I’ve been doing a lot of work in the MetaEfficient lab. I thought I would post an update on my experiments and research:

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The world’s largest tidal turbine, weighing 1000 tonnes, has been installed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2 megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local homes. It was built by Marine Current Turbines, and it will be the first commercial tidal turbine to produce energy, when it begins operation later this year. (more…)

Pacific Gas & Electric today will announce a deal to buy as much as 900 megawatts of electricity. It will be enough to power 540,000 California homes each year, and involve the construction of five solar power plants during the next decade. The company to build the solar-thermal power plants in the Mojave Desert is BrightSource Energy. (more…)

The German Reichstag is expected to become the greenest parliament building in the world, thanks to a decision to rely solely on renewable energy. From late summer the building is due to swap to green power sources such as water, wind and solar energy, replacing the conventional power that it has largely relied upon until now. (more…)

Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend. As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption. Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain. Spain’s wind power generation equaled that of hydropower for the first time in 2007. (more…)

OLEDs are thin, organic materials sandwiched between two electrodes, which illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. They’re so thin, that they could be applied to rooms as a type of wall paper to glow at the touch of a finger or when someone enters the room. Like LEDs they produce light very efficiently. But OLEDs also have to potential to be made at a very low cost, because they can be printed “roll-to-roll” like a newspaper. GE recently demonstrated the first OLEDs to be made in this manner — the researchers worked for four years on this project. See more at the GE Blog.

Via: Groovy Green

Masanori Naruse jogs every day, collects miniature cars and feeds birds in his backyard, but he’s proudest of the way his home and 2200 others in Japan get electricity and heat water - with power generated by a hydrogen fuel cell. The technology - which draws energy from the chemical reaction when hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water.

Developers say fuel cells for homes produce one-third less of the pollution that causes global warming than conventional electricity generation does. Their plain grey fuel cell is about the size of a suitcase and sits just outside their door next to a tank that turns out to be a water heater. In the process of producing electricity, the fuel cell gives off enough warmth to heat water for the home.

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They look like foil party balloons, but they are actually very efficient solar concentrators. These solar “balloons” were developed by a company called Cool Earth, based in California, and it has just received $21 million dollars in investor funding. The company is now planning to build a 10-megawatt plant of solar balloons in the next couple years. This power plant would be comprised of 10,000 balloons, and cover roughly 80 acres! (more…)

On a perfect New Mexico winter day — with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual — Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s “Serial #3” solar dish Stirling system at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility. (more…)

The world’s largest wind turbine is now the Enercon E-126. This turbine has a rotor blade length of 126 meters (413 feet). The E-126 is a more sophisticated version of the E-112, formerly the world’s largest wind turbine and rated at 6 megawatts. This new turbine is officially rated at 6 megawatts too, but will most likely produce 7+ megawatts (or 20 million kilowatt hours per year). That’s enough to power about 5,000 households of four in Europe. A quick US calculation would be 938 kwh per home per month, 12 months, that’s 11,256 kwh per year per house. That’s 1776 American homes on one wind turbine.

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Ann Arbor is on its way to being the first U.S. city to light up its downtown with 100% LED-based streetlights. The city expects to install more than 1,000 LED streetlights beginning next month. The city anticipates a 3.8-year payback on its initial investment. (more…)

The tallest wind turbines in the U.S. have been installed in Texas — the Vestas V90 turbines are 345 feet high, and are rated at 3 megawatts each. They are part of the 63 megawatt Snyder Wind Project, a wind farm that’s just been installed in western Texas.

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A company called SolFocus (which was spun out of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 2006) has started installation of a 3-megawatt solar power plant in southern Spain. SolFocus makes solar cells that use much less silicon than regular panels because they use lenses and mirrors to concentrate sunlight. The solar concentrators magnify sunlight 500 times, which according to the company, is the “sweet spot” between higher energy production and excessive heat. (more…)

Toyota has just announced that it plans on building its first plug-in hybrid by 2010. This car will be direct competition with GM’s high-profile Volt, which is set to released that year. However, many pundits believe that the Volt is “vaporware” and will not be released in 2010. (more…)

LEDs lights are very efficient, but because of their structure, much of the light in standard LEDs becomes trapped, reducing the brightness of the light. Because of this, LEDs are only useful for “task lighting” in the home — as floor lamps and desk lamps. Now researchers believe they have found a way of introducing a new generation of LEDs into households that are brighter and use even less power than standard energy efficient light-bulbs.

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North America’s largest solar photovoltaic system is now running and generating power — about 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The 14 megawatt power plant is at the Nellis Air Force Base in the sunny desert of southern Nevada. It’s expected to save about $1 million in power costs annually, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 24,000 tons each year.

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It’s the Aptera — a futuristic car that has generated a lot of buzz lately — and with good reason — the Aperta is a very, very efficient vehicle (just check out the video: you’ll see what I’m talking about). The car’s head-turning design has a purpose: the shape is highly aerodynamic (much like a jet). It ready available for pre-order, and priced at about $27,000. There will be two models of the Aptera: an all-electric version that goes 120 miles on a charge (for 2008), and a gasoline version that will get 300 mpg (for 2009). The car is also said to be very safe, see the safety FAQ here.

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This is a great innovation — the streets of Europe could soon be lit by "solar trees". These self-contained streetlights could save cities energy and money too. Unlike regular streetlights, they do not require costly underground wiring to install, and they are immune to blackouts. Designed by Ross Lovegrove, the lights have 10 solar panels arrayed at the top of tree-like branches, which charge built-in batteries. The batteries then power LEDs for illumination. Compared to conventional streetlights, they emit much less light pollution, because LEDs generate a very directed light. The trees also incorporate light detectors! So the lights automatically turn on sunset and off at sunrise.

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^{Photo credit: USA today}

After being passed by Congress, Bush just signed into law a massive energy bill that will, among other things, spell the end of traditional light bulb. USA Today reports that the bill will phase out the venerable (but power-hungry) incandescent bulb over the next dozen years in favor more efficient fluorescent, halogen, and LED bulbs. Specifically, the new law holds that all light bulbs must be 25 to 35 percent more efficient by 2012 to 2014. (more…)

The UK plans to build offshore wind farms that generate a total of 25 gigawatts. This is in addition to an existing 8 gigawatts of planned construction. This vast increase in wind power, in addition to the wave and tidal projects being tested in the Orkney islands, could power all of the UK’s homes by 2020. (more…)