Solar Universe, the 10MW solar power plant in Vavunathivu, Batticaloa was declared open today.
Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera announced the opening of the 10 MW Ground Mount Solar Power Plant.
Minister Wijesekera said that invested and developed by WindForce PLC, Vidullanka PLC, and HiEnergy Services (Pvt) Limited, it is the 1st Agrivoltaic Power Plant in Sri Lanka.
The Minister further said that the new 10MW solar power plant in Vavunathivu will add 20 GWh annually to the National Grid. (NewsWire).
Solar Universe 10 MW Ground Mount Solar Power Plant in Vavunativ, Batticalao was opened this morning. Invested & developed by Wind Force, Vidu Lanka & Hi Energy, it is the 1st Agrivoltaic Power Plant in SL. It will add 20 GWh annually to the National Grid. pic.twitter.com/2GFYiUDUTv
Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says.
The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive.
Gas prices have soared on mounting concerns over energy supplies.
But the researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables.
The cost of green energy like wind and solar has been falling for decades
“Even if you’re a climate denier, you should be on board with what we’re advocating,” Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News.
“Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it’s going to save us money,” he said.
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The report’s findings are based on looking at historic price data for renewables and fossil fuels and then modelling how they’re likely to change in the future.
The data for fossil fuels goes from 2020 back more than 100 years and shows that after accounting for inflation, and market volatility, the price hasn’t changed much.
Renewables have only been around for a few decades, so there’s less data. But in that time continual improvements in technology have meant the cost of solar and wind power have fallen rapidly, at a rate approaching 10% a year.
The report’s expectation that the price of renewables will continue to fall is based on “probabilistic” modelling, using data on how massive investment and economies of scale have made other similar technologies cheaper.
“Our latest research shows scaling-up key green technologies will continue to drive their costs down, and the faster we go, the more we will save,” says Dr Rupert Way, the report’s lead author from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
Wind and solar are already the cheapest option for new power projects, but questions remain over how to best store power and balance the grid when the changes in the weather leads to fall in renewable output.
Cost of net zero
Back in 2019 Philip Hammond, then Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to the prime minister to say that the cost of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the UK would be more than £1tn. This report says the likely costs have been over-estimated and have deterred investment.
It also says predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the cost of keeping global temperatures rises under 2 degrees would correspond to a loss of GDP by 2050 were too pessimistic. The transition to renewables was, it says, likely to turn out to be a “net economic benefit”.
The research has been published in the journal Joule and is a collaboration between the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, the Oxford Martin Programme on the Post-Carbon Transition, the Smith School of Enterprise & Environment at the University of Oxford, and SoDa Labs at Monash University.
Construction began at the 165-turbine project, 89km off the coast of Yorkshire, in 2018. Ørsted announced on Wednesday (31 August) that it is now fully operational.
The Dutch business now has 13 fully operational offshore wind farms in the UK that it either fully or partly owned, with a combined capacity of 6.2GW. Its other British projects include Hornsea 1, Walney and the Walney Extension, and Burbo Bank and the Burbo Bank Extension.
“The UK is truly a world leader in offshore wind and the completion of Hornsea 2 is a tremendous milestone for the offshore wind industry, not just in the UK but globally,” said Ørsted,’s head of region for the UK Duncan Clark.
“Current global events highlight more than ever the importance of landmark renewable energy projects like Hornsea 2, helping the UK increase the security and resilience of its energy supply and drive down costs for consumers by reducing dependence on expensive fossil fuels.”
To Clark’s point on cost, the Government is currently consulting on what it describes as the broadest plans for electricity market reform in a generation. Among the measures proposed in the Review of Electricity Market Agreements (REMA) are interventions to de-couple global gas prices from electricity prices. Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke out in favour of change at last month’s G7 Summit in Germany.
In the UK, wholesale electricity prices are informed by gas prices, partly due to the historic and present extent of gas-fired generation in the energy mix. It has been pointed out that this is not fair on domestic and business customers who purchase 100% renewable energy. Under the latest CfD round, offshore wind operators will sell power for as little as £37.35 per MWh.
