Nov 19
You’re peering down the main supporting tower of Siemens’ latest offshore wind turbine—which just happens to be the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world. More »
Nov 16
GM and ABB Create Uninterruptible Power Supply for Homes Using Old Volt Batteries
Posted in: Today's ChiliGeneral Motors has announced that it has teamed up with a company called ABB to come up with away to use the batteries inside of the Chevrolet Volt extended range electric vehicle after they’re no longer usable in the car. The batteries used in EVs have typically only used up about 30% of their total life when they’re no longer viable for automotive use.
The two companies have come up with an interesting secondary use for the batteries that was shown off recently at the GM Electrification Experience.
The partnership resulted in a prototype uninterruptible power supply that used five Volt batteries. The prototype system provided 25kW of power and 50kWh of energy during the event. In fact, the batteries inside the prototype system powered all of the lighting and audiovisual systems needed for the Electrification Event.
The idea is that one of these five battery modular units would be able to provide two hours of uninterrupted electricity to between three and five average American homes during a power outage. The uninterruptible power supplies could also be used to keep industrial facilities operating as well. There’s no indication of when these uninterruptible power supplies might be available on the commercial market.
Nov 06
I’ve seen some pretty awesome videos involving Tesla coils over the years, but I have to say this is my new favorite. This video was captured at the recent Belfast Festival at Queens, Ireland, and it involves a couple of dudes going all Raiden on each other, firing bolts of electricity at one another.
Check out the epic electric battle in the video clip below. (Note, there’s a little NSFW language from the audience.)
Pretty awesome, eh? I’m just glad it didn’t start raining during the performance.
[via Obvious Winner]
Oct 26
Every day, an army of computers and human operators toil in control rooms, providing electricity to a city, guiding planes across the sky, or searching for the Higgs-Boson. These rooms are all extremely important, whether they’re making breakthrough discoveries or just keeping the lights on. More »
Oct 25
A new battery technology may pave the way for cheap, long-lived power storage that can quickly pump electricity into the grid to compensate for fluctuating renewables like wind and solar. More »
Oct 23
IBM announces Smarter Energy Research Institute, aims to improve energy grids (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
IBM is no stranger to energy concerns, and now its founded the Smarter Energy Research Institute in partnership with Canada’s Hydro-Québec, the Netherlands’ Alliander, and the US’ DTE Energy to help build a better grid. The partnership will leverage Big Blue’s computing and analytic oomph to help the utility companies predict and detect anomalies within infrastructure, identify areas of the grid that need to be developed, integrate new energy sources and increase efficiency among other improvements. What’s this mean for you? For one, power outages should be less frequent and shorter lived when they do occur. Thanks to the distributed nature of the project, research will be spread throughout IBM’s worldwide network of research labs. If you’d like to hear more details straight from the folks involved, hit the jump for a video and the full press release.
IBM announces Smarter Energy Research Institute, aims to improve energy grids (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sep 28
If you’re buying an iPhone 5, you’re probably paying a lot of money for the handset. That’s especially true if you’re buying the phone directly from Apple without a two-year contract, as the cost of the 16GB model is set at $649 – and that’s the least expensive model on offer. That certainly isn’t cheap, but there’s one aspect of the iPhone 5 that isn’t expensive at all: the cost to charge it.
The folks at Opower ran some tests and determined that the iPhone 5 only costs an estimated 41 cents per year to charge. Getting a little more specific, they used the Watts Up Pro Consumption Power Meter to figure out how much electricity the iPhone 5 consumes when charging from 0% to 100%. Once they had those results, it only took a little bit of math to figure out how much it will cost consumers to charge their iPhone 5 per year.
The test assumes that these iPhone 5 users are charging their shiny new handset once per day, which isn’t unreasonable considering the iPhone 5′s beefier battery compared to past iPhones. Just for kicks, the Opower team also tested the Galaxy S III and determined that it costs 53 cents per year to charge Samsung’s flagship. Why the discrepancy between the two handsets? The Galaxy S III features a bigger battery than the iPhone 5, meaning it takes a little bit more electricity to fully charge it.
Still, the difference between the two is negligible, especially since the cost is spread out over an entire year. It’s somewhat surprising that the cost to charge a cell phone is so low, but Opower also reminds us that the power usage is actually quite significant when we take all smartphone users into account. That’s set to increase quite a bit in the near future too, as it’s estimated that by 2016, a whopping 1 billion people around the world will have smartphones. If you have a few minutes, be sure to read through Opower’s entire report, as it’s all very fascinating. What do you think of this little experiment?
iPhone 5, Galaxy S III cost less than $1 per year to charge is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Sep 26
Google data center in Oklahoma to get 48MW of wind power, boost renewable energy in the Sooner state
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Google has made a point of relying on renewable resources for its data centers whenever possible, even down to the cooling. It hasn’t had quite as unique an arrangement as what it’s planning for its data center in Oklahoma, though. The search firm wants to supply its Mayes County location with 48MW of wind energy from Apex’s Canadian Hills Wind Project, but it isn’t buying power directly from the source. Instead, it’s making a deal with the Grand River Dam Authority, a utility, to purchase the clean power on top of what’s already supplied from the GRDA at present. The deal should keep the data center on the environmentally friendly side while giving it room to grow. Wind power will come online at Google’s facility once the Canadian Hills effort is up and running later in 2012; hopefully, that gives us enough time to better understand why there’s a Canadian River and Canadian Hills to be found in the southern United States.
Filed under: Internet
Google data center in Oklahoma to get 48MW of wind power, boost renewable energy in the Sooner state originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sep 26
Sharp unveils semi-transparent solar panels, lets you see the sun while reaping its benefits
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Sharp has announced an unusual photovoltaic panel for the Japanese market that collects energy from the sun while still allowing the light to shine on through. Though it’s rated at a lowly 6.8 percent / 98 watt max efficiency, the glass-like properties make it useful as a construction material (as shown in the balcony railing above), with the semi-transparent nature giving occupants privacy, to boot. The energy-producing cells are embedded in a laminated glass structure and an air slot provides a thermal barrier, allowing the panels to also be used as “windows, curtain wall and eaves” according to Sharp’s PR. Though the system won’t win any potency prizes, it has garnered a design award in Japan, so it won’t blight any landscapes. There’s no mention of pricing or western availability so far, but you can hit the source for all the technical details.
Filed under: Household
Sharp unveils semi-transparent solar panels, lets you see the sun while reaping its benefits originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 05:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sep 24
Microsoft deliberately wasted energy at data center to avoid fine, says NY Times
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Microsoft’s desire to avoid a fine combined with a power company’s strict electricity usage rules resulted in the software giant deliberately wasting millions of watts of power, according to the New York Times. Redmond’s Quincy data center, which houses Bing, Hotmail and other cloud-based servers, had an agreement in place with a Washington state utility containing clauses which imposed penalties for under-consumption of electricity. A $210,000 fine was levied last year, since the facility was well below its power-use target, which prompted Microsoft to deliberately burn $70,000 worth of electricity in three days “in a commercially unproductive manner” to avoid it, according to its own documents. The utility board capitulated and reduced the amend to $60k, but the messy situation seems a far cry from Redmond’s pledge to become carbon neutral by this summer.
[Image credit: New York Times]
Microsoft deliberately wasted energy at data center to avoid fine, says NY Times originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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