ARPA-E Project Combines Heat and Electricity | MIT Technology Review

The government’s energy research agency is spending $30 million to demonstrate cheap solar power that’s available day and night.

By Kevin Bullis on July 31, 2013

Combining the strengths of two different solar technologies could yield “hybrid solar power” that works even at night or when it’s cloudy.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy is devoting $30 million to several demonstration projects that will attempt to combine photovoltaics with solar thermal. Early-stage work being conducted by researchers around the U.S. hints at how the combined technology might work.
Read the full story: ARPA-E Project Combines Heat and Electricity | MIT Technology Review

SunDrum Solar Hybrid PVT System reaches peak 86% delivery record - Renewable Energy Focus

SunDrum Solar LLC said it has achieved a solar industry one hour peak delivery record of 86% for a hybrid solar system, which generates both photovoltaic and thermal (PVT) solar energy.

This record was achieved on April 24, 2013 and was enabled by the combination of a standard Photovoltaic (PV) panel and the SDM 100 thermal collector from SunDrum Solar.

After adjustment for all system losses, a record of 86% was used by the home in Massachusetts during the peak hour of 2-3PM - when 870W of thermal energy and 200W of electrical energy was delivered by each solar panel fitted with the SunDrum Solar Collector. This performance sets a new record for a fixed, non tracking, hybrid array, said the company.

Read the full story at http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/33360/sundrum-solar-hybrid-pvt-system-reaches-peak-86-delivery-record/

Times of Oman | Feature :: Hybrid power plants: Renewable energy’s newest trend

byJohn Brian Shannon - Special to Times of Oman

Photo - SolarPraxis.de

One option for renewable energy producers that has been open to utility companies but rarely utilized, is the installation of both wind and solar power plants together at the same location, which results in a doubling in the amount of electricity produced. Prior to a study done by Reiner Lemoine Institut and Solarpraxis AG, it was (incorrectly) thought that the huge towers upon which the wind turbines are mounted would cast huge shadows over the photovoltaic solar panel array, thereby reducing their efficiency by a significant factor. It turns out that when solar and wind power generation are combined on the same site, such hybrid power plants complement each other better, than had been imagined. Approximately twice the power generation is available from any such hybrid power plant site, when compared to wind or solar only. The landmark study took into account the amount of sunlight loss (shading) which would occur in a carefully designed hybrid power plant. Energy losses were less than 2 percent of total output. This is a lower energy loss percentage, than compared to conventional power plant energy, such as coal — where up to 10 percent of the coal can be lost during transport from North America to China, or from Australia to China, and later storage, for example. A major benefit of such hybrid power plants is that due to the relative intermittency of both wind power and solar power is they tend to cancel out the others weaknesses. Grid expansion, is therefore not required for hybrid power plants. Wind power peaks at night, during cool days, and in the colder seasons of the year — while solar produces power during the daylight hours, the warmer parts of the day and most especially during the warmer seasons, when the Sun is high in the sky, directly over the solar panel array... Read the full story - Times of Oman | Feature :: Hybrid power plants: Renewable energy’s newest trend

More Good News About The Scientific Accident That May Change The World

by Chris Clarke

on February 21, 2013 2:51 PM

Graphene supercapacitors | Photo: UCLA

That battery life video that had gone viral due to a recent post on UpWorthy (and which we told you about Tuesday) now has an update. We told you that researchers at Ric Kaner's lab at UCLA had found a way to make a non-toxic, highly efficient energy storage medium out of pure carbon using absurdly simple technology. Today, we can report that the same team may well have found a way to make that process scale up to mass-production levels.

The recap: Graphene, a very simple carbon polymer, can be used as the basic component of a "supercapacitor" -- an electrical power storage device that charges far more rapidly than chemical batteries. Unlike other supercapacitors, though, graphene's structure also offers a high "energy density," -- it can hold a lot of electrons, meaning that it could conceivably rival or outperform batteries in the amount of charge it can hold...

Read the full story More Good News About The 'Scientific Accident That May Change The World' | Science | ReWire | KCET