Offshore wind expansion
The UK is aiming to host 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 in contribution to its ambitions on net-zero emissions and energy security. This target was announced in April’s Energy Security Strategy, increasing the previous 40GW target set by Johnson through the Ten-Point Plan. The Strategy envisions 95% of the UK’s electricity mix being low-carbon by 2030, rising to 100% by 2035.
A further extension in the Hornsea zone is set to help deliver on the 50MW by 2030 goal. Last year, Ørsted received allocation through the Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction scheme for Hornsea 3, after the project received consent for development in December 2020. Up to 231 turbines will be installed for Hornsea 3 and Ørsted expects to commission the project in 2027. In total, the three Hornsea projects will have a combined capacity exceeding 5GW.
In the UK government’s latest CfD auction round in July, 11GW of renewable energy was commissioned in total. The lion’s share, as usual, went to offshore wind developers.
Scientists want to use a chemical found in crab and lobster shells to make batteries more sustainable, according to research.
“We think both biodegradability of material, or environmental impact, and the performance of the batteries are important for a product, which has the potential to be commercialised,” said Liangbing Hu, the director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Materials Innovation and lead author of the paper, published in the journal Matter.
As the world transitions towards deploying green energy solutions and electric vehicles, the batteries being used for such technology also need to be eco-friendly.
But the chemicals used in conventional batteries such as lithium-ion can take hundreds or thousands of years to break down. These chemicals are also often corrosive and flammable. In some cases consumer-gadget batteries have caught fire on aircrafts, or caused fires in waste and recycling sites.
The researchers in Maryland have developed batteries that use a product derived from crustacean shells to store energy.
Crustaceans such as crabs, shrimps and lobsters have exoskeletons made of cells that contain chitin, a polysaccharide that makes their shells hard and resistant. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP
Crustaceans such as crabs, shrimps and lobsters have exoskeletons made of cells that contain chitin, a kind of polysaccharide that makes their shells hard and resistant. This valuable material is abundant in nature and can also be found in fungi and insects, but is usually thrown away as food waste from restaurants and a byproduct of the food industry. Scientists have long been researching its various applications – in biomedical engineering, for example, for wound dressing as well as anti-inflammatory treatments – and now, electrical engineering.
Through chemical processing and adding acetic acid aqueous solution, chitin can ultimately be synthesized into a firm gel membrane and used as an electrolyte for a battery. An electrolyte is the liquid, paste, or gel inside a battery that helps ions – charged molecules – travel between one end and the other of a battery, allowing it to store energy.
By combining this chitosan electrolyte with zinc, a naturally occurring metal increasingly used to make batteries that are cheap and safe, Hu’s team was able to create a renewable battery.
The battery is 99.7% energy efficient even after 1,000 battery cycles, which is about 400 hours. This means they can be quickly charged and discharged without significantly affecting their performance. “It is not an easy thing for batteries to operate at high current density. The displayed performance suggests the merit of chitosan-based material in this work,” said Hu.
The batteries are not flammable and the two-thirds of the battery made of chitosan can break down in soil thanks to microbial degradation in just five months, leaving behind recyclable zinc. Antonio J Fernández Romero, a professor of material sciences for energy production at the University of Cartagena in Spain, who was not involved in the study, said these were “outstanding properties”.
He said: “The design of new batteries that are respectful of the environment, cheap and producing high discharge capacity, is one of the more important items that must be developed in the coming years.” He added that biodegradability was key, and at this level the system seemed to work very well but it would have to be tested on a larger scale and under commercial use conditions.
The design may pave the way for developing high-performance and sustainable batteries for green energy storage, according to Hu and the study authors.
“When you develop new materials for battery technologies there tends to be a significant gap between promising lab results and a demonstrable and scalable technology,” said Graham Newton, a professor of materials chemistry at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in the study. He is an expert in sustainable batteries and researches how they can be improved.
So far, according to Newton, the chitosan-zinc battery results are promising. “There are some examples of batteries like this that have been commercialized and are being trialed as stationary energy storage systems,” said Newton. “There are still quite a few challenges to be met in the development of zinc ion batteries, but fundamental studies such as this are hugely important.”
