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Solar panels? Green roof? Grey water recycling? This zero energy home has been touted as South Korea’s most sustainable.
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Highway or Power Plant?
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Scientists Develop Solar Panels that Work in the Dark
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced today (November 30th) that they have developed and confirmed the design for a new high-efficiency solar cell that utilizes nearly the entire solar spectrum, instead of simply visible light! This solar panel can generate electricity in the absence of direct sunlight, meaning that they can work in the dark! In the past, solar cells have used certain semiconductors to channel and utilize one part of the spectrum. However, this new design uses layers of various materials to make use of nearly the entire solar spectrum!
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Fire up those photovoltaics, ladies and gents … the 2011 Solar Decathlon is upon us. Here’s a sneak peak of the innovative Solar Decathlon houses.
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Welcome to the sustainable future. These ‘grove’ parking lots not only shade cars during the day, but they also recharge the electric cars sitting below them with solar power.
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I imagine myself rocking and rocking and rocking… while being green and sustainable :)
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A team of researchers from Boston College and MIT have developed a hybrid flat panel that is capable of producing electricity from the sun’s rays as well as hot water for thermal energy. The team’s new flat panel is eight times more efficient than previously developed solar thermoelectric generators and could make solar thermoelectric technology more cost effective on a wider scale. Solar Thermal energy is expensive and generally employed in large installations — like the one above — with this new flat panel, solar thermal energy could become a much more valuable investment. The team has increased the energy output without adding much to the dollar sign side of the equation.
In order to develop the panels the team used nanotechnology to combine spectrally-selective solar absorbers in a vacuum sealed chambers with high-performance thermoelectric materials. “Existing solar-thermal technologies do a good job generating hot water. For the new product, this will produce both hot water and electricity,” said Boston College professor of physics, Zhifeng Ren. “Because of the new ability to generate valuable electricity, the system promises to give users a quicker payback on their investment. This new technology can shorten the payback time by one third.”
The added materials doesn’t make the panel much more expensive than existing solar thermal technology — but increases the energy generation dramatically — which means this could be a big development in clean energy markets.”We have developed a flat panel that is a hybrid capable of generating hot water and electricity in the same system,” said Ren. “The ability to generate electricity by improving existing technology at minimal cost makes this type of power generation self-sustaining from a cost standpoint.”
Via PhysOrg
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Boston’s TREEPODS INIATIVE proposes to embody, and artificially enhance, the most important biological characteristic of natural trees: the capacity to clean the air, taking the CO² and releasing O². Boston’s TREEPODS INIATIVE is a sustainable project leaded by Influx_Studio and ShiftBoston. The aim ff this collaboration is to allow the achievement of Boston’s global goals in terms of carbon reduction programs in the short time, giving us enough time to make the change from the present fossil fuel economy into a new Zero carbon energy economy. The proposal could be define as a CO2-scrubbing living machine. Treepods may well redesign in an urban radical new way our polluted urban environment, interacting with natural trees, and enhancing its carbon absorption capacity. In that way, those artificial trees don’t replace the natural ones, but they act like small urban “air cleaning infrastructures”. Advanced technologies are actually already developed that allow the capture of the atmospheric carbon dioxide from ambient air in an efficient, economic and sustainable way. Developed by Dr Klaus Lackner, Director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University, this revolutionary process is based on the discovery of the ‘humidity swing,’ a technology that enables the energy-efficient capture of CO2 from air, allowing to close the carbon cycle and creating a valuable product for beneficial use. Biomimicry The aim of the project is create, using biomimicry, an air cleaning and CO² catcher integrated urban device. Looking at nature we can learn from one of the most unique trees in the world, the Dragon Blood Tree (Dracaena cinnabari). Its branches at maturity produce an umbrella shaped crown optimizing its form to create a canopy that provides a maximum of shading surface. The way that its canopy allows the wind flow is showing us an intelligent form like design. The TREEPOD will ne inspired by that, as well as by its branching structure in terms of storage and distribution of resources from ground to the canopy. The TREEPOD takes the Dragon tree like form to create an important canopy surface that will provide shadow, and that will host a solar pv (sun tracker latest technology) to harvest the energy necessary to powered the air cleaning system and the urban lamp function. The canopy branching structure ends with a myriad of bulbs. They multiplies the contact points between air and the CO², serving as a filter. Working like as alveoli in a human lung, here is where the cleaning gaseous exchange takes place: an alkaline and environmentally friendly resin that reacts with air holding CO². When the CO² saturated resin reacts with water it release CO² for storage, and then it could be used again in the same process. Structure The tree will be made with a recycled and recyclable plastic. We propose to use the PET (Polyethylene terephthalate). It is the material commonly used for drink bottles. It presents several relevant advantages: it’s available in large quantities as recycled raw material, it can assume different colorations and degrees of transparency, it can be easily processed to obtain complex forms, it has good tensile resistance and mechanical properties. The entire TREEPOD structure is composed by modular elements, assembled as shown in the scheme. Urban strategy We suggest to create a network of TREEPODS system using this new technology, that will embraces the whole city of Boston. Based in its modular capacity, issued from a honeycomb hexagonal geometry, the prototype is able to reach tree different levels of assemblage and urban function: The basic isolated unit as urban furniture. Three assembled units forming a hexagon define the TREEPOD, with social functions that a natural tree had. And finally, a group of trees, creating a great urban canopy, defining places to be. Social interaction The TREEPOD will have a social role in the community. It could be an interactive interface, allowing people to interact with the tree and each other. People could play and learn about the ecological paradigm shift. At its basis the tree will host a playing device: a seesaw that harvests kinetic energy. It will allow people to be involved, displaying information in “augmented reality” about de-carbonization process, about sustainable behaviors etc, proposing depending the urban and social context, different ways to help people collaborate each other and to engage citizens in the green agenda.
