Tag Archive for: renewableenergy

The Solar Futures House began as an entry in the Solar Decathlon, a national collegiate competition organized by the US DOE that encourages budding designers to create high-performance structures powered by renewable energy.

LA’s first legal 3-D-printed house is here. It was built by students in just 15 months

Tucked alongside a large dorm building on the fringes of Woodbury University’s campus in Burbank is a small but very eye-catching house. The 425-square-foot home is contained by a gently curving concrete form equipped with a generous porch and a dramatic sloping roof. Slender, carefully staggered floor-to-ceiling windows gently illuminate the interior.

It’s a nice piece of architecture. What makes it truly remarkable is who built it — and how.

The Solar Futures House, as it is formally known, was designed by Woodbury architecture students and constructed out of concrete using the latest 3-D printing technology. It is the first such permitted structure in the city of Los Angeles, according to Woodbury architecture dean Heather Flood. And it was built by Emergent, a 3-D printing construction firm based in Redding. (A quick geography explainer: While Woodbury has a Burbank address, a piece of the campus, where the house was built, is located within Los Angeles city limits — hence the L.A. permits.)

Click here to read the full article
Source: The Union Democrat

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Here are the five fast and effective renewable energy innovations that could help countries meet emissions targets.

5 smart renewable energy innovations

The need for renewable energy innovation has never been greater.

In its 2023 report, Fostering Effective Energy Transition, the World Economic Forum says that 95% of countries have improved their total Energy Transition Index score over the past decade, but there has been only “marginal growth” in the past three years.

Greenhouse gas emissions need to be almost halved by 2030 if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C, warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Sixth Assessment Report.

So, it’s encouraging that innovators continue to pioneer fresh approaches that are making the goal of switching the world to renewable energy more achievable. Here are five such energy innovations.

Click here to read the full article
Source: World Economic Forum

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Sesame Solar and Watergen's collaboration provides a source of safe, clean water for both drinking and renewable energy production.

Sesame Solar and Watergen partner on mobile nanogrids that provide power and drinking water

Two kinds of technology are coming together to create renewable energy and drinking water for use in everything from emergencies to entertainment.

Sesame Solar out of Jackson, Michigan, makes mobile nanogrids that generate off-grid power within 15 minutes using solar, green hydrogen and battery storage.

The nanogrids consist of a retractable solar array that charges a battery system to produce green hydrogen via electrolyzers. The hydrogen system needs deionized water to run, which Sesame keeps on hand during deployments.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Forbes

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

The 3 SoCal counties have more than 4,800 acres of suitable space to develop solar power alongside highways, which could potentially accommodate up to 960MW of renewable energy capacity.

SoCal could power 270,000 homes by installing solar along highways

The Southern California counties of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego could collectively power more than 270,000 homes annually by lining their highways with solar energy infrastructure, according to analysis released Thursday.

The three counties have more than 4,800 acres of suitable space to develop solar power alongside highways, which could potentially accommodate up to 960 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, according to the report by the Environment California Research & Policy Center.

“This summer’s barrage of record-breaking temperatures is an urgent reminder that we must accelerate our transition to clean energy, including solar power,” Steven King, Environment California Research & Policy Center’s clean energy advocate, said in a statement.

Click here to read the full article
Source: The Hill

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Combining both agriculture and solar power generation can also help optimize the productivity and efficiency of land use.

How solar energy can help boost biodiversity and farming

The farming industry has always been associated with the good stewardship of natural resources, but it is branching out into new areas of sustainability, including renewable energy.

Using cleaner and greener forms has many obvious benefits, including reducing carbon emissions and other types of pollution, but in the case of farming it can also have additional benefits.

In particular, combining both agriculture and solar power generation — often called agrivoltaics — can also help optimize the productivity and efficiency of land use.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Forbes

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

USC marked a major milestone in its sustainability efforts by adorning the rooftops of graduate student housing locations around the University Park Campus with state-of-the-art solar panels.

Latest solar venture powers USC toward a greener future

This summer, USC marked a major milestone in its sustainability efforts by adorning the rooftops of graduate student housing locations around the University Park Campus with state-of-the-art solar panels. 

