Energy Efficiency

New, Inexpensive Catalyst Boosts Oxygen Production for Home Energy Systems

The era of personalized energy systems — in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling, and powering cars — took...

Diffuse-Illumination Systems for Growing Plants

A proposed plant-growth system takes advantage of the highly diffuse reflective surfaces on the interior of a sphere, hemisphere, or other nearly enclosed structure that is coated with highly...

Open Software Platform Helps Save Energy

Starting in 2011, energy suppliers in Germany will be required to offer electricity at variable rates under the German Energy Act. A new energy management software platform will enable customers to...

PETE: A New Solar Energy Conversion Process

Stanford engineers have discovered a process called photon enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity, and could...

Generating Energy Innovation: Disrupting the Alternatives

In just the last few years, innovation in alternative-energy technologies have gained significant footholds in product development lifecycles and are rapidly changing our individual...

Making Hydrogen From Waste Vegetable Oil

Researchers at the University of Leeds have found an energy-efficient way to make hydrogen out of used vegetable oils discarded by restaurants and other establishments. The process generates some of the...

Metal Alloy Increases Cooling Efficiency, Reduces CO2 Emissions

Researchers at the University of Maryland are developing a new "thermally elastic" metal alloy for use in advanced refrigeration and air conditioning systems. The technology...

Introducing the First Solar & Wind e-zine

The latest e-zine from Green Design & Manufacturing is here! The premiere issue of Solar and Wind Power features articles, tech briefs, application stories, and more regarding alternative energy...

Planar Micro-Optic Solar Concentration

A new solar concentrator from Ph.D. student Jason Karp of the University of California, San Diego collects sunlight with thousands of small lenses imprinted on a common sheet. All these lenses couple into...

Fish Schooling as a Basis for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Farm Design

Most wind farms consist of horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs), but an alternative paradigm for wind energy extraction is found in vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) designs. A single spatially-isolated VAWT has a significantly lower power coefficient.

Effects of Cerium Removal from Glass on Photovoltaic Module Performance and Stability

In recent years, better stabilizer formulations for ethylene vinyl-acetate have been developed, giving more confidence in the long-term stability of PV packaging materials. Because of this, some manufacturers have stopped using Ce-doped glass. National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers studied Ce-free glass.

Molecules Found in Blue Jean Dyes May Lead to Better Solar Cells

Cornell University researchers have discovered a simple process – employing molecules typically used in blue jean and ink dyes – for building an organic framework that could...

Producing Biofuels from Woody Plants With No Waste

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a more efficient technique for producing biofuels from woody plants that significantly reduces the waste that results from...

Energy-Saving LED High Bay Fixture

Dialight (Farmingdale, NJ) has introduced ultra-bright DuroSite LED High Bay fixtures that incorporate Cree’s Xlamp® XP-G LEDs, delivering nearly 12,000 lumens while consuming only 150 watts. Free of...

Photovoltaic Metallization Paste

DuPont Microcircuit Materials (Research Triangle Park, NC) introduces DuPont™ Solamet® PV16x series photovoltaic metallization pastes for crystalline silicon solar cells. The photovoltaic metallizations are...

Funding for R&D to Support U.S. Manufacturing of SSL

Today, DOE announced the availability of up to $15 million in funding to advance research, development, and market adoption of solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies. The department will...

Scientists Use Nanoscale Architecture to Make Efficient Solar Cell

A thin film solar cell must be thick enough to collect a sufficient amount of light, yet it needs to be thin enough to extract current. Boston College physicists found a way...

Energy-Efficient Housing Research Partnerships

On behalf of the DOE’s Building America residential research program, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP). Building America research teams...

Fuel-Saving Paint System Based on Sharkskin

To lower the fuel consumption of airplanes and ships, it is necessary to reduce their flow resistance, or drag. A paint system from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Applied...

Manipulating Plant Growth Hormones Key for Biofuel Future

Auxin is a powerful plant growth hormone that tells plants how to grow, where to lay down roots, how to make tissues, and how to respond to light and gravity. Knowing how to manipulate...

Hermetic Feedthroughs: A Critical Component in New Flywheel Energy Storage Solutions

The phrase “everything old is new again” certainly applies to today’s flywheel technology. Forget the mechanical bearing, standard atmosphere 5,000 RPM...

Purple Bacteria and Photovoltaics

Purple bacteria are single celled microscopic organisms that were among the first life forms on Earth. The tiny organisms live in aquatic environments and use sunlight as their source of energy. Neil Johnson,...

Bionic Coating for Fuel-Efficient Ships

The water fern salvinia molesta is extremely hydrophobic, surrounding itself by a flimsy skirt of air that prevents the plant from coming into contact with liquid. This inconspicuous plant could allow...

LED Backlight Driver

Endicott Research Group (Endicott, NY) has introduced a new LED driver that can simultaneously and efficiently power up to 8 strings of high brightness LEDs (HBLEDs) and provides a total 50W of power.

Generating Hydrogen from Water

Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California, Berkeley have discovered an inexpensive metal catalyst that can effectively generate hydrogen gas from water.

Hybrid Energy System

The 5 kW Genverter diesel generator/inverter from WhisperPower (Drachten, The Netherlands) has lower noise levels, fewer emissions, and reduced energy consumption compared to currently available energy systems. The diesel...

Paving the Way for Electromobility

Fraunhofer researchers are engineering wheel hub motors, which are integrated into a car's wheels, and could become the accepted drive concept for electric vehicles. The scientists are testing these and...