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Le Projet Triangle / Herzog & de Meuron
Architects Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled their design for a triangular building in the Porte de Versailles area of Paris, France. According to the architects the triangular profile will prevent the structure casting shadows on adjacent buildings, and allow for optimum solar and wind power generation.
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Self-Sustaining City /
The Sonnenschiff solar city in Freiburg, Germany produces 4 times more energy than it consumes with the thoughtful placement of solar panels. This is a model for green building, and an eye opener for how design can play an important role in helping countries not rely on foreign fossil fuels as a main power source. Check out the full Inhabitat post here.
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Solar panel manufacturer Solimpeks is offering a hybrid solar panel that is capable of providing both electricity and water heating from the same panel. The panels are ideal for applications where there is limited roof space available, but both solar electricity and solar hot water are desired. Even better, the combination of the two functions actually improves the efficiency of the electrical generation of the photovoltaics.
These hybrid panels address a problem most solar panels have: as photovoltaic (PV) panels get hotter, they get less efficient at generating electricity. A PV panel is about 1% less efficient for every 3.5 degrees F temperature increase. The Solimpeks panels address this by using water to absorb excess heat and keep the panels cooler. Water cooling is far more effective than air cooling, making this a very effective combination. The heated water is then used to provide the additional benefit of hot water for the building.
Testing has shown the efficiency of electrical generation to be as high as 28% while at the same time producing 140-160 degree F water. This works out to an improvement of 20% over a similar sized electric-only PV array, and without the added hot water benefit, either.
Keeping the panels cooler has the additional benefit of extending their lifespan, keeping them in service for a longer period of time. These panels will also be able to pay back their installation cost more quickly since they are providing both electricity and hot water.
This is an idea I had a while back. It is a simple combination that simply works. They need to be cooled down and water needs to be heated. The only other addition could be a Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, which uses heat transfer to create electricity as well. It would be a very efficient combo.
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Pythagoras Makes Skylights that Also Make Solar Power : CleanTechnica
The unusual (philosophy M.A.) founder of Pythagoras Solar, Gonen Fink will be among the speakers at Intersolar 2010 in San Francisco this week. His start-up has designed a nearly transparent, yet fully solar glass using patent-pending optics, for use as an energy efficient skylight (and starting next year, a window wall) that also produces electricity.
Just the thermal efficiency alone would make it a good day-lighting option, blocking all direct solar radiation, to reduce building heating and cooling costs.
It is ideal for use as a skylight because it also provides better day-lighting compared to other BIPV or building-integrated photovoltaics (being essentially transparent), limiting lighting costs by replacing fluorescent lighting while looking like a regular skylight that provides real natural daylight.
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We cover a lot of solar panel technologies here at Inhabitat — some are pie in the sky, some are a few years down the road and some are exciting products that are actually available today. SoloPower’s new flexible rolling solar panels are in the latter group, and they stand to significantly reduce production and installation costs. With a notable 11% efficiency, the easily-installed thin-film panels may be able to give traditional silicon panels a run for the money.
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Congrats to VT School of Architecture + Design
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Solar panels are great, but they’ve got one huge problem. On average, they only catch about 15% of the sun’s rays and scientists are scrambling to find a way to increase that efficiency — using mirrors and even the shaping them like origami. Well, RoseStreet Labs might just have a solution – they’ve created a thin film solar panel that integrates three separate layers of PV cells into one panel. Each layer captures a different part of the sun’s spectrum bringing the total efficiency above 35%.