Tag Archives: solar energy

American Chemical Society: ’Indoor solar’ to power the Internet of Things

Posted on by
Reply

American Chemical Society: ’Indoor solar’ to power the Internet of Things. “From Wi-Fi-connected home security systems to smart toilets, the so-called Internet of Things brings personalization and convenience to devices that help run homes. But with that comes tangled electrical cords or batteries that need to be replaced. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Energy Materials have brought solar panel technology indoors to power smart devices. They show which photovoltaic (PV) systems work best under cool white LEDs, a common type of indoor lighting.”

US Department of Energy: U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Geological Survey Release Online Public Database of Large-Scale Solar Facilities

Posted on by
Reply

US Department of Energy: U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Geological Survey Release Online Public Database of Large-Scale Solar Facilities. “The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) released the largest and most comprehensive database to date on large-scale solar energy projects in the United States. The U.S. Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB) includes the location, size, and other characteristics of large-scale solar projects.”

News Release: New Database Shines Spotlight on Decades of Solar Mirror Research (NREL)

Posted on by
Reply

NREL: News Release: New Database Shines Spotlight on Decades of Solar Mirror Research. “The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is preparing to unveil a database containing the results of exposure experiments on solar reflectors conducted over more than four decades. The publicly available Solar Mirror Materials Database (SMMD) will contain information from thousands of solar mirror samples from more than a hundred suppliers that have been subjected to outdoor tests and laboratory environments.”

PV Magazine: Online mapping tool to identify policy-suitable land for renewables

Posted on by
Reply

PV Magazine: Online mapping tool to identify policy-suitable land for renewables. “The tool is reportedly able to determine the number of rooftop or ground-mounted solar projects that can be deployed in a given area, as well as the maximum number of wind turbines within a site considering site geometry and the minimum distance required between each turbine. It can also identify buildings that can be connected to a district heating network within a specified distance.”

CNBC: Google to begin selling maps data to companies building solar products, hopes to generate $100 million in first year

Posted on by

CNBC: Google to begin selling maps data to companies building solar products, hopes to generate $100 million in first year. “Google is planning to license new sets of mapping data to a range of companies to use as they build products around renewable energy, and is hoping to generate up to $100 million in its first year, CNBC has learned. The company plans to sell access to new APIs (application programming interfaces) with solar and energy information and air quality, according to materials viewed by CNBC.”

National Renewable Energy Laboratory: How Do We Inventory the Materials Needed To Build Wind and Solar Farms?

Posted on by

National Renewable Energy Laboratory: How Do We Inventory the Materials Needed To Build Wind and Solar Farms?. “Working with partners from other national laboratories, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have created a new database, the Renewable Energy Materials Properties Database (REMPD), which examines materials needs for both wind and solar power plants.”

Yale Climate Connections: Solar trade group helps minority- and women-owned firms grow in the solar industry

Posted on by

New-to-me, from Yale Climate Connections: Solar trade group helps minority- and women-owned firms grow in the solar industry. “So to promote diversity in the industry, [the Solar Energy Industries Association] created a free online database of companies working in solar that are owned by women, veterans, and minorities, including Black and Brown people and members of LGBTQ+ communities.”

Data Descriptor: A crowdsourced dataset of aerial images with annotated solar photovoltaic arrays and installation metadata

Posted on by

Data Descriptor: A crowdsourced dataset of aerial images with annotated solar photovoltaic arrays and installation metadata . “Overhead imagery is increasingly being used to improve the knowledge of rooftop PV installations with machine learning models capable of automatically mapping these installations. However, these models cannot be reliably transferred from one region or imagery source to another without incurring a decrease in accuracy. To address this issue, known as distribution shift, and foster the development of PV array mapping pipelines, we propose a dataset containing aerial images, segmentation masks, and installation metadata (i.e., technical characteristics).”

Data Descriptors: RePP Africa – a georeferenced and curated database on existing and proposed wind, solar, and hydropower plants

Posted on by

Data Descriptors: RePP Africa – a georeferenced and curated database on existing and proposed wind, solar, and hydropower plants. “The Renewable Power Plant database for Africa (RePP Africa) encompasses 1074 hydro-, 1128 solar, and 276 wind power plant records. For each power plant, geographic coordinates, country, construction status, and capacity (in megawatt) are reported.”

Caltech: Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into Orbit in January

Posted on by

Caltech: Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into Orbit in January. “In January 2023, the Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) is poised to launch into orbit a prototype, dubbed the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD), which will test several key components of an ambitious plan to harvest solar power in space and beam the energy back to Earth.”

Mirage News: New tool to help maximise nation’s solar and wind potential

Posted on by

Mirage News: New tool to help maximise nation’s solar and wind potential. “A new tool developed by researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) shows the best locations around Australia that could be used to build new wind or solar farms.”

Washington State Department of Natural Resources: DNR Releases Interactive Map for Clean Energy Development on State Lands

Posted on by

Washington State Department of Natural Resources: DNR Releases Interactive Map for Clean Energy Development on State Lands. “The mapping project gives DNR the opportunity to use existing detailed information about the lands it manages to improve outreach to stakeholders, protect habitat and tribal heritage, and better serve the needs of utilities and clean energy developers. The tool is the State of Washington’s first published map for locating potential properties for solar and wind energy development.”

National Institute of Standards and Technology: Deciding Whether to Install Solar Panels on Your Home? A New NIST Web Tool Can Help

Posted on by

National Institute of Standards and Technology: Deciding Whether to Install Solar Panels on Your Home? A New NIST Web Tool Can Help. “Whether it’s to live more sustainably, save money or both, many people think about adding solar panels to their homes. Homeowners consider a number of factors, including which type of solar panel might work best for them, when deciding whether the investment is worth it. Now, an online software tool from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can help answer homeowners’ questions. The software is called [PV]2 — Present Value of PhotoVoltaics — and it analyzes the economic and environmental impacts of rooftop solar technology.”

Argonne National Laboratory: Soaking Up the Sun with Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by

Argonne National Laboratory: Soaking Up the Sun with Artificial Intelligence. “Solar absorbers are a material used to convert this energy into heat or electricity. Maria Chan, a scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a machine learning method for screening many thousands of compounds as solar absorbers. Her co-author on this project was Arun Mannodi-Kanakkithodi, a former Argonne postdoc who is now an assistant professor at Purdue University.”

National Renewable Energy Laboratory: NREL Releases Comprehensive Databases of Local Ordinances for Siting Wind, Solar Energy Projects

Posted on by

National Renewable Energy Laboratory: NREL Releases Comprehensive Databases of Local Ordinances for Siting Wind, Solar Energy Projects . “NREL released two new databases of state and local wind and solar energy zoning laws and ordinances in the United States. The data sets are machine-readable so geospatial analysts and researchers can readily analyze siting impacts. This work is part of ongoing research at NREL to explore the dynamics of land use and clean energy deployment.”