Recently, on Google’s Green Blog, they communicated their intent to invest 94 million in 4 solar projects. Some equity was also provided by SunTap Energy RE LLC as well as a venture with KKR for the investment.

Three of the project already have 20-year contracts with the utility district. In total, more than 13,000 households will be powered.

Three out of the 4 projects will be completed in early 2012 while the 4th one will be completed within the same year. For KKR, it is their first US renewable-energy investment. It has in the past invested in Spanish solar-energy company as well a French wind farm operator.

Google has now invested 915 million in renewable energy, while in 2011, they invested a total of 800 million. This included investment in wind farms in Oregon, California and North Dakota and solar projects in Germany and California, as well in US’s East coast in offshore wind farms.

Google has had a lucrative year in the growth of clean energy investments. This includes projects such as Brightsource Ivanpah Project – 450 MW Tall Solar Tower at Mojave Desert, which cost 168 million, and constitutes the company’s largest single investment in renewable energy.

For Google, investing in green energy is one of their continuous initiatives to reduce dependency on coal, and to be able to be entirely powered by clean energy 2030.

Axel Martinex who is Google Treasury Assistance says that they believe in the renewable energy sector, and that it will generate a new source of capital as well as reliable solution for a sustainable future.

In addition, Google has been donating a total 40 million in grant to various organisations during the holiday season.

Source: Zee News

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Andrea Rossi’s ability to fuse hydrogen and nickel at normal room temperature is something that most physicists say defines the very laws of physics and is thus not simply true.

The picture below shows Andrea Rossi’s machine that conducts ‘cold fusion’. If this is found to be true, the process can solve the world’s energy crisis by creating an unlimited amount of safe nuclear energy.

According to this Italian scientist, his machine fuses hydrogen and nickel at typical room temperature making it possible to generate an unlimited amount of energy. The only concern to this method of producing energy is that most scientists deny the possible. In the past, there have been several ‘cold fusion’ demonstrations that have been proven to be false – apparently no one can explain the mechanism.

According to the Patent Office from the United States Department of Energy (U.S), creating energy from nuclear fusion is not even considered possible under room temperature due to physics constraints.

At the University of Bologna, Rossi’s E-Cat Machine shows that cold fusion really is possible.

His machine consumes a minor amount of energy to provide a heater with some energy; this same heater can generate even more energy. In other words, the output of energy is higher than the intake of energy.

There are electrical resistances that produce this form of electricity. The reactor did during the demonstration produce 479Kwh of energy after some 3 to 4 hours of operation. The low-level nuclear reactor became antonymous and operated with its own energy.

This typical test conducted to its various customers was to demonstrate the possible to generate a superior amount of energy than initially consumed by the E-cat Machine.

Two Austrian physicists Friedrich Paneth & Kurt Peters did in the 1920s propose the idea of cold fusion. There have been several people who have confirmed that they have successfully achieved ‘cold fusion’ but physicists simply dismiss the possibility.

According to scientists, Rossi’s claims of successfully conducting cold fusion must be information taken directly from his lab and proper analysis is required.

Jonathan Koomey, an energy consultant says that the E-cat experiment should be considered as a hoax until other scientists are able to reproduce the same outputs.

Other people who attended the demonstration of the E-Cat machine such as CEO, Sterline Allan from the alternative energy news agency called Pure Energy System said to Fox News that the machine is self-sustained.

The experiment demonstrated by Rossi was that 470 KW of output generated by the heater make the machine self-sustained. It can work on its own without the need for additional exterior energy..

According to Rossi, the generation of pattern of triple track attoms is the key element of the cold fusion theory

General Facts: An Atom is a typical nucleues of neutrons and protns having electrons orbiting around.

Source: Dailymail.

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The power inverters provided by Emerson, converts DC current generated from solar panels into AC power. The electricity will thereafter be injected directly to the national grid to power households and businesses. The Solar Plants in Sardinia will together generate 10 MW of clean solar energy, which will be both monitored and controlled by Emerson’s Inverter Management system.

The Owner and President of Euro Project, Mr. Marco Lupini said that they have been having a long-term business relation with Emerson, so they were the absolute choice. It is a necessity to have strong assurance, and Emerson’s capabilities have already shown strong performance. Marco also highlighted that working with Emerson for Euro Project is a competitive solution to remain and grow strong in the provision of alternative energy at a world-wide market.

In July 2011, Villaperuccio, projects have been operating and supplying energy to approximately 3,200 households. A project that Euro Project fully financed, managed and developed.

