Concept car with integrated solar panel Mazda wins contest

Always looking to the future and the use of renewable and clean energy vehicles, Mazda in partnership with the Aurora Vehicle Association has chosen as winner of Survivor Aurora 2050 model developed by designer Ali Jafari, Solaris Concept Car.

The car which resembles the visual used by Luke Skywalker on Tatooine (Star Wars) is the result of a project team inicado Aurora in 2010.  In addition to focusing on the use and conversion of solar energy into electricity, longed for a Project pragmatic and feasible for use in a few years. It's quite different from what normally occurs in the universe of concepts.

Design and potential

The design of the Aurora Solaris comes from a partnership between staff and students of the Aurora design course at Monash University. The result is a car with a futuristic aesthetic and optimized for solar energy. Its surface is also used for absorption and can be lifted up and placed on top position for capture.

Solaris is able to reach a speed of 150 km / h. In its initial design was intended to allocate up to four passengers. It hampered the performance of the vehicle in terms of speed and useful area of ​​sun exposure, making researchers decided so far put only one seat.

Even with this temporary limitation on the project, those involved in research at the Aurora Car Solaris intend to expose it in the 2013 World Solar Challenge, an event in which scientists from around the world gather to show their inventions powered by solar energy.

Aurora accepts suggestions

If you are interested in the project and would not want to wait until 2013 to see it live, you can know where the car will be updates on the official website of Aurora Team. And if you have suggestions about design and technology that could be used in Solaris Aurora, the Aurora team Team is open to suggestions which can be sent by the same site.

Fully Covered Building with Solar Panels

The Tokyo Institute of Technology, decided to bet big on solar power, and the boy had shown the idea of ​​solar panels cover the entire building. I guess I do not care how vertically, horizontally, trapped, and so on.

Building all covered by solar panel

No matter where they come from the sun, the building of 7 floors and two underground floors take them in one way or another to generate solar power. This building is a major technology development centers Nippon that has hundreds of offices and equipment that consume large amounts of energy. This feature allows them to generate half of the energy they consume.

To cover the construction of panels needed 4,500 units with a capacity of 650 kW with an additional 100 kilowatt fuel cell.

How do you like the look of the building?

Solar power plant in the window?

The German startup Heliatek, which has among its investors giants BASF and Bosch, announced this week the creation of an innovative technology, a very thin and light solar panel that can be applied over the windows to produce electricity.

There are already similar technologies, but most of them proved to be inefficient and not very durable. Since the panels and flexible superfinos developed by the company Dresden are made with oligomer, a type of plastic by scientists considered more stable than other polymers. Therefore, they would be more efficient and have longer life.

Imagine large buildings covered by these panels and electricity generating power? For now, the product of Heliatek is still more expensive than its competitors. But the owners of the startup said in a report by the magazine Technology Review, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the large-scale production within five years, should reduce the price of the investment up to 40 cents per watt, would make the product competitive.

Solar energy in three dimensions

The trees need the sun's energy to live, but do not put their leaves scattered on a plane.

Knowing this, Marco Bernardi and his colleagues at MIT in the United States, decided to question the efficiency of solar panels, flat structures, usually installed on the rooftops.

Although much is being done in an attempt to improve the efficiency of the cells individual solar, the only innovation in the field of solar panels themselves have been the installation of motorized systems to keep the cells always pointed at the sun - expensive equipment and require little maintenance.

But, after testing several structures, Bernardi found that the construction of cubes or towers, solar cells that extend upward and not sideways, it is an extremely effective option.

3D Solar Panels

Solar panels 3D also improved yield ranging from 2 to 20 times the yield of the same amount of solar cells placed in flat panels.

The gains were greater when the inclination of the sun is highest, ie in the temperate regions, away from the equator.

On the scale average earnings are the winter months and cloudy days, precisely those moments where the efficiency of solar generation is lower.

Another advantage is to obtain a more uniform energy intensity during the day and during the season.

This is because the vertical surfaces of the three-dimensional solar panel collect more sunlight in the mornings, afternoons and winter, when the sun is closer to the horizon.

Concertina

The construction of a 3D solar panel will do well more expensive than a flat panel, but researchers estimate that the largest initial investment will pay for itself quickly with the largest power generation.

Moreover, they claim that the 3D panels can be manufactured and transported folded, and espichados, like an accordion, only on-site, reducing labor costs.

Samsung NC215-AD1BR Solar Netbook

The hype and flurry were releases in the past, but netbooks survive. The newest Samsung is innovative photovoltaic solar panel installed on the lid. The goal? Increasing the energy charge of the battery without the jack. Its configuration is in the category average. Only owes HDMI output. In Infolab, the model performance was satisfactory.

But as in any netbook, the answers are not always instant. The highlight of the NC215 is the battery life, which reached 4 hours and 15 minutes in heavy use. This efficiency has nothing to do with the help of sunlight. According to Samsung, after two hours in the sun, the NC215 gain an extra hour of battery life. We left off the netbook frying in the sun from 12 to 14 hours. Once connected, the load increment was only 2%, a gain of autonomy equivalent to 5 minutes. It's about time we hope to get the machine to cool handle it again.

