A shout out to my friends at Greenbackers, the cleantech networking and investment platform. They have been doing this as long as I have, but from the evidence of their showcase event in London the other day they continue to get better at it. The companies that presented covered many industries, but were consistently of high quality. Presentations included companies doing solid state cooling, energy supply software, robotic waste pickers, lights for greenhouses, protection for undersea cables to name but a few. You can find Greenbackers HERE
UK NEWS
‘UK’s most productive’ onshore wind farm generates first power
The Viking Wind Farm on Shetland has produced its first power.
The wind farm, with a capacity of 443MW, is expected to become the UK’s most productive onshore wind farm when fully operational.
The final turbine was installed in August 2023, and the project is now in the commissioning phase.
Full commercial operations are expected by late summer 2024. (futurenetzero)
photo: Viking Wind Farm
Scottish Renewables calls for clean energy focus from next UK Government
Industry body Scottish Renewables has unveiled a manifesto urging the upcoming UK Government to focus on investment, infrastructure and innovation to ensure a robust clean energy system.
The manifesto, titled ‘Clean energy future: time is now’, outlines key recommendations, including modernising the Contracts for Difference scheme and prioritising strategic infrastructure upgrades for net zero objectives.
Additionally, recent polling by Survation, commissioned by Scottish Renewables, suggests that renewable energy is viewed as the most vital sector for the economic future of North East Scotland, as indicated by 38% of respondents. (energylivenews)
Household names join up with household net zero initiative
B&Q, Barratt Developments, Starbucks UK, TSB and Unilever UK are teaming up on an initiative to help UK households get to net zero.
Called Home Advantage, the initiative sees the major brands working with the environmental charity Hubbub to develop clear guidance on how to support households to reduce their climate impact, based on research and testing.
Households have a crucial part to play in reducing climate-damaging carbon emissions and reducing waste, alongside government and businesses.
Research shows 32% of the emissions reductions needed between now and 2035 to meet the UK’s net zero goal are down to the choices made by individuals and households, according to the UK Climate Change Committee1. (sustainabilitybeat)
How to Keep an Endangered Rhino Warm in Winter? Try a Heat Pump
When England’s Chester Zoo replaced the oil boiler at its rhinoceros habitat with six air-source heat pumps last autumn, keeper Emma Evison is the first to admit she was wary. Rhinos, despite their tough exterior, are sensitive creatures.
She was concerned that her charges — nine critically endangered eastern black rhinos — would be disturbed by the switch. Heat pumps aren’t loud, but they do make a soft whirring sound. New heaters smell different. And temperature in the rhino house, whose residents are far from their native east Africa habitat, has to be maintained with the door open at all times to allow the animals free movement to the outside.
Seven months later, Evison is a convert. Temperatures this winter dropped as low as -5C, she says; the rhino house is usually heated to between 18C and 24C. The biggest test for the new system arrived in November: The birth of a precious calf, Lumi, made maintaining a warm enclosure even more critical. After seeing how the heat pumps performed, Evison says she has “no problem with putting them in any of the other rhino houses.” (bloomberg)
photo: Chester Zoo
EV OF THE WEEK
Kia EV3 throws down a marker
Whilst other car companies are wavering in their commitment to electric motoring, the Hyundai/Kia combine seem to be doubling down and their sales performance is improving such as to justify their faith.
Kia are particularly hot at the moment. The EV9 large SUV has made people sit up and take notice (see Titbits from last April). It’s combination of stellar performance, tons of space and rugged looks has led to instant acceptance and already they being seen regularly on the roads here in the UK.
Now comes the baby version, the EV3, sporting a related look in a much smaller package. It promises more space and longer range than its large cohort of competitors like the Volvo EX30. The pricing is likely to be very competitive and there are neat innovations like a centre arm rest that turns into a table and an AI voice system that can allegedly hold sophisticated conversations with you, a sort of AI back seat driver.
photo: Kia
EUROPEAN STORIES
Ørsted debuts biodiversity measurement tool for renewables projects
Ørsted has today unveiled an open framework for “holistically measuring” and reporting the impact on biodiversity of renewable energy projects, as part of the Danish firm’s push to achieve a net-positive impact on nature and wildlife by the end of the decade.