Mr. Mark Bulanda, a global leader for Emerson’s Solar and Wind energy initiatives says that Euro Projects plants are one of a few exemplifications of Emerson’s strong know-how in renewable energy. He also added, that supplying energy to the largest solar-energy projects in Italy is a very great opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency and reliability of our technology.

Emerson has a large portfolio of solar-energy projects. On a global basis, Emerson’s solar utility-scale inverters are already supporting in generating 400 MW of solar power worldwide. Sardinia is a strong addition to this portfolio of solar energy.

Source: Benzinga

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The design of this power plant and engineering requirements were fully provided by Abengoa themselves. The location of this power plant atGwal pahari is about 35 kilometres from New Delhi. This plant has a field of collectors. The function of collector is to focus all the solar radiation coming from sun to a particular collector. These Solar Parabolic Troughs consist of curved mirrors which form troughs that focus the sun’s energy on a pipe. This fluid is heated to release steam, which does thereafter drive a turbine to produce electricity.

The best thing about these power plants is that they are eco-friendly and doesn’t release any CO2 gas to the atmosphere. In addition, as it is a source of renewable energy, it won’t be depleted as compared to fossil fuels that will run out one day. So, its better that we start depending on renewable sources of energy. It is the first power source installed in India, which doesn’t harm the environment and hence provide electricity to one thousand homes without creating pollution. It was approved by the ministry of new and renewable energy.

This power plant reflects one more step of Abengoa in consolidation of its leadership position in developing efficient technologies in the environment and energy sectors. It is currently manufacturing different components required in solar thermal plants and also designing performing power plant able to fulfil the energy needs of the future.

Source: Abengoa and Ev-wind

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Recently, Blackstone confirmed its support in fully financing German’s largest offshore wind power farm: Meerwind. German Regulatory framework has effectively supported the realisation of Meerwind wind turbine projects. Today, it is amidst the world’s most successful renewable program. The government’s visionary program is aimed to replace 25,000 MW of energy provided by Nuclear power plants, by 2022. This is a plant that was released after the serious incident at Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Station.

80 of Siemens 3.6 MW Wind turbines are going to be placed 23 KM aside to the Island of Helgoland, in German’s North Sea. The offshore wind farm is going to be completed by 2013 and will deliver 288 MW of energy. The wind farm will be able to power roughly 400,000 households, leading to a reduction in CO2 emission by approximately 1 million Tons, on an annual basis. In addition, two thousands direct and indirect jobs will be created in the development of the 100,000 tons of equipment that will be required for the wind farm.

Blackstone has since long been committed to the development of offshore wind farms. In total the company has injected $5 billion into the natural and energy resources sector. These investments spread across four continents. In 2008, the company began to invest in offshore projects in Germany. In the same year, the project Meerwind was initiated and got its permit from Windland; renowned German Wind Power Developers.

With the confirmation of the Meerwind financing, another big offshore wind deal was revealed. Blackstone recently announced the upcoming development of Nördlicher Grund offshore wind farm. The farm will be of a total of 64 wind turbine with a forecasted cost of €1.3 billion. The farm is expected to start construction in 2013 and to be located 100 Kms from the German Coast of the North Sea, with a completion date in 2016.

Source: EV Wind

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The ‘Drive Green For Life’ program is creating new saving-energy car; Ford focus EV. It will be built with discounted rooftop solar systems, which will be used to recharge a battery find in the vehicle. The rooftop system will provide 2.5 kws. According to engineers, the solar system will provide energy to travel 1000 miles per months. The cost of the solar system will be roughly $10,000 after all relevant tax credits have been considered. Nevertheless, the cost might be significantly more competitive in regions where local and state rebates apply.

In addition, those who would be willing to go for the car charging system could add a special upgrade option which will enable the owners to power their houses as well. According to SunPower, such an upgrade will cost roughly the same as the car charging system.

The Ford EV Focus is expected to be released on the market by the 4th quarter of 2011. Ford Motor Company will have five additional hybrid and or electric models on the market in 2012.

Currently, the agreement is sealed with SunPower and Ford. However, similar systems will soon be seen amidst other car makers. As the program progress, the upgrade option should be available f all EV models.

CEO of Luminalt Solar Energy Solutions, Jeanine Cotter, says that if a similar solution would have been available 30 years ago than the energy price of gas could have been fixed at $1.20 for at least two decades. However, such solutions were simply not available at that time.

SunPower and Ford are advertising this new partnership as an ideal way to decrease the operating cost of driving cars.

Tom Werner, CEO of SunPower, says that the charging system will be having 25 years of warranty, and this energy-efficient system can help owners to reduce expenditure or even avoid (make the cost negligible) fuel expenses for some owners.

