Apr

27

Paint Your Own Solar Cell

April 27, 2012 | 1 Comment

Scientists at USC think they have the material made of nanocrystals that could be painted on surfaces for making a solar cell. If the team gets to commercial market, the projection is a pathway to cheap, stable solar cells made with a liquid ink that can be painted or printed onto clear surfaces. Richard L. [...]

Apr

12

NASA Starts to Get Serious On Space Based Solar Power

April 12, 2012 | 1 Comment

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program has started a Phase I effort to explore the overall viability and advance the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for an orbital power station project called “SPS Alpha”, or Solar Power Satellite – Alpha. Last August, Artemis Innovation Management Solutions was selected for a NASA NIAC award to dive into [...]

Feb

7

A New Idea for the Electro Mechanical Battery

February 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Carl Peart of New Mexico has a very different take on the electro mechanical battery (EMB) – solve the inherent problems of friction with air and bearings – by using them in orbital power stations.  No air or gravity, only centrifugal forces for drag. An EMB (a technical description of a flywheel) stores energy through [...]

Jan

18

Sensing the Wind Is Getting Better Results

January 18, 2012 | 1 Comment

Wind speed primarily determines the power generated by a wind turbine. On a wind farm in which the turbines experience the same wind speeds but different “shapes”, most easily seen as turbulence affecting the wind profile, the turbines will produce different amounts of power. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Sonia Wharton and colleague Julie Lundquist [...]

Dec

22

A Claim for 100%+ Solar Cell Efficiency

December 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment

A research team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) report in Science the first photovoltaic solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100% when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum. For comparison external quantum efficiency for photocurrent is usually expressed as [...]

Dec

19

Solar Photovoltaic Catches a Major Breakthrough

December 19, 2011 | 9 Comments

At MIT or Massively Innovative Teams, in lieu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a major new innovation in mounting photovoltaic solar panels should revolutionize the industry.  It’s based on a simple and when thought through – obvious observation. On a clear bright day you’ll notice the shadows are a dark area with little light.  But [...]

Dec

16

Doubling Up On Photovoltaic Solar Cell Efficiency

December 16, 2011 | 2 Comments

Chemistry Professor Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin has a method of photon harvesting significantly increasing the efficiency of conventional solar cells.  The professor’s work improves the mechanisms of solar energy conversion. Zhu and his team have discovered that it’s possible to double the number of electrons harvested from one photon of [...]

Dec

5

Solar Power By Biomimetic Antenna

December 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Silicon and printed dye photovoltaic may have a new competitor soon. At Washington University in St. Louis’s Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) one scientific team has just succeeded in making a crucial photosystem component – a light-harvesting antenna – from scratch. The new antenna is modeled on the chlorosome found in green bacteria. We may [...]

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