This investment reduces the university’s dependency on the electrical grid and also propels it closer to achieving carbon neutrality by 2025, a key goal of the Assignment: Earth sustainability initiative. 

The project kicked off in July, as cranes hoisted the giant panels atop the Windsor, Vista, Stardust and Seven Gables apartment complexes. Zelinda Welch, associate director of sustainability with USC Facilities Planning and Management, watched the project unfold from its inception. 

Click here to read the full article
Source: USC News

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Domain Capital Group and its subsidiary Domain Timber have announced the sale of almost 1,300 acres of timberland to a utility in Richmond, VA, to develop a solar project on the land.

Domain Timber sells 1,300 acres of timberland for solar project

Domain Capital Group and its subsidiary Domain Timber have announced the sale of almost 1,300 acres of timberland to a utility in Richmond, Virginia, to develop a solar project on the land, a move that is said to help reduce carbon emissions in the area in addition to adding renewable energy.

Domain maintains a portfolio of more than 23,000 acres of timberland designated for renewable energy projects, mostly for solar and wind. Closing of this transaction keeps the company on track towards their projected 75 sales in 2023, which amounts to over 17,500 acres from their total inventory of 254,000 acres.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Environmental Leader

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Iron-air batteries capture that energy and turn it into electrical current—then recharge by reversing the reaction, “unrusting” the iron and returning it to its metallic form.

How iron-air batteries could fill gaps in renewable energy

Weirton, West Virginia has iron in its blood. The town got its first iron furnace back in 1790. Then, in 1909, Ernest Weir bought 105 acres of land to build one of the country’s largest steel mills. The mill named for Weir employed more than 10,000 workers, provided essential town infrastructure, and eventually became West Virginia’s largest employer. “My grandfather worked in the mill, my father worked in the mill, my brother, myself,” Weirton city councilor and former steel worker Enzo Fracasso told West Virginia Public Radio in 2019. “The mill made a lot of people, tens of thousands of people, raise a family, send children to school, live the American dream.”

But just as happened in other parts of the Rust Belt, business sagged as international competition heated up. Weirton Steel declared bankruptcy in 2003 and was eventually bought out by multinational steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal. Much of the original mill was demolished in 2019.

Click here to read the full article
Source: PBS

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Electrify America said on Tuesday that a new, 75 megawatt solar farm in Southern California is now up and running.

Volkswagen-backed solar farm kicks off operations

Electrify America, the EV charging company created by Volkswagen in the aftermath of its diesel emissions scandal, said on Tuesday that a new, 75 megawatt solar farm in Southern California is now up and running.

Electrify America isn’t operating this solar farm. Instead, the company struck a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with renewable energy developer Terra-Gen. It’s the latest development in Electrify America’s efforts to link itself to renewable energy projects. The firms broke ground on the plant back in February.

Your typical VPPA involves a buyer, which pays a fixed price for whatever energy is generated, and a seller, which generates the energy and sells it via the grid for the buyer at market rates. The buyer assumes some risk, because the seller might wind up selling the energy below the fixed rate. Yet, the buyer could also see the upside if market prices trend above the fixed rate.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Tech Crunch

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

A new energy storage project has been unveiled in Chula Vista, San Diego, which has the capability to power nearly 3,000 homes for each hour it provides electricity to the grid.

The battery boom continues in San Diego with new energy storage project

,

A new energy storage project has been unveiled in Chula Vista, San Diego, which has the capability to power nearly 3,000 homes for each hour it provides electricity to the grid. The project, owned and operated by local renewable energy company EnerSmart, consists of six battery storage containers that will deliver six megawatts and 12 megawatt-hours of energy. These batteries will interconnect with a nearby San Diego Gas & Electric substation, helping to reduce strain on the state’s power system and lower the risk of blackouts.

The Chula Vista storage facility will provide stabilizing services to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which manages the electric grid for about 80% of the state and a portion of Nevada. This localized approach will help to maintain the stability and frequency level of the grid in the Chula Vista area.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Energy Portal EU

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.