Source: Reuters

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The Indian buyer, is Powerica Ltd, has ordered 26 of Vestas’s wind turbines, model V100-1.8MW. These turbines are going to be used for Vandiya Power Wind Farm project, which will be erected in the State of Gujarat.

The delivery of the wind turbines is expected to start in the 3rd quarter of this year. In addition, Vestas added in their statement that this was the first large-scale order that the company had received for the V100 turbine by India.

The agreement consists of commissioning and supplying of the V100 turbines. In addition, 10-years service & maintenance and Vestas control system were also incorporated to the deal.

The V100 turbine has specially been designed to harness large energy outputs in low wind sites, which are omnipresent in India. The large rotor diameter assures a strong output of energy even at low wind speeds.

According to the Danish company, Powerica is an existing buyer of Vestas’ wind Turbines. They have previously purchased the V82-1.65 MW turbines, which have been installed at Gujarat and Tamilnadu.

After this order has been fully commissioned, Vestas wind turbines will reach an installed capacity of roughly 100 MW for Powerica.

Source: Reuters

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The gigantic wind turbine has a wingspan which is 164 metres in diameter. In other words, each wingspan can accommodate nine-double-deck buses on the blades. The wind turbine can at maximum generate 7 MW of energy, which is sufficient to provide electricity to 5,000 European households.

The new wind turbine has been designed to support the dreadful winds that are present in the North Sea. The President of Vestas Off-shore, Anders Søe-Jensen, predicts that there will be a large expansion in offshore wind farms in the Northern areas of Europe; especially in areas where the sea is windy.

In the development phase of V164, Vestas employed two teams having the speciality in research & development. The teams were working on a parallel basis. The aim of the parallel development of V164, was to assure that the most efficient result was achieved. One of the teams focused primarily on the direct-drive solution. The second team emphasised more on the gears.

The ultimate outcome was that the medium-speed drive-train solution was selected. R&D President of Vestas, Finn Strøm Madsen, said that customers purchasing offshore wind turbines do not want to use untested and new solutions. The main criteria are reliability and assurance of business certainty. The V164-7.0MW provides these two qualities.

The previous largest Wind Turbine, found on the ground was Enercon E-126. It is of a height of 98 meters with a motor driving a wingspan of 126 meters (diameter). It is thus only 38 meters less than Vestas V164 off-shore giant.

The onshore wind turbine by Enercon was designed to produce 6 MW; however, they tweaked the machine to boost up the production capacity to 7 MW. Enercon’s engineers are even expecting to over-clock the capacity to 7.5 MW. There are already 24 of these giant onshore turbines on the market:
- In Belgium 11
- In Germany 13

In 2012, a new prototype is expected to be released by Vestas. The V164 is mainly designed for the North of Europe. However, if there is a global market demand for V164, Vestas is ready to provide.

Source: Wired.Co.Uk

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In collaboration with eight companies Panasonic is building an eco-energy town, which is going to be full-fledge with energy saving technologies. In theory, the houses that are going to be established won’t emit any carbon dioxide. The expected date of completion of the SMART Town is March 2014.

The town will probably be named Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town (SST) and it will be the world’s greenest town. The great progress with this new town is that it will help people to understand how green technology can be incorporated into new infrastructures. Yet, it is certain that the cost of the project is immense.

The Fujisawa SS Town will be constructed on a site of 47-acre, where a Panasonic factory once stood. It is approximately 50 KM from Tokyo, and the area will accommodate 1,000 modern-energy saving houses.

The energy generating technology will mostly come from solar panels. This energy will then be stored in a ‘lithium-ion storage battery that has been developed by Panasonic’. The battery is according to Panasonic able to store electricity for week consumption. To further save energy a range of ‘eco-or low generating household appliances’ by Panasonic will be installed.

This range of ECO NAVI appliances has very efficient systems. For example, the ECO NAVI refrigerator has special sensors installed on the door to detect light, hours of access, and other indicators to minimize the energy usage of the appliances. The refrigerator, ECO NAVI series is as much as 10 percent more efficient than other similar low-energy refrigerators.

The main goal of the town project is to be 70 percent more efficient than towns of similar size in 1990. This means that the town should emit only 30 percent of carbon dioxide, level emitted by similar sized towns in the 1990.

The architecture of the town is being planned, taking into consideration the actual landscape. Green axis will be installed, such as green parking and even vegetation lines. In addition, to the energy saving appliances, only green cars should be owned by Fujisawa SST residents. The aim is to establish a complete carbon free-town. In such a project, the choice of the car plays a primordial role.

