Metals Tech

Brazilian utility Elektro has selected Itron to improve consumer energy efficiency and grid management.

The energy distributor to 13,6 million customers will deploy Itron’s Gen5 IoT network to provide connectivity for smart meters and other grid devices.

The network will be deployed in cities Atibaia, Nazaré Paulista and Bom Jesus dos Perdões, over the next year.

Itron is partnering with its sales partner Eletra, a meter provider.

Elektro will also replace some 40,000 existing meters with Eletra’s Zeus smart meters to provide consumers with real-time energy usage data.

The solution is expected to help Elektro to improve grid reliability and reduce commercial losses.

The programme will equip the utility with distribution automation and fault control indicators and will be able to help cities integrate innovative solutions like smart lighting, traffic control and EV charging stations.

Itron will also provide Brazil’s second largest energy distributor with professional services and software maintenance to ensure reliable, predictable software delivery, operations and upgrades.

The project is part of efforts by Elektro to modernise its grid network, as well as build a foundation to become a distribution system operator.

Heron Fontana, Smart Grids superintendent for Neoenergia, said: “Combining Eletra’s smart meters and Itron’s network will improve our infrastructure and service delivery to our customers.

“Itron’s network is Wi-SUN compliant and aligned with our digitalisation strategy of implementing open-standards solutions, enabling further opportunities as distribution automation, streetlights and other applications.”

During European Utility Week, we spoke with Itron on how their acquisition of Silver Spring Networks will benefit utilities and IoT customers.

With the enormous growth in global energy consumption, more effort is being invested in identifying and improving energy‐saving technologies. Smart windows constructed using supramolecular materials are one such example. Thermochromic smart windows can automatically adjust the window transparency via the ambient temperature to achieve reversible regulation of the solar transmittance that enters through the window.

Conventional thermochromic smart windows are layered with vanadium dioxide (VO2) owing to the optical contrast it confers after phase transition; however, VO2 does have a few limitations, including a high transition temperature (68 °C), low light transmittance, and an unattractive blackness, which also greatly limits its applications.

The other alternative, thermochromic hydrogels, such as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), have demonstrated delayed responsiveness in such thermochromic devices, and therefore do not meet the requirement for achieving a comfortable indoor temperature.

A research team led by Professors Xiao-Yu Hu and Leyong Wang from Nanjing University have developed a supramolecular nanocomposite hydrogel film by integrating ethylene glycol-modified pillar[5]arene (EGP5) and antimony-tin oxide (ATO) nanoparticles.

Owing to the thermo-responsiveness of EGP5 and the plasmonic heating effect induced by the near infrared absorption spectrum of ATO, the obtained supramolecular film exhibits an outstanding photo-thermochromic effect. Upon being irradiated with a xenon lamp at 100 mW·cm-2 for 10 minutes, the film heats up to 32.1 °C via the ATO nanoparticles, transforming the transparent film into an opaque coating.

The hydrogel demonstrates both excellent solar energy modulation and luminous transmittance. Moreover, the dynamic and reversible nature of the host-guest interaction between EGP5 and the pyridinium‐modified polyacrylamide network prevents the collapse and damage of the hydrogel structure (a common drawback seen in previously proposed thermosensitive polymers), leading to high repeatability and durability of the obtained photo-thermochromic film.

The authors believe that this supramolecular film could be further applied to the fabrication of smart windows that can preferentially trigger its sunlight-induced photo-thermochromic effect to achieve a cool indoor temperature. The team hopes to continue focusing on the investigation of smart windows constructed based on a supramolecular strategy, and eventually develop novel smart windows made of color-changeable supramolecular materials.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras has developed a portable solar-powered cold storage device with a 500 kg capacity for storing vegetables and fruits, among other items. This device will help farmers store their produce, preventing wastage of agricultural produce.

The first unit of the device, which provides storage facility with temperature ranging between 4 and 10 degrees Celsius, was deployed at a farm in Madurantakam in Kancheepuram district, around 80 km from Chennai, recently. “Vegetables, leaves, flowers and fruits can be stored for 24 hours in the device. Each device would be enough for 5 or 6 acres of land or for a group of three to four farmers,” said Professor Satyanarayanan Seshadri, who developed the system.