Going to the bank in his home village in western India used to be a slow, frustrating process for Kiran Patil, as frequent power cuts – sometimes lasting for days – turned what should have been a quick errand into a lengthy ordeal.
The 59-year-old farmer often had to wait for hours in line at RBL Bank, his local branch in the village of Aitawade Budruk, or abandon his transaction and return the next day, wasting time he should have been spending cultivating his crops.
All that changed after the building was fitted with a set of solar panels and backup storage batteries in 2018, breaking the bank’s reliance on the power grid and giving it a steady supply of clean electricity.
“The transactions now are so smooth and fast,” Patil told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “These days we even find time for a quick chat with the branch manager over a cup of tea, to learn of the latest services and facilities.”
A more reliable banking experience is also bringing in new customers who previously didn’t have the time for long waits or who worried about never knowing when they would be able to access their money.
Workers clean solar panels in Yamunanagar, Haryana state, India. Image: IWMI Flickr Photos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Flickr.
Since the solar power system was installed at RBL in Aitawade Budruk, the bank has been opening 25 to 30 new accounts every month – 10 times more than before, said branch manager Sandeep Banne.
As India boosts its use of renewable energy in an effort to wean itself off climate-heating coal, the country is leaning heavily on solar energy to cut carbon emissions and help stabilise a grid squeezed by coal shortages and surging demand from a population trying to keep cool during hotter summers.
Citizens in rural areas were walking or spending their precious money to transport themselves from their villages to the nearest bank branch, then waiting there for hours. Simply because the bank did not have electricity all day and the computers could not work. – Raghuraman Chandrasekaran, founder, E-Hands Energy
But some communities have discovered another benefit to the solar power push: greater financial system access for millions of the country’s unbanked, including the estimated 20 per cent of Indian adults who have no access to a bank account or formal line of credit.
Raghuraman Chandrasekaran, founder and CEO of E-Hands Energy, the Chennai-based firm that set up the solar unit in Aitawade Budruk, said his company has installed such systems at more than 920 rural banks across India, helping bring more than 6 million people into the formal banking system.
The company plans to install units at up to 100 more rural branches before the end of the year, he said.
“Citizens in rural areas were walking or spending their precious money to transport themselves from their villages to the nearest bank branch, then waiting (there) for hours … simply because the bank did not have electricity all day and the computers could not work,” said Chandrasekaran.
“It was all misery.”
Modern banking
The three-kilowatt solar power system at the Aitawade Budruk branch – which runs everything from the fans and lights to computers and alarm systems – means the bank now has reliable power about 95 per cent of the time, said Banne, the branch manager.
On cloudy days, backup storage batteries take over, he said.
Firms like E-Hands Energy, Tata Power Solar and Husk Power Systems have so far outfitted more than 2,000 banks in rural India with solar power, estimates Shyam Kumar Garg, who retired as deputy general manager at the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development last October.
The systems feed into India’s efforts to install 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2030, up from about 115 GW now, more than half of which is solar.
E-Hands Energy’s manager of operations Kakumanu Prathap Sagar said the solar systems the company has installed at banks around India is helping cut about 3,000 tons of carbon emissions every year.
Going solar can cut costs, too, said Banne at RBL in Aitawade Budruk, noting that the branch now spends a fraction of what it used to for grid electricity and diesel for its backup generators.
The solar systems cost between 130,000 and 150,000 Indian rupees ($1,650 to $1,900) for installation and maintenance for four years, and pay for themselves in about four years, he added.
For villagers, the biggest benefit is finally being able to use government services they never had access to before, said Pratibha Budruk, head of the Aitawade Budruk’s village council.
When the bank suffered power cuts and frequent loss of internet connectivity, payments of pensions, students’ scholarships, loans and insurance were often delayed, putting a strain on people who relied on the money, Budruk said.
“The changeover of rural banks to solar power … has opened the doors of modern banking facilities for our local villagers,” she said.
