Power and Electrical Engineering
This topic covers issues related to energy generation, conversion, transportation and consumption and how the industry is addressing the challenge of energy efficiency in general.
innovations-report provides in-depth and informative reports and articles on subjects ranging from wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
Flexible photovoltaic cells
The Inasmet Technology Centre (Basque Country) has participated in the METAFLEX project. The aim of this project is to research photovoltaic solar cells to use in building, transport and space sectors. The main innovation of this project is the flexibility that materials by which cells are manufactured provide, and the additional advantage is a weight reduction, comparing to other materials already used, such as glass.
The secret of this flexibility consists on the combination of su
Researchers make advances in wind energy generation
Engineers at the University of Alberta have created a wind energy generator that they hope people will one day be able to use to power their own homes.
“We have developed a simple, reliable, controller for small scale wind energy generators that is cheaper than competing technologies,” said Dr. Andy Knight, a professor in the U of A Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and lead author of a paper on the subject published recently in IEEE Transactions on Energy Convers
Cost Competitive Electricity from Photovoltaic Concentrators Called ’Imminent’
Solar concentrators using highly efficient photovoltaic solar cells will reduce the cost of electricity from sunlight to competitive levels soon, attendees were told at a recent international conference on the subject. Herb Hayden of Arizona Public Service (APS) and Robert McConnell and Martha Symko-Davies of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) organized the conference held May 1-5 in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“Concentrating solar electric
Patented device creates electricity and treats wastewater
Double threat could power 900 American homes
An environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has created a device similar to a hydrogen fuel cell that uses bacteria to treat wastewater and create electricity.
Lars Angenent, Ph.D., assistant professor of Chemical Engineering, and a member of the University’s Environmental Engineering Science Program, has devised a microbial fuel cell which he calls an upflow microbial fuel cell (UMFC) that is fed co
Discovery of ’doping’ mechanism in semiconductor nanocrystals
Novel electronic devices based upon nanotechnology may soon be realized due to a new understanding of how impurities, or ’dopants,’ can be intentionally incorporated into semiconductor nanocrystals. This understanding, announced today by researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the University of Minnesota (UMN), should help enable a variety of new technologies ranging from high-efficiency solar-cells and lasers to futuristic ’spintronic’ and ultra-sensitive biodete
Using chemistry for electronics and vice versa
The microelectronics industry is continually striving to miniaturize conventional silicon-based electronic devices to provide higher performance technology that can be housed in smaller packaging.
Progress resulting from this miniaturization is evident from the rapid advances in consumer electronics, such as cell phones and laptop computers, that have been observed in recent years. Now, silicon-based molecular electronics — a complementary technology to conventional microelectr