Each unit would cost between Rs 550,000 to 600,000 (€6,700-7,300) and storage capacity could be scaled down based on requirement. “The unit uses thermal energy storage… The photovoltaic-powered refrigeration system is used to charge the indoor thermal battery in the form of latent heat during day time and used to maintain temperature (10C) for 20-24 hours,” Seshadri said.

The project has been funded by Department of Science and Technology (Ministry of Science and Technology) and IIT-M.

Earlier also, three engineering students at IIT Kharagpur were fascinated with the opportunities in and the unlimited potential of the solar industry in India. Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey incorporated EcoZen Solutions in 2010 with the objective to provide energy access in an efficient manner to the masses.

Ecozen started as a solar solutions company which provided B2B plug-n-play solutions on energy management, helped client organizations reduce their energy consumption and switch to solar energy sources for their energy needs. Bootstrapping their way and growing organically, Ecozen started providing solar solutions, ranging from solar lanterns, home lighting, LED street lighting, solar roof tops to power plant scale solar solutions.

It also developed innovative agricultural products powered by solar energy — water pumping solutions for drinking and irrigation. Ecofrost Technologies, an affiliate of Ecozen Solutions is working on a solar micro cold storage system to meet the demands for storage needs of farmers.

The trio tells us that in India alone, 10 million tons of cold storage capacity is required to prevent the over 30 percent wastage of perishable produce. Total annual food wastage in India is approximately Rs. 44,000 crore. Lack of high quality cold storage facilities and lack of refrigerated transport for food manufacturers and food sellers are said to be two of the biggest contributors to food losses.

Taking electrons out for a spin through the nanoscopic streets of a digital device – without spinning out of control – has challenged researchers for years.

But maintaining that control as the sub-atomic particles race toward processors could yield an ever-prized trophy: cheaper, faster and far more energy-efficient devices.

Evgeny Tsymbal and Lingling Tao may have just waved the green flag – or at least ditched the white one. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln physicists have identified a material whose crystalline structure might better sustain an electron’s spin: a property that, similar to charge, can represent bits of information in digital devices.

Standard CPUs read amounts of electric charge as either 1s or 0s, with that charge opening or closing a gate that regulates the electrons’ flow. In much the same way, spintronic devices can read the orientation of an electron’s spin: up vs. down. Devices that can speak both digital languages – charge and spin – stand poised to process and store information at rates that easily surpass the devices available on today’s market.

Yet the spin orientation of an electron can flip on a quantum whim, and often does. That’s a problem for electrical engineers.

One promising solution involves applying voltage to the gate that already dictates the flow of electrons. Voltage can essentially “write” the spin of those electrons as up or down while they flow, but inevitable imperfections in the nanoscopic structure of a device will also alter their momentum. And because momentum affects spin, a shift in the electrons’ velocity or trajectory can change their intended spin states before they get read by a processor, potentially resulting in gibberish.

“The process becomes basically a random flipping of spin,” said Tsymbal, George Holmes University Professor of Physics and Astronomy. “When electrons arrive at the region where they should be detected, they lose the information encoded in their spin orientation.”

Enter a material known as bismuth indium oxide. Based on calculations run through the university’s Holland Computing Center, the crystalline material features a set of atomic symmetries that seem to pin an electron’s spin in a certain direction that’s independent of its momentum. If true, engineers could begin using voltage to dictate spin without worrying about how defects affect an electron’s momentum.

The atomic symmetries of bismuth indium oxide probably exist in other crystalline materials, Tsymbal said, meaning that material scientists are likely to discover other candidates.

“Once a material has this particular crystal symmetry, one can claim that this material should also have the spin-sustaining property,” said Tsymbal, director of Nebraska’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

Spintronic devices already consume substantially less energy than standard electronics. Tsymbal said the potential to write spin orientation using voltage rather than electric current could make the devices even more efficient – potentially up to 1,000 times more so.

“Spintronics is also energy-related research, because by saving energy in our electronic devices, we reduce power consumption,” Tsymbal said. “This is a very important issue.”