Solar power challenges
In a country where 65 per cent of the population lives in rural areas, according to the World Bank, switching rural banks to solar power might even slow the migration of young people from villages to cities as more economic opportunities at home arise, said energy management expert Binoy Krishna Choudhury.
“Solarising banks is a good step to developing the rural economy,” said Choudhury, who teaches at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management in Kolkata.
But projects to bring solar panels to rural banks face a raft of obstacles, said Russell deLucia, director and founder of the Small-Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit.
Potential hurdles include finding ways to transport and install the equipment in far flung, often off-road locations, said deLucia, whose company helps E-Hands raise funding for its solar power projects.
Once the systems are up and running, finding skilled technicians nearby to fix anything that goes wrong is another issue, he said.
Despite those challenges, Budruk, the village council head, wants to see more banks tap into solar power as a way to both improve the lives of rural communities and limit worsening climate change impacts such as extreme heat.
“Installing solar systems in the banks is like planting trees throughout the year for purifying the air we breathe,” she said.
“When the whole world is trying hard to slow global warming and the impacts of climate change, this is a small contribution from our village.”
This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate.
WSP USA was awarded the engineering, procurement and construction management contract (EPCM) for the underground storage portion and related surface facilities of a major clean energy storage infrastructure to build the world’s largest green hydrogen production and storage facility.
WSP was selected by a joint venture between Magnum Development and Mitsubishi Power to lead all EPCM phases of the ACES Delta underground storage facility in Utah, beginning with Phase I, which consists of the developing two large salt caverns capable of holding a total of 11,000 metric tons of hydrogen.
The firm will also be responsible for the solution mining infrastructure, water and power supply facilities, brine management, and will assist with environmental compliance for the energy hub.
The ACES Delta project involves converting renewable power into green hydrogen that can be stored in commercial-scale solution mined caverns. When completed it will provide 100 percent clean energy seasonal storage capabilities, thereby deploying technologies and strategies essential to a decarbonized future for the western U.S. power grid.
“Green hydrogen is the future in renewables,” said Andres Fernandez, national hydrogen market lead for WSP, a leading engineering and professional services consultancy. “Green hydrogen is particularly unique because it only uses renewable sources combined with advance technology in electrolysis to generate hydrogen. WSP is honored to be part of an innovative team that will deliver the next generation of renewable energy and drive the green energy transition.”
ACES Delta will capture intermittent renewable generation and shape the product into reliable and dispatchable electricity, making the project’s seasonal storage capabilities ideal for integrating renewable energy facilities with the existing energy infrastructure. Each cavern will hold the equivalent of 150 gigawatt hours (GWh) of carbon-free dispatchable energy, which is equivalent to 40,000 megawatts of lithium ion batteries. This stored green hydrogen becomes an energy reserve that can be released to produce fuel for electric power generation at any time.
The project will use Utah’s unique geological salt domes to store green hydrogen in two massive salt caverns. Image: Mitsubishi Power
The overall project will enhance grid reliability and efficiency through optimization of existing transmission line loads, while creating the ability to move excess generation from highly productive renewable energy generation months with little electric load to cover demand during high-load periods. It also reduces the need to overbuild renewables and new transmission assets.
The massive natural geological salt formation is adjacent to the Intermountain Power Project (IPP) near Delta, with transmission interconnections to major demand centers throughout the west and significant renewable energy resource opportunities in the region.
“Using salt caverns for seasonal energy storage is a significant opportunity to empower hydrogen as an energy carrier and significantly expand energy storage resources throughout the U.S.,” Fernandez said. “This will further support the increased build-out of renewable energy thus reducing America’s carbon footprint. WSP is leveraging decades of experience in underground storage experience to provide a full suite of services around the hydrogen economy. This project reinforces WSP’s leadership in underground storage and positions the company to become a key player in developing hydrogen hubs.”
After nearly two years of engineering effort, WSP is grateful for the opportunity to support ACES Delta for the project execution phase and contribute to the advancement of the hydrogen economy in the U.S., at a time when the industry is poised for significant growth. This project consolidates WSP global leadership in underground liquid and gas storage facilities, including hydrogen, and aligns with WSP’s mission to help its clients and communities become Future Ready®.
