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Technology & Society: Energy
NREL scientists use new power electronics to support the electric power grid. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
Electrodynamic dust shields (EDSs) are a key method to actively clean surfaces by running high voltages (but low currents) through electrodes on the surface. The forces generated by the voltage efficiently remove built-up, electrically charged dust particles. Innovators have developed a new transparent EDS for removing dust from space and lunar solar cells among other transparent surfaces.
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Briefs: Software
The team hopes this project can better position renewable energy as the primary source of electricity in the industry sector. The project aims to enable researchers and renewable energy installation companies to determine the optimal number of solar panels and wind turbines needed to prevent over or under production.
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Articles: Energy
Affordable thermal storage could help industries and cities capture heat that is currently wasted, as well as balance the inconsistencies in wind and solar power output. But while Polar Night Energy is eager to work directly with potential customers, they realize that the challenges ahead are too big for them to tackle alone.
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Briefs: Power
Flow batteries can serve as backup generators for the electric grid. Flow batteries are one of the key pillars of a decarbonization strategy to store energy from renewable energy resources. Their advantage is that they can be built at any scale, from the lab-bench scale, as in this PNNL study, to the size of a city block.
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Briefs: Energy
Combination of Stressors Key to Testing Perovskite Solar Cells
Solar cells must endure a set of harsh conditions — often with variable combinations of changing stress factors — to judge their stability, but most researchers conduct these tests indoors with a few fixed stressing conditions.
Briefs: Energy
Wireless power transfer was recently demonstrated by MAPLE — Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment — one of three key technologies being tested by the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1), the first space-borne prototype from Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP), which aims to harvest solar power in space and transmit it to the Earth’s surface.
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Briefs: Energy
The system harnesses the sun's heat to directly split water and generate hydrogen — a clean fuel that can power long-distance trucks, ships, and planes, while in the process emitting no greenhouse gas emissions.
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Briefs: Materials
Most space satellites are powered by photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to electricity. Exposure to certain orbit radiation can damage the devices. Scientists have proposed a radiation-tolerant photovoltaic cell design that features an ultrathin layer of light-absorbing material.
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Articles: Energy
There is no one-size-fits-all answer. If you need the least expensive option, direct charging works. If you can spend more, you can opt for a PWM circuit. If the price is secondary and you need the absolute best performance, a true MPPT may be the best solution for your application.
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Technology & Society: Materials
A robot developed at North Carolina State University can conduct experiments more sustainably and accelerate energy materials research.
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Briefs: Energy
An international research collaboration led by UCLA has developed a way to use perovskite in solar cells while protecting it from the conditions that cause it to deteriorate.
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Briefs: Energy
An international research collaboration led by UCLA has developed a way to use perovskite in solar cells while protecting it from the conditions that cause it to deteriorate.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
2D materials can be packed together more densely than conventional materials, so they could be used to make devices that run faster and perform better.
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Briefs: Imaging
Scientists have developed a new characterization tool that allowed them to gain unique insight into a possible alternative material for solar cells.
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Briefs: Energy
A highly efficient and long-lasting solar flow battery generates, stores, and redelivers renewable electricity from the Sun in one device.
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Briefs: Motion Control
A team has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size so that they can walk autonomously.
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Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
To open the Moon to continuous multi-year human and robotic operation, Astrobotic is developing LunaGrid™ — a commercial power system for the surface of the Moon.
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Briefs: Design
Cubic boron arsenide provides high mobility to both electrons and holes, and it has excellent thermal conductivity. It is, according to the researchers, the best semiconductor material ever found.
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5 Ws: Power
Researchers at University of Cambridge have developed floating “artificial leaves” that generate clean fuels from sunlight and water and could eventually operate on a large scale at sea.
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Briefs: Energy
Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have designed a novel building-solar controller that optimizes solar energy with smart technology to keep microgrids operating for up to five days.
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Briefs: Energy
The system makes it possible to integrate data from prior experiments, and information based on personal observations by experienced workers, into the machine learning process.
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Briefs: Energy
Over the course of their research, the team discovered that these anthraquinones decompose slowly over time, regardless of how many times the battery has been used.
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Q&A: Physical Sciences
A new kind of optical concentrator can passively focus the sun onto a photovoltaic cell from any angle to reduce the amount of photovoltaic material needed for a given amount of power generation.
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Articles: Energy
A solar thermal device mimics photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide emissions into a clean energy resource.
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Briefs: Materials
A simple change to the surface of perovskite removes a barrier to its functionality.
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Briefs: Energy
The device uses a thermoelectric module to generate voltage and current from the temperature gradient between the cell and the air.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is leading the development of new lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery designs specific to the stationary storage requirements.
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Briefs: Nanotechnology
Carbon nanotubes are used to create solar cells with unprecedented flexibility and resistance.
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