The eight-step biodiversity measurement tool aims to provide businesses with a new global standard for assessing habitats and species according to their threat status and their potential to be affected by infrastructure development, Ørsted said. (businessgreen)
FOCUS ON: INNOVATIVE SOLAR TECHNOLOGIES
‘World-changing’ solar tech
Sweden may seem an unlikely location for a solar revolution, but the lack of light during the winter months was one of the reasons for Exeger co-founder Giovanni Fili to look beyond the Sun as the sole source of power for a photovoltaic cell. His company’s breakthrough tech can harvest electricity from virtually any light source, from direct sunlight to candlelight. It can even generate a charge from moonlight, though it would take a while for it to be of much use.
The latest innovation stems from a discovery made in 1988 relating to dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC). A pair of scientists from UC Berkeley in California invented a low-cost, high-efficiency cell that was both semi-flexible and semi-transparent, which offered a pathway for commercial development of the technology.
Just over 20 years later, Fili and fellow Exeger co-founder Henrik Lindström came up with a new electrode material that offered 1,000 times better conductivity. The breakthrough formed the basis of their Powerfoyle cells that are now being produced at a commercial scale.
Exeger’s Powerfoyle solar cells offer a radical departure from the traditional glass-covered panels, eliminating the need for the silver lines you see on them that serve as conductors. They are also not sensitive to partial shading, which drastically reduces the efficiency of photovoltaic panels.
The patented skin-like material can even morph into almost any material to allow for seamless integration into a huge range of products, while remaining waterproof, dustproof and shockproof. (independent)
photo: Exeger
Making the sun’s rays capable of forging steel
One-quarter of the world’s energy is used to power industrial processes like smelting steel and making cement. These processes require huge amounts of heat and rely on burning fossil fuels. Collectively they account for half of global emissions of greenhouse gas. A better alternative would be to capture and concentrate solar energy using sun-tracking mirrors. That, though, becomes inefficient when manufacturers try to generate temperatures above 1000°C, because around 60% of the light (and heat) escapes, even when they use state-of-the-art tools.
Now, though, engineers reporting in Device, a journal, claim to have drastically improved the efficiency of this approach. They shielded a solar receiver (the focus of the sun’s mirrored rays) in quartz, a mineral that traps light. This allowed them to reach 1050°C at 70% efficiency, reducing the loss of heat and light by half. The researchers intend to refine the technique, which could one day end a dependence as old as the Bronze Age—that of metallurgy on fossil fuels. (economist)
Thermal power cell harvests electricity from heat at record efficiency
One of the most promising avenues is storing energy as heat. The medium itself can be broad – sand, molten salt, volcanic ash, carbon blocks, clay bricks and many others are in the works – but unfortunately getting the energy back out of heat and turning it into electricity can be the tricky part.
That’s where the new system comes in. Developed by researchers at the University of Michigan, this device works on the principle of thermophotovoltaics. It’s similar to solar cells, which are photovoltaic, generating electricity (volts) from light (photons). Thermophotovoltaics obviously add heat (thermo) to the mix. In practice, that means they absorb photons from the infrared part of the spectrum, rather than the higher-energy, visible-light photons that solar cells capture.
The new thermophotovoltaic cell was tested with silicon carbide as the heat-storage material, although it could be swapped out for whatever else works. This is surrounded by a semiconductor material made of indium, gallium and arsenic, carefully designed to capture the broadest range of photons, and specifically those produced by the heated material.
When the team heated the material to 1,435 °C (2,615 °F), it starts radiating thermal photons at a range of energy levels, with 20 to 30% of them able to be captured by the semiconductor. To make use of some of those with higher or lower energies, the cell contains a thin layer of air after the semiconductor, followed by a gold reflector layer. This bounces some photons back to the semiconductor to be converted into electricity, while others bounce back to the heat storage material, giving them another chance of being emitted as the right kind of photon.