About WSP USA
WSP USA is the U.S. operating company of WSP, one of the world’s leading engineering and professional services firms. Dedicated to serving local communities, we are engineers, planners, technical experts, strategic advisors and construction management professionals. WSP USA designs lasting solutions in the buildings, transportation, energy, water and environment markets. With more than 12,000 employees in 200 offices across the U.S., we partner with our clients to help communities prosper. wsp.com
Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) is allowing firms to propose importing nuclear energy as part of a scheme to acquire low-carbon electricity from overseas.
Only plans involving coal will be rejected outright in the latest call for applications that started on Friday (1 July). In an earlier round that ended in April, both coal and nuclear power were banned.
EMA said it is open to proposals from “diverse” low-carbon energy sources in the region, in response to a query from Eco-Business on why the change was made.
“EMA will also be considering a range of factors such as price-competitiveness, source diversity and safety when evaluating the proposals,” added Lee Seng Wai, director of the energy connections office at EMA.
Singapore wants to fulfil four gigawatts, or 30 per cent of its energy supply, by 2035 with imports of clean energy – defined as electricity produced with at most 150 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt-hour. Projects could start higher but must reach this level within five years of commercial operation.
Nuclear energy could fit the bill, with an “emissions factor” of 13 kilograms of CO₂ per megawatt-hour, on par with wind power and about a third of solar power, according to the United States energy department.
Emissions factors of various sources of energy, along with Singapore’s aggregate electricity generation, which is largely via natural gas. Data: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Singapore Energy Market Authority.
Singapore currently produces electricity almost entirely with natural gas. Each megawatt-hour generated creates about 400 kilograms of carbon emissions, according to EMA.
Proponents of nuclear power say the energy source can provide a consistent flow of low-carbon electricity – something wind and sunlight struggle to achieve. Critics fear the lasting impact of both disasters and nuclear waste, a permanent solution for which largely does not exist.
Neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia could be possible candidates to supply Singapore with nuclear power based on their technological experience, said Dr Philip Andrews-Speed, a senior principal fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Energy Studies Institute.
“They have been working on nuclear power for decades. They could, in principle, tomorrow, make a decision (to build a reactor),” Dr Andrews-Speed said.
“But of course, as with everywhere in the world, this is a political issue. It is not purely energy policy,” he added.
The 2035 time frame EMA has set for Singapore’s energy imports may also be tight. Malaysia is thinking of building a new research reactor to replace its current 40-year-old model, according to a policy paper published this year, but no time frame has been set. It does not have a commercial plant.
The country did explore accelerating its nuclear power programme about 10 years ago, but progress has stalled under recent administrations.
Meanwhile, Indonesia wants to build its first commercial nuclear power plant by 2045.
Both Indonesia and Malaysia have said they will not export renewable energy, complicating Singapore’s plans to buy clean energy from its neighbours.
“Maybe Singapore is indicating it is accepting a wider choice of technologies,” Dr Andrews-Speed said, of Singapore’s decision to allow nuclear power in its latest call for import proposals.
He added that the cost of nuclear power over the next few years will depend on the type of technology used and the countries involved in building the reactors.
As it stands, nuclear power could cost over US$200 per megawatt-hour, much higher than solar and wind power, which caps off at around US$50 per megawatt-hour. Geothermal energy could reach close to US$100 per megawatt-hour, according to US-based asset manager Lazard.
Interest in nuclear energy worldwide has crept up recently, even outside its traditional supporters like France and China, amid high energy demand and fossil fuel prices. The United Kingdom wants to more than triple its capacity by 2050. Japan and the Philippines are planning to restart shelved plants.
Nuclear power is not in Southeast Asia’s regional green finance guidebook because of the high risks nuclear waste brings. The European Union considers nuclear energy projects green following a landmark vote this week, but its inclusion had attracted sizeable opposition from lawmakers and environmental groups.
