Solar: four times the bang for your buck

It seems to be a small world. Greenbang, it would seem, was not the only person discussing the aesthetics of solar panels last week. HP was too but is apparently looking to change the way the solar panel fields look.

The technology firm has just announced an agreement with solar energy system developer Xtreme Energetics (XE) to develop a solar energy system that, according to the press release ‘can be artistically patterned to mimic the appearance of any building material or terrain for aesthetic appeal.’  Greenbang would like an Andy Warhol panel please.

The technology does, however, come with some impressive features. First and foremost, the company claims the technology is twice as efficient and costs half as much as traditional solar panels. And the press release goes on:

The flat design of XE’s system eliminates the need for mechanical tracking of the sun as it traverses the sky… This low-profile design also overcomes the persistent dilemmas of mechanical solar trackers, which cast shadows onto themselves, require large maintenance costs and are vulnerable to high winds, making rooftop installations especially difficult.

XE’s CEO said the technology would work for, “both the central utility and rooftop markets.”

Europe: VCs’ clean tech star

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the best* at clean tech of them all? Why, it’s little old Europe, says a survey by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association.

And the survey goes like this:

According to venture capitalists, Europe is emerging as a new leader behind the U.S. for life sciences and clean technology sectors. Germany and the United Kingdom in particular are quickly gaining recognition for their technological savvy in these fast growing industries.

Germany was recognized by 43 percent of all respondents as having the best expertise in the rapidly growing clean technology field, just behind the United States. Other countries to receive attention in this industry included Japan and Brazil.

“Germany is the beneficiary of a well conceived, stable public policy that has ensured attractive markets for alternative energy technologies. This combined with a strong general technology base, has fostered substantial innovation in the space,” said David Prend, partner, Rockport Capital. “As a result, for example, Germany, a country with marginal sun, is a leader in solar photovoltaic technology that they export to the rest of the world. Venture capital follows quality technology and innovation.”

*best behind the US naturally. The survey says: “Venture capitalists from around the world view the United States as having the best technology in all sectors surveyed.”

Alternative fuelled cars buck trend as rest of market plummets

When Greenbang was still in her teens, she once took part in a debate in which Margaret Thatcher was decreed the best weapon against climate change, ever. The Prime Minister’s relentless stance forcing pit closures, it was argued, meant there was a vast swathe of CO₂ not being released.

Whether the Thatcher argument is true or not Greenbang has found herself, a depressing number of years later, mulling over a similar question; is change motivated by a stick or a carrot.  She currently suspects the stick , especially if it is very large.

The reason for this cogitation and conclusion is the effect that the current price of fuel is appearing to have on car sales. Yes, rather basic economics really but a nice effect for those that, like Greenbang, want to see fewer high polluting cars on the roads.

As reported in the Scotland On Sunday, ‘soaring fuel prices have led to a big increase in the number of motorists opting for ‘green cars’ this year.’

The latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) are out. The figures, which track UK car sales for the January to April 2008 period show sales of hybrid and electric cars are up 14 per cent on the same period last year. Not bad, especially as the market as a whole has slumped by 23 per cent over the same period.

The 5,990 alternative fuel cars sold represents less than one per cent of the entire market.

SmartSync picks up $20 million for smart grid expansion plans

It must be nice to be a smart grid company at the moment. Everyone’s lauding your products, there’s a bright future ahead, you just snap your fingers and there’s some lucky devil wanting to throw cash at you. Greenbang warrants that if smart grid companies wanted to request that all their M&Ms came with all the blue ones taken out, someone would extract them. That’s how popular smart grids are right now.

The latest evidence? Smart grid bunch SmartSynch has just received $20 million in its latest round of funding.

Credit Suisse’s Customized Fund Investment Group has joined in investing for the first time, as has Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, while existing investors like Battelle Ventures, Beacon Group, Endeavor Capital Management, GulfSouth Capital, Innovation Valley Partners, Kinetic Ventures, OPG Ventures and Siemens Venture Capital all came back to SmartSync with wallets out. So far, SmartSynch has received $80 million in funding.

SmartSynch says the money will “fund working capital growth, expand market presence and accelerate the product roadmap for new Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Smart Grid Intelligence solutions”.

The company’s raison d’être is selling wireless smart grid systems, which “measure how much and when electricity is consumed”. The idea behind all this is that consumers realise where they’re hogging energy and cut down, while utilities find out where and how to better balance energy loads and find leaks, with information relayed over mobile networks. Smart huh?

Apple patent hints at solar iPhone

What’s your thoughts on Apple? It seems to be de rigeur for Mac users* to wander around in a haze of smugness and defending Apple as if it was one of their own children at any sign of criticism.

Now the fanboys have another reason to love the of purveyor all things white, plastic and overpriced: it looks like the Mac maker is going to start whacking solar panels all over its kit.

According to the sites that watch all things Apple, the company has filed a patent which hints that iPods and iPhones might be up for the solar treatment in the future.

