mouthful “Loss mitigation in plasmonic solar cells: aluminium nanoparticles for broadband photocurrent enhancements in GaAs photodiodes.”

The idea behind the nanoscale LEGO studs is to force light to bend, enabling layers of energy-absorbing material to trap more solar energy.

That reduces the amount of absorbing material needed, which in turn helps to lower the cost of production.

The team tested their LEGO studs on thin film gallium arsenide solar cells. Writer Simon Levey of Imperial College describes it like this:

Dr Hylton and his colleagues attached rows of aluminium cylinders just 100 nanometres across to the top of the solar panel, where they interact with passing light, causing individual light rays to change course. More energy is extracted from the light as the rays become effectively trapped inside the solar panel and travel for longer distances through its absorbing layer.

As for the key factor that enables aluminum to vault over gold and silver, the precious metals tend to absorb light into themselves.

Aluminum, in contrast, simply bends and scatters light, passing it along to the solar cell. As an added advantage, its light weight and flexibility make it compatible with the new generation of flexible solar cells.

Aluminum And Sustainable Technology

Precious metals and rare earths get a lot of the headlines in solar cell tech, but aluminum has been steadily gaining under the radar.

This is the first example we’ve covered that involves integrating aluminum into a solar cell, but there are a growing number of examples of aluminum used in solar modules.

A few recent examples are a new hybrid solar thermal power plant in Florida that uses aluminum framing to support thousands of curved mirrors, a new nano-engineered aluminum alloy that could make solar modules lighter and more flexible, and a concentrating solar system using aluminum instead of glass-based panels.

Aluminum is also making headway in the transportation field. Aside from contributing to lighter and thereby more fuel efficient vehicles, researchers are checking out its potential use in metal-air batteries.

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Tiny Solar-Powered GPS Device Lets You Track Everything

Source : Mashable

Imagine a world in which everything you care about could be tracked. You'd never misplace your shoes, keys and bags, or lose track of your loved ones.

Thanks to a tiny, solar-powered GPS tracker that can attach to virtually anything, that future may be possible. Retrievor is a tiny disk that's around the size of a U.S. quarter, and as thick as four stacked quarters, according to the project's Indiegogo campaign.

As its name suggests, the device aims to help users find all kinds of things. After placing Retrievor in a bag or attaching it to a keychain, users can track the device using a web browser, or via an Android or iPhone app.

What's more, the GPS receiver can also be used to track pets, children and hikers, according toa video by its creators. It is accurate within 4 to 10 feet.

Retrievor regularly costs $299, but users must shell out an additional $1.79 monthly subscription fee because "using satellites orbiting the earth and GSM networks to keep track of your Retrievor is an expensive business," according to its Indiegogo page.

Retrievor is not the first device of its kind, but its creators claim the device is the smallest around.

So far, the campaign has raised just over $25,000 toward its $80,000 goal. Watch the video, above, for more.

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Tomorrow's Electric Cars Could Store Energy In Their Body Panels

Source:Forbes

Electric vehicles have been around nearly as long as the automobile itself, and while the electric motor has certainly been perfected over the last century, the underlying battery technology used to power an EV still tends to relegate the genre to niche status.

But tomorrow’s EVs could eliminate big and bulky – not to mention costly – battery packs altogether, instead using their body panels as a source of power. Volvo has been working on the concept over the past three and a half years in conjunction with other participants as part of a European Union research project headed by London’s Imperial College.

Here, advanced nano-structured batteries and super capacitors are deftly incorporated into carbon fiber panels using an advanced resin; the panels are, in turn, formed to fit around a car’s frame. Just as with a conventional EV battery, the super capacitor-infused material can be fully charged via the power grid or refreshed while en route via regenerative braking.

Volvo says the electrified material charges faster than conventional batteries, and is strong and pliant enough to be fully integrated within a vehicle’s structure. It’s said to not only be lighter in weight than today’s batteries, but lighter than conventional structural materials as well; it’s also clamed to be both cost effective and eco-friendly to produce.

Volvo has reportedly developed an experimental S80 sedan that utilizes the technology to form the car’s trunk lid and plenum cover in the vehicle’s engine compartment. Leveraged more extensively, say additionally on a car’s roof, hood and doors, Volvo expects the material would realize a 15 percent weight reduction and power a midsize car for around 80 miles on a charge.

What’s more, use of the energy-storing panels doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to EVs. In a conventionally powered car the energy storing material can be used to both form the so-called “rally bar” (a strong structural component at the front of a car) and replace the standard 12-volt battery as a weight saving measure.

Now we’ve been around the proverbial block enough times to know that many such breakthroughs which show great promise never make it outside the laboratory for a variety of reasons, including cost and, we would have to wonder here, potential crashworthiness problems. There’s also the issue of recycling damaged or salvaged body parts to consider. However, if Volvo’s on the money with its “super capacitor” body panel technology, it could ultimately be a game changer, particularly if in fact proves to be a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to the comparatively massive power cells used to power today’s EVs.

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So Much For Jobs? Startup Builds Solar Robot Workers

Source:kcet.org

Alion's robots don't look like this, but that would be pretty cool. | Photo: iwouldificould/Flickr/Creative Commons License

A key argument developers have used in favor of large desert solar projects has been that such projects will bring jobs to remote, underemployed communities. That argument might just fall out of favor if a Bay Area startup has its way. Richmond-based Alion Energy is proposing to automate both construction and maintenance of large solar facilities, using robots instead of skilled workers to put solar panels in place and keep them clean.

