Energy & Decarbonization

There are several flavours of technology today jostling to make the dream of electricity-generating windows a reality.

Photovoltaics is now common on water because cooling increases output. It is used on a vast scale for on-grid solar farms but it has a place off grid too.

This article provides an overview smart windows.

Modern energy harvesting from solar windows to solar roads is about much more than replacing grid electricity: cooking, heating and other high-power activities currently using fossil fuels are now a target too.

Recent progress in renewables has bordered on the surreal. At ICREN Barcelona recently we were invited to consider those giant wind turbines sweeping 200 meters of sky. Up there the wind is stronger and more consistent and that size of turbine is more efficient.

IDTechEx is attending the International Renewable Energy Conference (ICREN) in Barcelona this week. This article reports on their findings from the first day keynotes.

Single crystal silicon photovoltaics will now be very affordable, obsoleting polycrystalline Si PV by having efficiency much higher. Laminating it onto supercapacitor sheeting will form a load bearing material that both makes and stores electricity, delivering it exceptionally fast when needed.

Rare earths are vital to modern electronics and electrical engineering. They are relatively non-toxic and more effective compared to alternatives. See the IDTechEx report, "Toxicant Materials and Alternatives in Electronics and Electrical Engineering 2018-2028".

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Tuesday 1 May 2018 titled Toxicant Materials and Alternatives in Electronics/ Electrics 2018-2028.

In thermoelectrics TE, there is currently no huge reinvention at the applicational level as with solar roads and windows reinventing photovoltaics or at the technology level as with airborne wind energy reinventing electrodynamic harvesting of wind.