A University of Ulster researcher has come up with a new method, using Artificial Intelligence techniques, to forecast wind energy more accurately than ever before.
Predicting how fast the wind will blow has always been a major problem for wind farm operators. It is essential that they have some idea of how much electricity they will be able to produce each day based on the strength of the wind.
Energy forecasting has become a critical factor in the efficient generation of power from w
Ohio University engineers are leading one of the first comprehensive efforts to examine how fuel cell technology could pave the way for cleaner coal-fired power plants. Supported by a $4 million U.S. Department of Energy grant secured by the Ohio Congressional delegation, the project aims to find ways to use coal – the environmentally dirtiest but most abundant fossil fuel in the world — to harness high-efficiency fuel cells.
Most government-sponsored energy research is focused on using nat
The world’s oceans hold the key to our future electricity needs. And their potential for producing power has yet to be fully exploited in terms of sustainable energy. The EUREKA WWEC project team hopes to bring exploitation of this renewable energy source a big step forward.
“We’ve developed a device that generates energy from the sea as easily as a wind turbine would do on land,” explains William Dick, managing director of the Irish company Wavebob that led the project. “There’s an awful lo
A new scanning microscope developed at Brown University can uncover defects in the smallest and most complex integrated circuits at a resolution 1,000 times greater than current technology. The scanner removes a barrier to further shrinking of integrated circuits: As circuits get smaller, non-visual defects become harder to find.
“This microscope will allow manufacturers to find defects in each embedded wire in ever-tinier circuits,” said Brown University professor Gang Xiao. He developed th
Thermography provides the easy checking of points throughout an electric system where faults may arise, and with sufficient warning in order to correct the fault before things get worse.
Infrared thermography provides the visualisation of temperature differences arising at the surfaces of objects. The tool used is a portable and autonomous camera (similar to a home video camera) which is equipped with a detector which permits the measurement and visualisation of thermal images.
Th
A new type of very thin solar cell made from inexpensive materials has been invented by researchers at the Hahn Meitner Institute in Berlin, Germany, in collaboration with a colleague now at Portland State University, Oregon, USA. The new device will be much cheaper to make because it uses less expensive semiconductor materials than conventional solar cells. The researchers publish details of their invention in the Institute of Physics journal Semiconductor Science & Technology on 14 April 2003.
Computer Simulations Provide Insight On Light Degradation Effect in Solar Cells
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University’s Microelectronics Research Center may have solved a mystery that has plagued the research community for more than 20 years: Why do solar cells degrade in sunlight? Finding the answer to that question is essential to the advancement of solar cell research and the ability to produce lower-cost electricity from
VTT’s new device promotes clean combustion technology with high plant efficiency
VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, offers new opportunities to improve power plant efficiency with its globally unique research equipment. Most power plant types, independent of their fuel, use steam to produce energy. The first of its kind, VTT’s equipment now enables steam to be brought to its supercritical state under research conditions. In this state, the steam may reach a temperatu
Huge pulsed power machine enters fusion arena
Throwing its hat into the ring of machines that offer the possibility of achieving controlled nuclear fusion, Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine has created a hot dense plasma that produces thermonuclear neutrons, Sandia researchers announced today at a news conference at the April meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia.
The neutrons emanate from fusion reactions within a BB-sized deuterium capsule pla
The principal aim of this PhD paper was the application of the new concepts and ideas of Photonic Crystals and Photonic Bandgap (PBG) to microwave and millimetric circuits and, more concretely, to microstrip circuits which is the most common technology in current use in flat microwave circuits.
Thus, for this thesis, the techniques for optimising the functioning of PBG structures in microstrip technology were studied and the various practical applications of these devices were analysed. For
Greater use of clean electricity from the sun should be a step closer, thanks to new research carried out in the UK.
The research has shown how the cost of generating solar electricity can be reduced, laying the foundation for a major expansion in the use of this sustainable energy technology.
The project has been undertaken by a team of physicists, chemists, material scientists and engineers at Sheffield Hallam University, with funding from the Swindon-based Engineering and
Wuppertal Institute and Eurelectric welcome EU initiative
The EU could save an additional ten percent of its energy consumption by 2013 through a broad-scale implementation of energy efficiency services and programmes. The European Commission’s planned Initiative and Directive proposal on Energy Services is to contribute to the realisation of such a target.
These are the issues that around 200 high-profile participants from governments, parliaments, energy industries, e
The manufacture of electronic devices such as the new generation of video mobile phones could be revolutionised thanks to assembly research being pioneered at the University of Greenwich.
This research will provide industry with the microsystems assembly technology to allow cheaper mass production of the next generation of intelligent products, such as mobiles, visual display equipment and medical devices. It could, for example, be used to develop minute ’invisible’ hearing aids.
Because methanol, as a liquid, would be easier to dispense using current infrastructure, it will likely be one of the first fuels for fuel cells.
Speaking at the 225th national meeting of the American Chemical Society March 23-27 in New Orleans, Yu Seung Kim, a former research scientist at Virginia Tech, will report the results of studies at Virginia Tech to determine the optimum materials for use as a proton exchange membrane in a methanol-based fuel cell.
Methanol is the
Cell phones, CD players and flashlights all wear down batteries far faster than we might wish. But there’s new hope, now that researchers at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) have overcome another barrier to building more powerful, longer-lasting lithium-based batteries.
The INEEL team, led by inorganic chemist Thomas Luther, discovered how lithium ions move through the flexible membrane that powers their patented rechargeab
Hydroelectric power provides 16 per cent of Europe’s electricity, but most of the plants and their turbines were designed many years ago. By redesigning the runner – the propeller-like component that transfers energy from the water to the drive shaft in the turbine – EUREKA project FLINDT enables operators to harness more power from their turbines.
According to Professor François Avellan, Director of the Swiss main project partner, Laboratoire de Machines Hydrauliques de l’ EPFL, Ecole poly
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