The firm, profiled Monday in the New York Times, claims its solar-worker robots will be able to reduce both installation and maintenance costs for utility-scale solar facilities. That isn't just by eliminating the need for union-scale paychecks, but also by accelerating the pace of construction so that companies can start selling power sooner.

Large-scale solar developers routinely tout the number of jobs their projects will provide. First Solar's Desert Sunlight project in Riverside County, for instance, boasts 440 construction jobs over 26 months of planned construction. NextEra Energy Resources says its Blythe and McCoy solar projects would each provide about 600 jobs during their construction phases, and BrightSource Energy and Abengoa estimate their Palen Solar Electric Generating System will require about 2,000 construction workers.

According to Alion's website the company forecasts its robots will allow developers to cut their construction crews by 75 percent. That's quite likely an optimistic estimate. Still, such tech would very likely reduce local job benefits dramatically, with developers sending their trained robot wranglers from site to site rather than hiring local skilled labor.

Energy consultant Vishal Sapru from the business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan waxed enthusiastic about Alion's tech in an interview with the Times. "You reduce the number of days. You reduce the number of laborers. You reduce the number of inefficiencies that could arise in putting up these panels, and then it results in a huge cost savings."

Alion's prototype solar panel maintenance robot, nicknamed "Spot," rolls along a track attached to rows of panels. One attachment wets and squeegees panels to clean them, while another trims any vegetation that starts encroaching on the panels' access to sunlight. (ReWire assumes that identifying wildlife species of concern and alerting project biologists doesn't fall within Spot's job description, but who knows?)

There will certainly be a number of places where Alion's technology makes sense, as for example solar projects in converted "brownfields" where limiting worker exposure to residual toxic substances is a manifestly good idea.

In the meantime, it may be that Alion and companies like it merely deepen the rhetorical divide between utility-scale and rooftop solar, which already has a much higher jobs-to-kilowatts ration than utility-scale solar. At least, that is, until someone develops a robot that can seamlessly adjust to the near-unlimited kinds of roofs on which human workers install solar panels every single day without having to be reprogrammed.

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Swiss village hosts world's first-of-its-kind solar-powered ski lift

Source: gizmag

The tiny Swiss town of Tenna has put itself on the eco-map by building an innovative solar-powered ski lift. The solar lift is one of the world's first of its kind, and utilizes a "cable car system" where the solar panels are integrated directly into the lift. Approximately 80 solar panels are incorporated into a 450-meter (492-yard) system that is suspended above the ski lift, which has the capacity to pull 800 skiers up the mountain per hour. To avoid running out of energy during bad weather and snow storms, the ski lift is also connected to the local power supply, so skiers will not be left hanging on in the dark!

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The solar ski lift captures as much energy as possible by utilizing swiveling solar panels that follow the sun's rays, and automatically tilt to shake off snowfall that may be covering the cells. On a sunny day, the solar panels produce approximately two times as much electricity than what is required to operate the lift, with the excess energy going to the public grid. The lift is expected to produce 90,000 kilowatt hours of energy annually, and will make a considerable contribution to the local community's power grid during the off season.

"When the ski lift is switched off in spring it turns into a solar power plant," explains Edi Schaufelberger, president of the ski lift cooperative in a Swiss Info video interview. "It doesn't harm the landscape since the lift and pillars stay in place anyway. All the electricity is sold into the grid and is sold as solar electricity."

Numerous donations helped the town, population of 112, achieve this goal. A great effort, considering that the construction of the solar ski lift was about twice as expensive as that of a conventional ski lift.

A ski lift day pass at Tenna costs 25 Swiss Francs (US$27.40) or 100 Swiss Francs (US$109.40) for seven days.

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Dutch Nuon Team Takes Gold At World Solar Challenge Race In Adelaide

Source:cleantechnica

The Dutch solar racing team Nuon has won gold once again, for the fifth time in seven tries, at the World Solar Challenge race in Australia. Nuon reached the finish line while the closest runner-up, the Japanese team Tokai, was still more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) behind. The Dutch solar race car, the Nuna7, took just over 33 hours to complete the 3,000 kilometer (1864 miles) trip from Darwin to Adelaide — powered by nothing but the Sun. 

Both the Nuon and Tokai teams were notably slowed down towards the end of the race by cloudy skies and rain — leading to Tokai temporarily stalling out on the side of the road with an empty battery, while Nuon was able to continue on thanks to greater energy stores, via “extra solar collector panels the team used while the car was stationary,” a strategy which I guess should be noted is within race guidelines.

The Nuna7 traveled at an average speed of about 90.71 kilometers (56.364 miles) an hour during the race. While that’s pretty impressive on its own, the solar car’s claimed top speed is actually about 185 kilometers (115 miles) an hour. When you consider that it’s powered by nothing but the Sun, that is really quite impressive.

Speaking about the win with ABC, Nuon Team Coach Wobbo Ockles stated: “(It’s) the biggest pleasure you can get in your life.”

Of the 20 teams that entered the race competing in the main Challenger class, only 10 finished the race, with the other 10 teams pulling out before the reaching the end. Of the local Australian teams, the highest-place finish was the Arrow, which took 7th.

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