Renewable Energy Laboratory

As solar technology becomes more prevalent, cooler applications keep springing up. A great new example is the Solar Vertical Lamp by Korean designers Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun Kyung Kim, a set of vertical blinds that provide light from solar power.

One of the issues with solar cells is the amount of sunlight they convert into electricity – and this conversion rate currently isn’t brilliant.

Recently in the campus of CNU were installed a new type of street lights based on renewable energy.

A new geothermal power plant has just been completed in Beaver County, Utah and will help to power homes in Anaheim. The Beaver County power plant has been named Thermo and was built in only six months by Raser Technologies, Inc. Raser Technologies specialises in geothermal power generation.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture.

The largest wind project ever developed in Chile is currently being planned. The 46MW Totoral Wind Farm is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. The project will consist of 23 Vestas 2MW capacity wind turbines which will be delivered by April 2009.

An £80m straw-powered biomass power plant has been proposed by renewable energy developer Eco2 and planning permission has been granted to allow the company to go ahead in Lincolnshire. What it means is that the possibility for more straw-powered plants to be constructed around the country depending on the success of this first one. Sleaford [...]

Engineering company M+W Zander has signed a contract to be the contractor for the new solar photovoltaics manufacturing complex in Singapore being developed by Norway’s Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). The contract, valued at more than EUR 100 million [US $127.37], includes planning and construction for the cells and modules production areas of the solar complex.

Time has released its 50 Best Inventions of 2008 list and a full dozen of the spots are occupied by either cleantech startups or energy ideas. From floating data centers to high-flying wind turbines, Time thinks some of the coolest inventions of the year are clean and green. Here are the cleantech highlights that Time [...]