Here’s the telltale snipped from the patent filing:

The present invention generally relates to various methods and systems for using solar cells with portable devices such as PDAs or digital media players. In particular, in embodiments of the present invention, solar cells are integrated into a portable device. The solar energy device (e.g., the plurality of solar cells) are an integral part of the enclosure of the portable device; for example, the solar energy device may be coupled, through a shock absorbing material, to the exterior enclosure such that the enclosure, with the solar energy device, may be separated from the internal electrical components (e.g., media processing system, storage device, and battery). According to at least one embodiment of the present invention, the devices have rechargeable batteries. The solar cells embedded into the device then provide the electrical power to charge the batteries. The power generated from the solar cell can also directly power the operations of the device.

*Greenbang is a self hating Apple user. Why? Charlie Brooker sums it up nicely here.

Wafer maker CrystalQ gets funding boost for LEDs

Wafers: is there anything they can’t do? Hold KitKats together, form that basis of an oft-quoted Monty Python joke, make ice cream look a bit more art punk with their geometric wafery glory and be a lynchpin of low-energy lighting.

Dutch wafer makers CrystalQ have bent the might of wafers to their will and harnessed them in the production of white LEDs, the latest low energy lighting star that crops up in consumer electronics like mobile phones, and will shortly be making its way into cars, according to the company.

LEDs are rather popular, in case you weren’t familiar with their work, in some lighting circles as they use about 10 percent of the energy of average light sources and last a lot longer.

CrystalQ has announced a wedge of funding from clean tech investors Sustainable Energy Technology Fund’s SET Fund, EPT / Benno Wiersma and E2 Cleantech.

No word on how much lolly they dished up though but EPT / Benno Wiersma says it will be used to expand CrystalQ’s manufacturing base.

If you’re wondering what CrystalQ does with wafers, let Greenbang enlighten you:

“[CrystalQ] is specialized in the preparation of the base material for the production of white LED’s. The company prepares sapphire crystal wafers and polishes these to high quality wafers for the fast growing LED industry. This round of investments will support CrystalQ entering into the growing of sapphire crystals. Its customer base consists of leading LED manufacturers.”

Boulder breaks ground on $100m smart grid plan

In December next year, there’s going to be a bit of a celebration in Boulder, Colorado. No points if you guessed that’s because of Christmas, a lot of points and a triple word score if you guessed that’s because
Xcel Energy’s $100 million SmartGridCity project will have gone live, after work on construction kicked off recently.

The dodgily-named SmartGridCity is Xcel’s plan to put some cleverness into the electricity grid, allowing it to “better monitor, manage, and even balance itself” using a “portfolio of smart grid technologies designed to provide environmental, financial and operational benefits”. Or to put it another way, the smart grid will give users a bit more insight into where they’re using electricity and how they can cut down consumption, even turning off energy-hogging devices remotely.

According to Xcel, all the design work’s now over with, the company’s put in orders for the necessary kit (including 15,000 smart meters to be installed at the rate of 2,500 a week until this August) and construction on the project has already begun, with the implementation of the high-speed communications network and smart grid sensing equipment.

Here’s how the rollout will work:

Phase I: March 2008 - August 2008
• Includes full-system automation, monitoring and smart meters for the first group of SmartGridCity customers. Involves upgrades to two substations, five feeders and nearly 15,000 meters (representing both residential, commercial and light industrial customers) in Boulder.
• Web portal will provide consumers with insight into their energy use and information for better home energy management.
• A dedicated customer service phone number (1-877-887-3339) and e-mail address (SmartGridCity@xcelenergy.com) for SmartGridCity customers.
• Some customers can choose to have in-home automation tools, allowing increased control over home energy use and costs.
• By mid-August, initial capabilities should be demonstrated.

Phase II: September 2008 - December 2009
• Complete the installation of a distribution and communication network for remaining areas within Boulder (an additional two substations, 20 feeders and smart meters for an additional 35,000 premises).
• Expanded in-home automation installations.
• Enable Web portal access to all SmartGridCity customers.
• Begin initial integration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, solar and wind co-generation sources onto the grid in Boulder.

Homemade supercomputer helps rice beat climate change

IBM is helping change Greenbang’s mind about high tech rice. Previously, Greenbang had considered the bastard love child of technology and rice - that two minute microwave precooked nonsense - as an embarrassment to the human race. What kind of lazy-arsed folk can be bothered to cook rice? It’s not like it’s the culinary equivalent of a 1,000 piece jigsaw, after all. What’s next? Some sort of system that pre-chews the rice for us and then pumps its directly down our gullets, foie gras style?

But the crosspollination of rice and technology can in fact be a beautiful thing, as IBM has pointed out, in its latest project. Big Blue’s scheme will see the computers of average Joes around the world come together to improve rice, with a view to making it easier to grow as global warming starts getting jiggy with the climate.

Apparently, the project between IBM and the University of Washington will use grid computing to research how to develop rice strains with larger and more nutritious yields.