Singapore does not have a nuclear power plant. In a scenario-planning paper released in March, EMA said the city-state could rely on domestic atomic energy to get its energy sector to net-zero emissions by 2050, if the world goes through a disorderly energy transition.
Longer runway
Singapore’s latest call for energy import proposals will be open for 18 months, till the end of 2023. The earlier round lasted only five months, and EMA said firms had asked for more time.
The agency said proposals from the earlier tranche will be automatically considered under the new round, which takes place under tweaked rules that allow consortiums to modify their plans after submitting initial papers.
EMA had earlier said it received 20 proposals in the earlier round, which detailed plans to import solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Laos.
Newly established Fair Transition Unit publishes report outlining how to ensure a fair national transition to a net zero transport system.
The government needs to fine-tune its vision for improving the future of transport and should make the shift from cars to walking, cycling, and public transport more accessible if it wants to hit its net zero targets, a new report has warned.
Progressive think tank IPPR’s newly established Fair Transition Unit published a new report late last week titled Where next? A briefing on uncertainty in transport’s path to net zero, which warned there is considerable uncertainty over the future of the transport sector that is “being exacerbated by incoherent government policy”.
“Right now, we risk sleep walking towards a future where the inequalities in our transport system are entrenched rather than tackled,” said Becca Massey-Chase, IPPR principal research fellow. “Policymakers should seize the opportunity of the transition to net zero to improve people’s lives by enabling a wider shift from cars to walking, cycling and public transport.”
The IPPR urged the government to “embed a more equitable vision for the future of transport” in its net zero strategy. Specifically, it called on government to establish a national strategy for delivering net zero transport that provides direction, coordination, investment, and coherent communication to shape public behaviour, transport demand, the application of new technology, and sector activity.
The think tank outlined a number of policy recommendations that could deliver a “more desirable future of transport”, including promoting more active travel, such as cycling and walking, and placing public transport at the heart of the transport system. It added that there should also be better planning, more local amenities, jobs, and enhanced digital infrastructure to reduce the need for regular long-distance travel.
It also advised that road use by personal vehicles should be curbed, electric vehicles (EVs) should be made available to anyone who needs them, and shared mobility schemes and alternatives should be set up to reduce the need to drive. If there were less cars on the road, then more street space could be allocated to cycling, walking, and nature, the report argued. Such an approach, “would ensure the benefits of the transport transition are fairly shared”, the IPPR said.
“Decarbonisation of transport shows that for policymakers, it’s all too easy to drift towards the safe space of seeing travel behaviour and the transition as a force outside our control,” said Luke Murphy, head of the IPPR Fair Transition Unit .”We must move beyond just predicting and towards shaping demand. Good policy, shaped by public engagement, can ensure a fair transition for transport that doesn’t just cut emissions, but also boosts health, wellbeing, and nature.”
The researchers also warned that further guidance is needed to alleviate “the injustices” of the current transport system, which include higher levels of air pollution and traffic accidents for people living in poorer neighbourhoods.
It added that policymakers are often left in a position where they are forced to react to changing demand, technology, and events, rather than working towards a clear long term plan to end emissions from transport.
The Department for Transport has described its approach as “not about stopping people doing things: it’s about doing the same things differently”. However, the IPPR warned this approach would inevitably focus on people swapping fossil fuel vehicles for EVs rather than seeking to establish new approaches to transport that favour public transport, active travel, and walkable communities. The report also argued that simply relying on a switch to EVs would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest in society and fail to access the social, health, and wellbeing benefits offered by alternative approaches.
In response to the report a Department for Transport spokesperson said: “The government has a clear plan for the decarbonisation of transport. We have set an ambitious and credible pathway to reducing transport emissions that includes a focus on public transport and active travel.
“We have committed an unprecedented £2bn of funding for active travel over five years and recently published our second cycling and walking investment strategy which sets out objectives and investment to 2025.”
Every hour, the Earth is bathed in 430 quintillion Joules of energy from the sun. That is more than the amount of energy the whole of humanity consumes in a full year. These staggering figures show the true potential of solar energy for innovation. And the uses of sunshine go beyond solar farms and solar panels on domestic roofs.