Tsymbal and Tao, a postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy, reported their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

 

Tandem solar cells made of silicon and metal halide perovskite compounds can convert a particularly large portion of the solar spectrum into electrical energy. However, part of the light is reflected and is thus lost for purposes of energy conversion. Using nanostructures, the reflection can be reduced significantly ensuring that the solar cell captures more light. For example, pyramid-shaped microfeatures can be etched into silicon. However, these features cause microscopic roughness in the silicon surface, making it no longer suitable as a substrate for deposition of extremely thin perovskite layers. This is because perovskites are normally deposited to a polished wafer using solution processing to form an extremely thin film, much thinner than the pyramidal features. A rough-etched silicon surface layer therefore prevents formation of a uniform conformal layer.

Efficiency improved from 23,4 % to 25.5 %

A team headed by HZB physicist Steve Albrecht has investigated an alternative approach of light management with textures in tandem solar cells. The team fabricated an efficient perovskite/silicon tandem device whose silicon layer was etched on the back-side. The perovskite layer could be applied by spincoating onto the smooth front-side of the silicon. The team afterwards applied a polymer light management (LM) foil to the front-side of the device. This enabled processing of a high-quality perovskite film on a flat surface, while still benefiting from the front-side texture. “In this way, we succeeded in considerably improving the efficiency of a monolithic perovskite-silicon heterojunction tandem cell from 23.4 % to 25.5 %,” says Marko Jošt, first author of the study and postdoctoral fellow in Albrecht’s team.

Numerical model shows possibility for up to 32.5 %

In addition, Jošt and colleagues have developed a sophisticated numerical model for complex 3D features and their interaction with light. This enabled the team to calculate how different device designs with textures at various interfaces affect efficiency. “Based on these complex simulations and empirical data, we believe that an efficiency of 32.5 % can realistically be achieved — if we succeed to incorporate high quality perovskites with a band gap of 1.66 eV,” says Jošt.

Suitable for building integrated PV

And team leader Steve Albrecht adds: “Based on real weather data, we were able to calculate the energy yield over the course of a year — for the different cell designs and for three different locations.” In addition, the simulations show that the LM foil on the front-side of the solar cell device is particularly advantageous under diffuse light irradiation, i.e. not only under perpendicularly incident light. Tandem solar cells with the new LM foil could therefore also be suitable for incorporation in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), opening up huge new areas for energy generation from large sky scraper facades.

Emissions from natural gas and carbon dioxide are a worldwide issue. But leave it to a Gainesville alumni and inventor to find a solution to the problem.

Its a machine called a standing wave reformer. It takes natural gas emissions and turns it into solid carbon, which is then sold and re-purposed.

“Well, you’re avoiding CO2. You’re avoiding emitting it at all,” said Robert Kielb, inventor, president and CEO of Standing Wave Reformers.

In a nutshell, it takes natural gas and turns it into solid carbon, so that carbon dioxide is not created from things like airplane engines and natural gas burners. But there’s a lot that goes into the process.

“The device is a shock wave reformer,” Kielb began to explain.

It takes shock waves…what you see in this graphic…like what comes from a sonic boom from an airplane or bomb going off…”but when they pass through the air, they heat the air, so I use that, and pass it through a natural gas to heat it,” Kielb said.

Then it heats to a temperature hot enough that separates it into its elements…”hydrogen and carbon. Then, the carbon at that temperature is solid, so when it cools down it doesn’t go back together,” Kielb continued.

And that creates carbon black, which is powdered carbon — instead of carbon dioxide. The carbon powder can be sold to plastic and tire companies.

This machine creates clean energy, and gives a return on investment. Kielb says its crucial in turning around the quality of our environment.

“The idea is to remove CO2 from the industrial carbon cycle,” he said.

It’s also on an international level — Kielb has interest from companies in Canada, “looking at cleaning up their natural gas burners for some of their refineries, and we also have interest from some French companies that we are trying to finalize in the next couple weeks. We’ve gotten more international interest than interest in the U.S.,” Kielb said.

Now, the challenge is reaching production/

“Right now we are looking to raise another round so that we can do a demonstration of the device, once we have the device demonstrated, we have avenues to go do the pilots, then we can commercialize the technology by licensing,” Kielb said.

Leave it to a gator to help us go green.