Category Archives: Alternative Energy
We’ve seen solar powered lighting fixtures that soak up the sun in the day and light up at night. None of those however have had us this fascinated before. Called the First Light, this beautifully innovative lamp uses its own energy to power up! Here’s how. Using a bunch of gears, cogs and weights, this lamp uses the principal of continuously moving parts to generate energy which in turn is used to power up what we expect to be an LED bulb. The lamp does need winding from time to time, just like those good old key-powered grandfather clocks. It does make for a sufficiently marvellous addition to just about any home however!
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There was a time when a playground was a simple iron and plastic affair. Kids would spend countless hours here, away from modern day gadgetry and the like. Now, giving playgrounds a touch of technology, Octavia has come up with a solar-powered swing accessory that turns the simple yet enjoyable swing into a competitive affair. With three different sound games aboard that coax kids to swing higher for rewards, the Son-X is designed to run indefinitely on solar power and can hold up against the elements too! Priced at a steep $625, the accessory seems like an over-priced though energy-efficient addition to the customary playground.
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America’s first offshore wind energy turbine will show up at Chesapeake Bay off the Eastern Shore town of Cape Charles. Approved by the Virginia Marine Resources Corporation, the 479-foot-tall turbine generator will soon begin pouring in renewable juice in the grid. To be completed by the end of next year, the turbine is expected to serve for a good 20 years or more. Also, the submarine cable system that will hook this turbine to the grid is expected to sport a lifetime of 100 years. The 5MW turbine will use 15,219 feet of submerged power cables to hook up to the electricity grid.
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German alternative energy firm Fraunhofer ISE has launched a swank new hydrogen fueling station that could very well set a benchmark in facility designs of its type. Using energy from the sun with the help of solar panels to power up the hydrogen fuel cell system, this station was built to demonstrate the use of hydrogen as an alternative fuel to petroleum. Germany is quickly turning into a substantial user of alternative fuels and this unveiling by Fraunhofer ISE further lends a hand to the country’s green endeavors. Now open to public, this station could very well be the first of many that we hope will soon be dotted around Germany.
[hydrogenfuelnews]
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The Belgian coast will soon play home to the world’s most powerful wind turbine ever conceived. To be set up by German energy company RWE Innogy, this record-breaking wind turbine is capable of generating up to 6MW of clean and green renewable energy and sports a rotor radius of 400 feet! Rated at 6.15 MW, this one is to be installed at the Thronton Bank wind farm, helping generate about 325 MW of energy, enough to power up the lives of 600,000 people for a year! Working alone, this massive wind turbine can generate enough energy to supply for 6,000 people and is a ground-breaking technological development in the renewable energy industry.
[inhabitat]
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The United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is in for an energy-efficient and environment-friendly makeover. The facility located in Michigan plays home to cutting-edge vehicle research and will be the Army’s first to be powered by a solar microgrid. The microgrid will use photovoltaics and will also include wind energy generators, fuel cells, a mobile solar generator and also a charging station for EVs. The microgrid will power up two System Integration Laboratories and the parking lot as well and will add on to the Army’s efforts to go greener and more self-sustainable by the day.
[cleantechnica]
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Japan is now looking for cleaner sources to power up and seems to have learned a bitter lesson from the recent nuclear power disaster at Fukushima. Now, Marubeni Corp along with the University of Tokyo and a bunch of other organizations will begin testing the feasibility of a floating wind power generation system. To be located off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, the project is funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and will sport floating windmills that are anchored to the seabed. The energy will then be sent back to shore. The Fukushima Prefecture could have quite a bit of green energy trickled into its grids, helping power Japanese homes with renewable energy.
[Via TechOn]
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Solar panels aren’t the only way to light your home using eco-friendly renewable energy. Heliostats function pretty well too and have been around since quite a while now. These however have generally been used for industrial purposes, and aren’t usually affordable for home use. Bringing Heliostats back home, the SunFlower system is both inexpensive and efficient too. Priced at $400, this one beams a good 50,000 lumens of sunlight into your living space. All you need to do is have this one propped up on a pole and position it just where you need the light. The SunFlower then automatically tracks the sun and keeps the specified area illuminated, making this heliostat a great way to light up during the day, in an eco-friendly manner.
[gizmodo]
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Designer Phil Pauley came up with a design that could pretty much change our lives today. A portable power source in all essence, the Powerpack365 soaks in energy from the sun to power your gadgets on the go. The device basically piggybacks onto other devices like laptops and smartphones and power them up with renewable energy. Sporting solar cells and light emitting technology facing one another in an enclosed housing, the Powerpack365 concept seems to be an efficient answer to power up while away from grid connections. Also, the Powerpack365 could very well find larger applications up ahead, and designer Phil Pauley plans to have this one accompany a $200 price tag.
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Water buoys now get greener with this interesting concept by designer Dr. Hakan Gursu. Sculpted out for Designnobis, the Triton buoy is an eco-friendly self sustained warning device that requires no grid connections to power up. By harvesting energy from the wind and the sun, the Triton powers on all of its warning signals efficiently. Winner of the prestigious Design Turkey Award, the Triton uses LEDs, solar panels and wind turbines and comes with GPRS, making it easier to locate by port authorities and ships alike.
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