Four of this month’s innovations use the sun as an energy source for applications as varied as urban mobility and water disinfection. A new tiny house achieves carbon neutrality through in-built solar panels, while an electric tuk-tuk can travel 10,000 kilometres per year on solar energy alone. Meanwhile, a cleantech startup has a bold vision to put super-efficient, digitally printed solar cells on every consumer device, and a social enterprise has developed a device that lets remote communities harness the UV rays in sunlight to disinfect drinking water.
Elsewhere, a materials science company has produced thermally efficient clothing that can help to reduce home heating and cooling emissions and costs, while a route-planning app and website makes it easy for travellers to find the greenest and most cost-effective way to reach their destination.
A new generation of self-powered carbon-neutral tiny homes
Photo source Cosmic
The average American home emits around 6,400 pounds (2,903 kilogrammes) of carbon dioxide per year according to NPR. By contrast, tiny homes typically produce around 2,000 pounds (907 kilogrammes) of annual CO2 emissions. Now, US startup Cosmic has produced a tiny home design that it claims is carbon neutral.
The company’s ultra-efficient homes start at just 350 square feet, but they come packed with high-tech features that allow them to function as both a primary residence and a getaway bolt-hole. The secret to the design’s success is its standardised frame, which includes built-in solar panels and batteries. Each tiny house also includes a built-in roof and floor, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems.
The modular design means that the houses can be assembled quickly and easily, without the need for construction crews. And because they are optimised to be energy-efficient, they can be powered entirely by renewable energy sources. Lithium-ion batteries store energy from the solar panels, with the option to return any extra energy produced back to the grid.
Solar-powered Tuk-Tuks could be coming to a city near you
Photo source Infinite Mobility
Increasingly, those interested in city planning and energy saving have been pointing out that it just doesn’t make sense to transport people or smaller amounts of goods around urban areas in traditional vehicles – even electric vehicles. Cars are large, heavy, and energy-intensive, and startup Infinite Mobility has developed an alternative – solar-powered tuk-tuks designed for last-mile deliveries, or to efficiently carry just one or two people.
The design for the streamlined solar tricycles incorporates solar cells into the vehicle’s body. And the diminutive size of the vehicles means they are cheaper to produce and buy than a four-wheeled vehicle. Moreover, the tricycles can travel up to 10,000 kilometres per year on solar energy alone – enough for the average urban user.
Infinite Mobility also points out that the tuk-tuks don’t need recharging from the grid, eliminating one annoyance of EV ownership. And there is another benefit – depending on where they’re based, many micro-mobility vehicle sales are now supported by subsidies from local, regional, or national governments.
Super-efficient solar cells are digitally printed to fit any device
Photo source Perovskia
Cleantech company Perovskia Solar combines inkjet printing with customised design to build solar cells that fit almost any product. Designed for seamless integration into existing devices, the Perovskia solar cells work exceptionally well even in low lighting conditions.
Perovskite is a calcium titanium oxide mineral that, when applied in a thin film as a semiconductor, converts solar energy to power very efficiently. Using green nanoparticle inks, the Perovskia solar cells are digitally printed in a variety of sizes and shapes to fit smart devices such as wearables, sensors, and IoT devices.
As well as being more cost-effective than current photovoltaics, the company’s production process is much healthier for the environment – producing far fewer emissions. Perovskia also provides bespoke designs to help businesses create solar cells that fit their projects technically and visually.
Disinfecting water with sunshine
Photo source HELIOZ
Around the world, 1.8 billion people lack access to safe drinking water. To avoid water-borne disease, these people must treat the water available to them before they can drink it. But existing treatment solutions are associated with additional costs – both monetary and environmental. Boiling water, in particular, causes carbon emissions and air pollution.
But there is one way to treat water that involves no emissions and uses a free resource found everywhere: sunlight. Solar water disinfection (SODIS) is a process where the sun’s natural UV rays eliminate pathogens—such as bacteria, viruses, and protazoa—from contaminated water exposed to sunshine. The difficulty is knowing when contaminated water has been exposed for a sufficient length of time for the UV rays to have rendered it safe.