Battery life in intensive

Samsung NC215-AD1BR
4h15min

Asus Eee PC Seashell 1215B
3h43min

MSI U270-101BR
1h25min



If the only problem of the solar panel was the fact that the energy gain is almost irrelevant, there would be no reason to criticize this solution. But there is an intolerable contradiction in the design of this notebook: it activates the sunlight heats up the solar cell battery. It is not merely a matter of comfort, the heat is very harmful to battery life in the long run. The process which generates electric current inside the machine is essentially the result of two chemical reactions: the reduction and oxidation. The principle of Arrhenius accelerate chemical reactions as the temperature increases, which leads to a faster depletion of cycles of the battery. In other words, the longer the stay NC215 roasting in the sun, the shorter the battery life. The NC215 would be better without the solar panel? Not necessarily. But it also can not say that the solar panel adds something desirable to the NC215.

Regardless of the solar panel, this machine was designed with the battery life and, by extension, with the ease of transport in mind. Like any netbook, the NC215 carries within itself a set of circuits that do not demand a lot of electricity. Hardware found in the center of an Atom processor N455, whose single core runs at a frequency of 1.66 GHz This is a processor with low power dissipation, no L3 cache and master of a small population of transistors. That is, nothing beyond expectations. Still, by today's standards of computing in general, according to which a system-on-chip dual-core ARM is already commonly seen, this processor is somewhat deficient. He does not disappoint when it comes to use Office and surf the internet, but do not expect much.

In the field of graphics features of this machine are even scarcer. He relies on an integrated GPU that runs at a base frequency of 200 MHz Since the bitrate is not high, the NC215 is able to play videos at 720p without much trouble. The library of games is also severely limited, but one must consider that the goal of those who buy a netbook these days should not involve entertainment.

The HD of this machine is spacious but the average runs with its 500 GB of storage. As for RAM, there is a free 2 GB which, incidentally, is the maximum that the processor is capable of. Understandably, the results in the benchmarks are far from impressed. PCMark 7, dedicated to measuring the performance of the machine to run Windows 7, the NC215 evaluated in 383 points, a low mark for the category. In graphics processing, as measured by 3DMark06, the score was closer to the average: 163 points.

Benchmark PCMark 7 (in points)

Asus Eee PC Seashell 1215B
719

MSI U270-101BR
679

Samsung NC215-AD1BR
383



3DMark06 benchmark (in points)

Samsung NC215-AD1BR
154

Samsung NF110-AD2
151

Dell Inspiron Duo
143



Turning to the connections, there is nothing that deserves a very severe criticism, but there is nothing that deserves mention. The physical ports include three USB 2.0 port, one Fast Ethernet, a card reader (compatible with SD, SDHC, SDXC and MMC) and a D-sub. Wireless networks are due to the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The absence of a Gigabit Ethernet is the more serious offense of this selection. Considering the meager graphical configuration of the NC215, we can say that he would not benefit much from a HDMI. USB 3.0, in turn, is not a basic requirement of the category.

As stated earlier, netbooks are not a priority of who is in search of a platform for entertainment. The NC215 is a good example to support this claim. The display of 1024 x 600 is the average of the class but does not impress in a world where tablets and, more recently, even smartphones screens offer superior quality. Moreover, the audio system deserves some compliment. The volume is relatively high and, even more than the sound does not distort greatly. However, the NC215 is a tendency to exaggerate treble.

The physical construction of the machine is not surprising: anyone who has seen a netbook ever seen (almost) everyone. Despite the lack of nobility of the plastic, the finish is tough. The keyboard, which follows the pattern ABNT2, is as comfortable as a netbook 10.1 "can be. The keys are soft, but reduced in size. The slight tilt of the panel caused by the battery, to help type. The touchpad, in turn, is relatively large and supports acts over a finger.

Researchers develop solar panels thinner than a hair

Researchers from the Universities of Austria and Tokyo have developed an ultra-thin solar panel that capable of engaging in a complete different types of objects and to promote better driving solar energy devices.

The cell developed measuring just 1.9 micrometers thick. To get an idea of how thin it is, a human hair is about 20 times thicker than the new panel. The new very flexible solar panel developed by researchers is composed of electrodes mounted on a thin plastic film, replacing the glass film.

The development of ultra-thin solar cell is mainly intended to replace conventional batteries in the field of medical equipment, allowing the development of smaller products and greater ability to accurately and transportation.

Initially, the new cell is not designed to be used in conventional electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets and notebooks. From this technology, however, alternatives or solutions based on that cell can emerge.

According to the researchers, the development of the solar panel is well advanced. That is, the cells may be used for such purposes within five years.

World's first solar hydrogen station

The Japanese company Honda has recently launched the first solar hydrogen station, located in Tokyo. The station will serve as a platform for producing, storing and distributing hydrogen fuel. The company expects to be able to provide renewable energy for the future.

The solar hydrogen station is the first of its kind in the world. Nowhere has done so much for this fuel. The station uses a pressurized water system that was developed by Honda. The system does not generate noise and highly efficient. It is powered by solar energy and produces about 1.5 kg of fuel in 24 hours. Over time is expected to produce clean energy to the mass.

The station is part of the electric car project, which are the next generation of cars

The carriage is equipped with a connector 9kW to function as a power source. It uses the chemical reaction between water and hydrogen to produce electricity. With this additive, the car can act as a generator mobile zero emissions.

The car is available in places like USA, Japan and Europe, this has not been mass produced due to the lack of charging stations, however, is expected to build more stations in the future of hydrogen vehicles more affordable.