Renewable Energy – Impact Lab

Energy, government, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

Transforming homes into power stations – how Sweden is disrupting energy production

October 2, 2020

54% of Sweden’s power comes from renewables and this energy is increasingly local.
Smart grids are switching Swedish homes from energy consumers to power-making ‘prosumers.’
Local ‘district heating’ plants use excess heat to warm the majority of Swedish homes.
Sweden tops the World Economic Forum’s Energy Transitions Index

By 2030, almost a third of all the energy consumed in the European Union must come from renewable sources, according to binding targets agreed in 2018. Sweden is helping lead the way.

As well as targeting 100% renewable electricity production by 2040, the country is transforming homes into highly efficient ‘prosumers’ – buildings which both produce and consume the vast majority of their own energy.

Continue reading… “Transforming homes into power stations – how Sweden is disrupting energy production”

Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy, Solar Power

A new floating solar farm shows that renewables can be easy

November 15, 2019

The Sekdoorn floating solar farm in the Netherlands is completed after a record six weeks of work. This is the fastest construction speed ever for the German company specialized in the renewables sector BayWa r.e., who worked together with its Dutch partner GroenLeven to build the power plant.

The construction was done in only six weeks and the plant can power 4,000 households.

The solar farm will have a yearly energy yield of 13.330 MWh, saving around 6,500 tons of CO2 emissions a year and powering the equivalent of 4,000 households.

Floating solar power plants are what the name suggests, solar panels mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water. The advantage is that they reduce land requirements because they can be installed in industrial pools, drinking water reservoirs and small lakes.

Continue reading… “A new floating solar farm shows that renewables can be easy”

Batteries, Energy, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Wind Power

Renewables meet 50% of electricity demand on Australia’s power grid for first time

November 14, 2019

For a brief moment solar, wind and hydro combined to deliver more than half the power into the National Electricity Market

Australia’s main electricity grid was briefly powered by 50% renewable energy this week in a new milestone that experts say will become increasingly normal.

Data on the sources of power in the National Electricity Market showed that at 11.50am on Wednesday, renewables were providing 50.2% of the power to Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia – the five states served by the market.

Continue reading… “Renewables meet 50% of electricity demand on Australia’s power grid for first time”

Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Shopping, Solar Energy, Wind Power

IKEA will produce more energy than it consumes by 2020

October 2, 2019

It hopes to be ‘climate positive’ by 2030.

Many companies are pouring money into renewable energy, but how many can say they’re producing more than they need? IKEA thinks it will, at least. Its holding company Ingka revealed that IKEA will generate more renewable energy before the end of 2019 than the energy its stores use. The firm only expected to draw even by 2020. The furniture chain added that it had invested about $2.8 billion in solar and wind energy over the past decade, and told Reuters that it intended to continue funding that renewable tech, including two stakes in American solar farms this week.

The retailer expects to offer home solar panels in stores across all its markets in 2025. Ultimately, it plans to be climate-positive (reducing more emissions than it puts out) by 2030.

IKEA’s timing isn’t a coincidence. Like Google, Amazon and other companies, it’s using both the Global Climate Strike and the UN’s Climate Action Summit to build goodwill and avoid controversy. This isn’t a selfless act. With that said, the move could illustrate the next step for companies hoping to burnish their ecological credentials. Instead of merely striving for neutrality, more companies might try to counter the effects of climate change. There’s no guarantee they’ll act in a timely fashion, but it might be more a question of “when” than “if.”

Via Engadget.com

Breakthrough Thinking, Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News

Thermoelectric generator harvests renewable energy from the cold of space

September 24, 2019

The thermoelectric generator uses a black aluminum disk to radiate heat into the atmosphere, and a polystyrene enclosure to keep the air inside warm.Aaswath Raman

As effective as solar panels are, one of their major downsides is that they only produce power during the day, so excess energy needs to be stored for use overnight. But now, engineers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a prototype device that works almost the opposite way, harvesting energy from the cold night sky to passively power an LED.

The device works on the thermoelectric principle, where an electric current is created through the temperature difference between two surfaces. This idea could ultimately end up making for thermoelectric exhaust pipes that help charge a vehicle’s battery, camp cooking gear that tops up phones, and clothes that use body heat to power wearable electronics.

In this case, the thermoelectric device also made use of another odd phenomenon called radiative cooling. This process is often seen in surfaces that face the sky – at night, they can become colder than the surrounding air because they radiate heat straight into space, since the atmosphere doesn’t block infrared energy. Past experiments with radiative cooling have shown promise as a way to cool buildings without needing to use energy.

