Labs - Government
California Homes with Solar Power Sell for More
24 April 2011POSTED IN Research
Investing in residential solar power brings homeowners more than just lower power bills, according to research from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The research showed that California homes with solar photovoltaic systems sell for a premium over those without solar systems.
Clean Energy Research gets $130 M from DOE
21 April 2011POSTED IN Research
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that up to $130 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will be available to develop five new program areas that could spark critical breakthrough technologies and secure America's energy future.
Konica Introduces New PV Reference Cells
20 April 2011POSTED IN New Products
Konica Minolta Sensing Americas, Inc. (KMSA) introduces its AK Series of new photovoltaic (PV) reference cells to the US market.
Natcore Successfully Passivates Black Silicon Solar Cells
14 April 2011POSTED IN Research
Scientists at Natcore Technology Inc. have been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of its liquid phase deposition (LPD) process in passivating the surface of black silicon solar cells.
Dow and Oak Ridge Lab to Develop Cool Roof Technologies
15 April 2011POSTED IN Applications News
The Dow Chemical Company is pleased to announce that the USDepartment of Energy (DOE) will fund key lab research as part of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Dow and DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to accelerate the adoption of cool roof technologies in the US.
Solar Junction CPV Solar Cell Reaches 43.5% Efficiency
14 April 2011POSTED IN Applications News
Solar Junction today announced it has achieved 43.5% efficiency on a commercially ready concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) production cell.
Nanoparticles Improve Solar Thermal Collection
11 April 2011POSTED IN Research
Mechanical engineers at Arizona State University have found that using nanofluid in a concentrating solar thermal system can improve efficiency by up to 10%.
Economic Modeling: Software for performance and cost analysis
06 April 2011POSTED IN Applications Features
Economic modeling of a solar system enables users to understand what the cost of a solar system will be in terms of its output. In today’s world of tight finance, it can mean the difference in funding and permitting or sending the project back to the drawing board. Many tools are available to generate performance data or cost analysis, but the Solar Advisor Model (SAM) is well known for doing both.
GE Achieves New Efficiency for Thin Film Solar
07 April 2011POSTED IN Applications News
GE today announced that a full-size, thin film solar panel developed by the company has been independently certified as the most efficient ever publicly reported milestone for the technology.
Nanosolar Achieves New CIGS Solar Efficiency
06 April 2011POSTED IN Applications News
The thin film solar company, Nanosolar, Inc., today announced new efficiency benchmarks of 11.6% for the Nanosolar Utility Panel and 13.9% for its printed CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenium) solar cells, as measured by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy (ISE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
New Energy Technologies Sought for Prize
05 April 2011POSTED IN Applications News
The Arts-Sciences Workshop, a common innovation initiative between CEA-Grenoble and the Hexagone Scène Nationale de Meylan, in partnership with the Cultural Centre for Scientific and Industrial Engineering (CCSTI) in Grenoble, has issued a call for projects. The 2011 Art Research Technology Science (ARTS) prize is open to an international audience for the first time.
NREL Fellow Honored for Solar Research
30 March 2011POSTED IN Applications News
Dr. Arthur J. Nozik, senior research fellow at the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), will be awarded the Gustavus John Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest, from the American Chemical Society's Northeastern Section at Harvard University on 14 April.
New Energy Enters into Cooperative R&D Agreement with NREL
29 March 2011POSTED IN Applications News
New Energy Technologies, Inc. announced that as part of its efforts to advance the commercial development of its SolarWindow, capable of generating electricity on see-through glass, the company has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.
Distributed Energy Resources Lab Accepts New Members
29 March 2011POSTED IN Politics and Policy News
Today, the Association of European Distributed Energy Resources Laboratories (DERlab e.V.) has accepted four new members at its general assembly in Roskilde, Denmark: VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland; EnergyVille in Belgium; Interdisciplinary Centre for Reliability, Security and Trust at the University of Luxembourg; and Sandia National Laboratories in the US.
Neutron Scattering Analyzes Light-Harvesting Antenna from Bacteria
26 March 2011POSTED IN Research
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used small-angle neutron scattering to analyze the structure of chlorosomes in green photosynthetic bacteria. These light-harvesting antenna complexes are efficient at collecting sunlight to covert to energy, even in low-light and extreme environments and thus could lead to new generations of biologically inspired solar cell devices.
Smart Meter Pilot Project Completed
24 March 2011POSTED IN Applications News
A pilot system, developed under the direction of Fraunhofer ISE, shows how modern Smart Metering Systems with flexible tariffs for supply and loads can be used to intelligently control load flow.
United Solar Awarded Patent for Nano-Crystalline Technology
22 March 2011POSTED IN Business News
United Solar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (UCD) and a manufacturer of lightweight, flexible thin-film solar modules, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued US Patent 7,902,049, "Method for depositing high-quality microcrystalline semiconductor materials" to Subhendu Guha, Jeff Yang and Baojie Yan for United Solar.
Improved Efficiency of Screen-printed Solar Cells
22 March 2011POSTED IN Research
The Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) announced that researchers have increased the conversion efficiency of screen-printed silicon solar cells from 17.0 to 18.5% to a new record value of 19.4%.
3-D Battery Technology: Capacitor-like power with battery-like energy
21 March 2011POSTED IN Research
The batteries in Professor Paul Braun's lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign look like any other batteries, but they aren't.
Affordable Batteries Key For Solar Power
14 March 2011POSTED IN Research
Affordability is key for widespread deployment of future batteries in the energy grid to store power from the wind and sun, report researchers from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in a review on electrochemical energy storage (EES). The review also compares the potential of various battery technologies for utility applications.