Grid computing, to the uninitiated, uses the spare computing power from home PCs around the world, and creates a sort of ad hoc super computer. This rice project will use IBM’s World Community Grid - the spare computing nous from one million PCs - to study rice at the atomic level, and make it a bit more climate change friendly.

Apparently, the rice research will be finished in less than two years, thanks to all the unwanted PC power donated to the project.

Here comes the science bit, concentrate:

World Community Grid will run a three-dimensional modeling programme created by computational biologists at the University of Washington to study the structures of the proteins that make up the building blocks of rice. Understanding the structure is necessary to identify the function of those proteins and to enable researchers to identify which ones could help produce more rice grains, ward off pests, resist disease or hold more nutrients. In the end, this project will create the largest and most comprehensive map of rice proteins and their related functions, helping agriculturalists and farmers pinpoint which plants should be selected for cross-breeding to cultivate better crops.

“The issue is that there are between 30,000 and 60,000 different protein structures to study,” said Principal Investigator, Dr. Ram Samudrala, Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington. “Using traditional experimental approaches in the laboratory to identify detailed structure and function of critical proteins would take decades. Running our software programme on World Community Grid will shorten the time from 200 years to less than 2 years.”

Ultimately, this project, jumpstarted by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, could enable rice-producing countries to become better adapted to future climate changes because they can quickly find the right plants for cross breeding, and create “super hybrids” that are more resistant to changing weather patterns.

This research is also important in the U.S. and other countries because the knowledge gained creating the 3D models can be easily transferred to other cereal crops such as corn, wheat, and barley.

Want to give your spare PC power? Good plan. Go to http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ to get the software you need to join in. Don’t worry - you won’t feel a thing.

IBM strengthens solar with a cub-scout trick?

It was only a matter of time before the big tech firms started to realise that without electricity, there ain’t no interwebby.

Greenbang started reading about IBM’s clean-tech investments last year. Word on the street is that this has been ready for some time, but they’ve just announced it - perhaps that’s all part of some kind of campaign and timing thing. Who knows?

Anyway - it’s good. And it’s big.

IBM’s has a new idea for improving the production of solar-powered energy.

Remember that cub scout thing where you used a magnifiying glass to concentrate sunlight to set fire to a piece of paper and your enemies? You wouldn’t if you were a brownie and into making daisy chains. (For all non-UK reader, ignore that last sentence.)

Well IBM has taken that principle and applied it to photovoltaic cells and says it could dramatically increase the amount of energy produced.

The IBM scientists are using a large lens to concentrate the sun’s power, capturing about 230 watts in a centimetre-square solar cell. That energy is then converted into 75 watts of usable electrical power, about five times the energy captured by typical cells used in solar farms.

IBM says the cells could be produced in commercial quantities for $2 (£1) each or even less.

So is it time for a smartie party? IBM seems to think so:

Solar cells use many of the same materials, processes, and underlying science that go into making computer chips, so IBM sees the move in this area as a natural progression from its traditional business.

This was particularly so when it came to controlling excessive heat on the cells. Concentrating the equivalent of 2000 suns on such a small area generates enough heat to melt stainless steel, something the researchers experienced first hand in their experiments. But by borrowing innovations from its own R&D in cooling computer chips, the team was able to cool the solar cell from greater than 1600 degrees Celsius to just 85 degrees Celsius.

This was done by coupling a commercial solar cell to an IBM liquid metal thermal cooling system using methods developed for the microprocessor industry. They used a thin layer of a liquid metal made of a gallium and indium compound that they applied between the chip and a cooling block. Such layers, called thermal interface layers, transfer the heat from the chip to the cooling block so that the chip temperature can be kept low.

Rah - so that’s that. Come on other tech firms - keep up, get those knees up…

Your chance to map the environment

Microsoft - led by this man - has formed a five-year alliance with the European Environment Agency to “inform Europeans on changes to environmental conditions in real time — and empowering citizens to play their part in data gathering.”

The move is part of EEA’s broader vision to build a Global Observatory for Environmental Change. The Observatory aims to be a resource for experts, policy-makers and individuals and will allow citizens to submit local data. This shuld allow it to deliver an ever-more detailed, accurate and up-to-date picture of environmental conditions throughout Europe.

By improving the availability of information, the EEA aims to enable policy-makers and citizens to make decisions about the environment and their impact on it. It could also evolve to include real-time satellite information for emergency relief services, as well as for other environmental operations.

Microsoft is providing development services to help the EEA extend the focus on important environmental factors that include air, ozone and water quality information.

The EEA and Microsoft are developing an internet portal offering access to information by location and allowing for search criteria based on local environmental monitoring agencies. The data will be updated in real time in a comprehensive manner. Users will also be able to access the information through Windows Live and MSN.

More information about the EEA at www.eea.europa.eu

Greenbang tracks the explosion of the environmental industry, reporting on news of green innovation and thought leadership.

We blog on this rather than the environmental problems of the world because we are interested in the answers to climate change.