Continue reading… “Thermoelectric generator harvests renewable energy from the cold of space”

Bitcoin, China, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Bitcoin mining is shockingly mostly powered by green energy

June 19, 2019

A game-changing CoinShares report reveals that three-quarters of bitcoin mining is done using renewable energy including hydroelectric power.

By CCN: Contrary to popular opinion, it appears that Bitcoin mining might not be as bad for the environment as people think. In a highly detailed report, CoinShares research reveals that 74% of mining activity runs on renewable energy.

“We show that Bitcoin mining is mainly located in global regions where there are ample supplies of renewable electricity available. And…we calculate a conservative estimate of the renewables penetration in the energy mix powering the Bitcoin mining network at 74.1%, making Bitcoin mining more renewables-driven than almost every other large-scale industry in the world.”

Continue reading… “Bitcoin mining is shockingly mostly powered by green energy”

Batteries, Battery, Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Power

Battery storage is the fastest-growing industry sector on the planet (which could save the planet)

May 3, 2019

Billions of dollars are being invested worldwide in the developing battery boom, involving research into storage techniques to use the growing surpluses of cheap renewable energy now becoming available. Recent developments in batteries are set to sweep aside the old arguments about renewables being intermittent, dismissing any need to continue building nuclear power plants and burning fossil fuels to act as a back-up when the wind does not blow, or the sun does not shine.

Batteries as large as the average family house and controlled by digital technology are being positioned across electricity networks. They are being charged when electricity is in surplus and therefore cheap, and the power they store is resold to the grid at a higher price during peak periods.

Continue reading… “Battery storage is the fastest-growing industry sector on the planet (which could save the planet)”

Energy, Green Friendly, Wind Power

Generator that creates electricity from gravity could revolutionize renewable energy

February 14, 2019

A Dutch inventor has successfully created a contraption that generates electricity from gravity – and it could revolutionize the future of renewable energy.

Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars, from Universe Architecture, has developed a method to generate free energy in a sustainable way at home. The patent-pending technique, whereby energy is released by perpetually unbalancing a weight, offers an alternative to solar and wind technology.

Continue reading… “Generator that creates electricity from gravity could revolutionize renewable energy”

China, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy, Solar Power

The world’s largest floating solar plant is finally online

November 26, 2018

This massive power plant is taking energy to a whole new level.

The world’s largest floating solar power plant is now online in China. Built by Sungrow, a supplier of PV inverter systems, the 40MW plant is now afloat in water four to 10 meters deep, and successfully linked to Huainan, China’s grid. The placement was chosen in large part because the area was previously the location of coal mining operations; and, as a result, the water there is now mineralized and mostly useless. The lake itself was only formed after years of mining operations, the surrounding land collapsed and created a cavity that was filled with rainwater.

Continue reading… “The world’s largest floating solar plant is finally online”

Energy, Latest Trend, Solar Energy, Solar Power

Power worth less than zero spreads as green energy floods the grid

August 7, 2018

Wind and solar farms are glutting networks more frequently, prompting a market signal for coal plants to shut off.

Bright and breezy days are becoming a deeper nightmare for utilities struggling to earn a return on traditional power plants.

With wind and solar farms sprouting up in more areas — and their power getting priority to feed into the grid in many places — the amount of electricity being generated is outstripping demand during certain hours of the day.

The result: power prices are slipping to zero or even below more often in more jurisdictions. That’s adding to headaches for generators from NRG Energy Inc. in California to RWE AG in Germany and Origin Energy Ltd. in Australia. Once confined to a curiosity for a few hours over windy Christmas holidays, sub-zero cost of electricity is becoming a reality for hundreds of hours in many markets, upending the economics of the business in the process.

Continue reading… “Power worth less than zero spreads as green energy floods the grid”

Ecological Products, Google, Microsoft, New Inventions

Photos show how Microsoft took a big step forward in its crazy plan to power the internet from the sea

July 11, 2018

Microsoft has put a data centre in the sea in an experimental effort to see if it can provide internet services faster to coastal cities using renewable energy.

As part of its bigger Project Natick “moonshot,” Microsoft has put the data centre on the seafloor close to Scotland’s Orkney Islands.

The data centre is submerged 117 feet under the sea and is powered by a submarine cable running from Orkney. Microsoft picked the islands because it wants its data centres to run on renewable power, and Orkney is a major hub for renewable energy.

Continue reading… “Photos show how Microsoft took a big step forward in its crazy plan to power the internet from the sea”

Batteries, Energy, Latest Trend

A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s already happening

May 25, 2018

New study debunks myths claiming renewables can’t be integrated into electric grid.

The ongoing debate around whether it’s feasible to have an electric grid running on 100 percent renewable power in the coming decades often misses a key point: many countries and regions are already at or close to 100 percent now.

Continue reading… “A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s already happening”