This project is even going further in creating shared car services where a few cars can be used by 10 to 20 households. In addition, electric bicycles will be made available for resident to share in the same way.

Even back-up system will be established in the SMART Town. Taking into consideration the high risk of earthquakes in Japan, public battery storages will be provided in public areas and parks. This will accommodate, for potential damage of the individual household battery.

A ‘Smart Energy Gateway’ will be used to split the energy channels; for example, appliances will be on a separated energy network. Energy used to heating or lighting will be on another network.

It is definitely the right time to establish Fujisawa SST. The recent devastating effects from the Fukushima nuclear plant is putting intense pressure on energy saving. Equally, in the Central of Japan, the Hamaoka plant is going to be shut-down due to safety issues. This will further heighten the need for stable and safe energy supply.

Private firms in Japan have recently been requested to slash energy consumption by 15 percent while households are being requested to use fans instead of air-conditioners.

Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister did also support the reliance of cleaner sources of energy such as wind and solar power. So Panasonic is going a step further to lead the energy-saving change. This will likely help the company to flourish even further through its intense know how and knowledge in constructing green towns.

Last year, Panasonic did eventually merge with Sanyo, which is another Japanese leading energy company. Now Panasonic is Japan’s second largest electronic company, ranked just after Hitachi Ltd. In addition, the merge of Panasonic with Sanyo promoted the development of the lithium-ion battery, which is going to be used in the SMART Town.

The common impetus of green technology is it energy saving potential. But it’s cost is expensive. The cheapest way to integrate green technology is from start to finish. It is radically expensive to remodel and restructure existing infrastructures. So it is probably, hard to have major cities such as New York, to follow the green wave.

Source: Singularity Hub

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It crossed Switzerland, France and Luxembourg in a journey of 630kms, i.e. 391.4 miles. This solar plane was powered entirely by energy produced from its 11,628 solar cells installed on the wings and a horizontal stabilizer. The plane was charged by the solar cells during the day and then used the energy to fly at night. Technology progress is remarkable.

After the plane landed, the CEO and pilot Andre Borschberg said that, I cannot tell you how exciting it is to land here in Brussels with this solar plane. We landed at the heart of Europe after a journey across France and Luxembourg. This flight had no noise, and it was free of fuel and pollution, which gave us great satisfaction without any bad effect.

The solar Impulse has a structure like a honey comb made with carbon fiber, and its upper wings are fully installed with solar cells. Its lower part is covered with a light and soft film. Each wing has two pods under it, and each pod has a motor with a maximum power of 10 HP. There is also a battery of polymer lithium, used to manage the energy system as a whole.

We did our flight at an altitude of 6,000 ft and the flight took 12 hours and 59 minutes. He said that this is the first plane without any fuel and without any emission of CO2. It shows the intense efforts of aeronautical industry that is developing new and improved technologies. These technologies focus mainly on energy saving and also more use of renewable energies.

Weight of the solar impulse is around 1.7 tons, and its wingspan is a bit wider than the Boeing 777, with a length of 64 meters. The cockpit is, however, only for one seat. The plane also had a flight in 2010 July, and now it has successfully done night flight across Switzerland. The plane is hard for the radar to detect. This is due to the slow speed. As it was a great challenge to fly it internationally, on the busy airspace of Europe, so a specific plan was designed to protect it from the faster and larger planes.

Most of the time the distance among the aircrafts which are flying at the same altitude is 300 meters (vertical direction) while at least 8 kms in the horizontal direction. However, this distance clearance was kept, and an additional margin of safety was added for the Solar impulse. Niklaus Gerber who is in the team of solar impulse and is the air traffic controller said that, there are planes, which travel at a speed of 400-900 km per hour. In order to avoid any inconveniences these faster plans have to travel at 900 meters above the solar plant to avoid any kind of induced turbulence.

After its successful flight, the solar plane will be presented in Belgium and France on 23rd and 29th May for the European institutions in Brussels. Then after that it will fly to Paris international show. Here it will again be the centre of attention and guest of honor from 20th to 26th of June.

This amazing Solar Impulse plane was invented by Andre Borscherg and Bertrand Piccard in Switzerland. Both of them are pilots and had a vision of making new development in the technologies of solar flight. Piccard also did his first nonstop balloon flight around the globe and made a record. Borschberg was trained as a fighter pilot, and an engineer.

The Solar Impulse is no doubt a great development of human mind, which once was thought to be impossible but now a reality.
.

Source: Green Answer

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