This design results in a total power conversion efficiency of 44%. That makes it much more efficient than others that operate at the same temperature, which top out at 37%. (newatlas)
NATURAL CAPITAL
Big, Smoggy Bangkok Gets a Badly Needed Breath of Fresh Air
For more than half a century, Thailand’s state-owned tobacco monopoly mass-produced cigarettes at a sprawling industrial estate in Bangkok. A steady stream of heavy trucks brought raw tobacco into the heart of the city and hauled millions of cigarettes away.
But now, that cancer-inducing complex has given way to something completely different: green space that has brought a breath of fresh air to Bangkok’s congested, often smoggy center.
The transformation has been a stunning success, creating a 102-acre oasis for city dwellers. The site — an expansion of the existing Benjakitti Park — includes a mile-long elevated walkway, as well as water-purifying wetlands, 8,000 new trees, pickleball and basketball courts, and a dog-walking zone.
It is unusual for a big city to add significant tracts of new parkland, especially in densely populated Southeast Asia. The $20 million addition is nearly twice the size of the original park, which features a lake and popular jogging path.
Bangkok, which has 11 million residents, needs more places like it. A 2022 report found that the city was falling short of the World Health Organization’s minimum standard of nine square meters (about 97 square feet) of green space per person in urban areas. (newyorktimes)
photo: Supanut Arunoprayote / creative commons
GLOBAL STUFF
World’s biggest solar farm goes online
The world’s biggest solar plant has come online in China, capable of powering a small country with its annual capacity of more than 6 billion kilowatt hours.
The facility in a desert region of the north-west province of Xinjiang covers 200,000 acres – roughly the same area as New York City.
The 5GW complex, which was connected to China’s grid on Monday, is powerful enough to meet the electricity demands of a country the size of Luxembourg or Papua New Guinea.
China has led the world in solar power adoption, boosting its capacity in 2023 by more than 50 per cent. The new solar farm overtakes the Ningxia Teneggeli and Golmud Wutumeiren solar projects, which are both also in China, to become the largest in the world. (independent)
Batteries take charge in California
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) announced that at just after 8pm on the 16th April batteries covered almost a quarter of its more than 25 gigawatts of demand, beating the amount of electricity obtained from gas turbines, hydro plants and interconnectors. What happened at CAISO is likely to become a common event not only in California but also potentially in other markets transitioning to electricity systems dominated by renewables, from Ireland to Australia, in a trend that underscores the growing importance of batteries to society.
In a geography like California this is also a strong validation of the role that batteries can play in flattening the “Duck Curve”. This is a feature in places where there are significant levels of solar deployment and where energy supply drops off in the evening, requiring costly and polluting gas peaker power. The power price curve looks like a duck (see below), but the four hour window of excess demand is exactly the period that battery deployment can address. (adapted from Gerard Reid on Substack)
graph of the development of the California duck curve: Aurora Energy
Kenya To Get 1,000 MW Green Data Center
Kenya is already in the top 10 countries when it comes to electricity generation plants powered by geothermal. Kenya has the 6th highest installed generation capacity and is inching closer to being one of the few countries in the world that have generation capacity from geothermal that is over 1,000 MW.
Last week, Microsoft Corp. and G42 announced a comprehensive package of digital investments in Kenya, as part of an initiative with the Republic of Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications, and the Digital Economy. In collaboration with Microsoft and other stakeholders, G42 will lead the arrangement of an initial investment of $1 billion for the various components outlined in the comprehensive package. One of the Kenyan investment priorities is a state-of-the-art green data center that will be built by G42 and its partners to run Microsoft Azure in a new East Africa Cloud Region. (cleantechnica)
Designer of World’s Tallest Building Wants to Turn Skyscrapers Into Batteries
The architecture firm that designed the world’s tallest building is considering ways to build skyscrapers that can store energy using gravity.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP has developed a series of prototype designs that use electric motors to elevate massive blocks, creating potential energy that can be converted into electricity when the blocks are lowered. The designs are based on technology developed by partner Energy Vault Holdings Inc. as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries and other types of chemical cells. They are seeking developer partners interested in offsetting greenhouse gas pollution from buildings, which the United Nations estimates are responsible for almost 40% of global emissions. (bloomberg)
photo: Energy Vault