This is where Austrian social enterprise HELIOZ comes in. The organisation has developed the WADI – a device that visualises the process of SODIS in water containers such as plastic and glass bottles. The WADI device, which can measure UV light, is placed alongside bottles of contaminated water exposed to sunshine, so that it receives the same dosage of UV rays. It can then be used to measure when the bottles have received sufficient exposure to render them safe – defined as the removal of 99.99% of pathogens.
Thermally efficient T-shirts reduce the need for heating and air conditioning
Photo source Parker Burchfield on Unsplash
In the US, 38% of greenhouse gas emissions from residential housing are produced as a result of heating and cooling rooms. In response, materials science company LifeLabs has developed a new generation of thermally efficient textiles.
Wearers of the company’s CoolLife t-shirt experience a continual reduction in body temperature of three degrees Fahrenheit, while the WarmLife jacket is billed as one of the warmest in the world. The CoolLife and WarmLife ranges can help to reduce reliance on cooling and heating systems – both of which contribute significant amounts of emissions. For example, continuous cooling of three degrees of body heat can make a huge difference throughout the day and night, making it easier to target the use of HVAC systems for limited amounts of time.
LifeLabs’ in-house manufacturing technology saves water, heat, steam, chemicals, and plastic. The brand’s initial product line is 74% recycled by fabric weight, and manufacturing improvements have reduced water consumption by 70%.
Route planning for green and cost-effective travel
Photo source Stefano Lombardo on Unsplash
While most people know that flying uses much more carbon than other forms of mass transit, they are likely to be less aware of the emissions to cost ratio of other modes of transport. To make things more confusing, at least in Europe, it is often difficult to book train tickets in advance when travelling through more than two countries, or to compare emissions on different services and routes.
To cut through this confusion, startup Green Tickets has developed an app and website that allows users to rank transport options by travel time, price, and CO2 emissions. The company’s goal is both to make it as easy to book a bus or train ticket as it is to book an airline ticket, and to provide transparency about emissions in a way that helps people make more informed decisions.
To compile its data, Green Tickets uses a variety of sources, including Google Maps for driving routes, open-source projects for European trains, and the back office of Skyscanner for flight information. The data allows users to quickly find the optimal itinerary for each trip, based on time of the year, availability, budget, carbon emissions, and personal preferences.
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Greece has doubled its 2030 target for energy storage deployment to 3GW as it aims for a renewable electricity generation proportion of 70%.
The country’s Minister of the Environment and Energy Kostas Skrekas announced the plans at a meeting with US politicians on Tuesday last week (19 April), according to the Ministry’s official website.
The target for ‘electricity storage’ is double the 1.5GW outlined in an existing national plan, reports Insider.gr, and will accompany a renewable energy capacity of over 20GW by the 2030 deadline according to the Ministry.
Also discussed at the meeting were near-term plans to increase Greece’s energy security through increased local natural gas production, the Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) gas pipeline and new interconnections with Egypt, Cyprus and Israel.
Greek minister Kostas Skrekas meeting with members of the US Congress and House of Representatives last week. Image: YPEN.
Skrekas said that Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine would accelerate the green transition, as Europe seeks to wean itself off its fossil fuels, as would the falling price of renewable energy.
Insider reported that Greece already has a renewable energy capacity of 10.1GW at the end of 2020, so the 2030 target amounts to a doubling of that figure.
The storage projects will be supported by money from the post-Covid National Recovery and Resilience Plan, majority funded by the European Union, totalling €450 million (US$480 million) of which €200 million will be for battery-based projects.
In August last year, consultancy Clean Horizon’s head of market analysis Corentin Baschet told Energy-storage.news shortly that the €200 million would fund a 700MW tender for energy storage announced in June. He said Greece had all the drivers to become an important European market for lithium-ion-based energy storage in the coming years.
That tender may now have increased in size, with Insider reporting that regulatory steps and discussions with the EU have taken place and a tender totalling 800-900MW of storage could launch this coming September.
