Metals Tech

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – NASA scientists want to know what an asteroid looks like up close. They’ve built a space probe that’ll launch and send back pictures. But to catch up to a rock traveling over 60,000 miles per hour, scientists in Huntsville built a solar sail.

“This began as an idea. I’ve been interested in solar sails since I was a kid, reading about them in science fiction stories,” NASA Near Earth Asteroid Scout lead investigator Les Johnson said.

But it’s not fiction anymore. This big idea in a small box is starting to take shape.

“It’s about the size of a boot box,” Johnson said.

Les Johnson and his team of scientists have spent years studying asteroids, but they want a closer look. So, they’ve designed the Near Earth Asteroid Scout to photograph the fast-moving rock.

“What does it look like? Is it one big rock? Is it several small rocks held together by gravity? Are there boulders? What is it made from? Those questions need to be answered as we try to figure out what’s in the neighborhood,” Johnson said.

But the asteroid is millions of miles from earth. And since there’s no gas pedal, Johnson’s team designed a solar sail.

“It’s the thickness of a human hair. It’s a plastic substrate with aluminum on it to make it reflective,” Johnson said.

Light and tear resistant, Johnson’s team tested how easily they could set the sail in Huntsville.

“When you’re in space, you don’t have air. But, you do have sunlight,” Johnson said. “And sunlight is composed of little particles called photons. And they have momentum, just like air does. And with a large reflector, as the light reflects from it, and it pushes on it.”

Once the scout launches in 2020, Johnson says it’s going to take about two and a half years to catch up to the asteroid, and that’s using the solar sail, which should get them about three to four miles per second.

“We’re excited to fold this up, put it in a spacecraft and get it ready to fly,” Johnson said.

Though it’s not the first solar sail, Johnson says the mission will be a monumental test for the future of unmanned research missions.

Johnson says the scout is one of 13 space projects that’ll hitch a ride on the upcoming Orion launch. The latest NASA report says that launch could happen in June of 2020.

A discovery by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory supports a century-old theory by Albert Einstein that explains how heat moves through everything from travel mugs to engine parts.

The transfer of heat is fundamental to all materials. This new research, published in the journal Science, explored thermal insulators, which are materials that block transmission of heat.

“We saw evidence for what Einstein first proposed in 1911—that heat energy hops randomly from atom to atom in thermal insulators,” said Lucas Lindsay, materials theorist at ORNL. “The hopping is in addition to the normal heat flow through the collective vibration of atoms.”

The random energy hopping is not noticeable in materials that conduct heat well, like copper on the bottom of saucepans during cooking, but may be detectable in solids that are less able to transmit heat.

This observation advances understanding of heat conduction in thermal insulators and will aid the discovery of novel materials for applications from thermoelectrics that recover waste heat to barrier coatings that prevent transmission of heat.

Lindsay and his colleagues used sophisticated vibration-sensing tools to detect the motion of atoms and supercomputers to simulate the journey of heat through a simple thallium-based crystal. Their analysis revealed that the atomic vibrations in the crystal lattice were too sluggish to transmit much heat.

“Our predictions were two times lower than we observed from our experiments. We were initially baffled,” Lindsay said. “This led to the observation that another heat transfer mechanism must be at play.”

Knowing that the second heat transfer channel of random energy hopping exists will inform researchers on how to choose materials for heat management applications. This finding, if applied, could drastically reduce energy costs, carbon emissions and waste heat.

Many useful materials, such as silicon, have a chemically bonded latticework of atoms. Heat is usually carried through this lattice by atomic vibrations, or sound waves. These heat-bearing waves bump into each other, which slows the transfer of heat.

“The thallium-based material we studied has one of the lowest thermal conductivities of any crystal,” Lindsay said. “Much of the vibrating energy is confined to single atoms, and the energy then hops randomly through the crystal.”

“Both the sound waves and the heat-hopping mechanism first theorized by Einstein characterize a two-channel model, and not only in this material, but in several other materials that also demonstrate ultralow conductivity,” said ORNL materials scientist David Parker.

For now, heat-hopping may only be detectable in excellent thermal insulators. “However, this heat-hopping channel may well be present in other crystalline solids, creating a new lever for managing heat,” he said.

The study’s lead coauthor was Saikat Mukhopadhyay, a former postdoctoral research associate at ORNL and currently a National Research Council research associate at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

Additional coauthors of the paper titled, “Two-channel model for ultralow thermal conductivity of crystalline Tl3VSe4,” included ORNL’s David S. Parker, Brian C. Sales, Alexander A. Puretzky, Michael A. McGuire and Lucas Lindsay.

LG Electronics is expanding its U.S. presence with a new solar module assembly plant in Huntsville, Alabama.

The South Korean technology giant will invest $28 million to set up the factory that’s expected to create 160 new full-time jobs. LG will add two production lines at its 48-acre campus in Huntsville, where the company has had operations for four decades. The solar module plant will bring LG’s total employment in the Southern city to more than 400 workers.

Starting in early 2019, the new manufacturing plant is expected to produce 500 megawatts of solar modules per year. LG joins a steadily growing list of solar companies to have announced plans to invest in American manufacturing since President Trump imposed tariffs on imported solar cells and modules earlier this year. The tariffs stemmed from a Section 201 trade case brought by struggling U.S.-based solar companies Suniva and SolarWorld Americas.

“This demonstrates our commitment to being a long-term leader in the U.S. solar industry,” Soon Kwon, global president of the LG B2B (business-to-business) Company. “LG’s investment in U.S. manufacturing is consistent with the administration’s goal of creating U.S. jobs.”

In recent months, JinkoSolar, First Solar and Hanwha Q Cells have unveiled plans to open new solar module facilities in the U.S. California-based SunPower Corp. announced it will acquire trade case petitioners SolarWorld Americas, in an attempt to avoid the impact of tariffs.

Suniva, which instigated the Section 201 case, was released from bankruptcy earlier this month by financial firm SQN Capital Management. SQN supported Suniva through the trade dispute and is now looking for partners to reboot operations.

LG, a top module provider in the U.S. residential solar market, said its expanded Huntsville factory will enable the company to better serve its U.S. customers. The solar facility will initially assemble LG’s NeON 2 series 60-cell modules, which the company claims can generate 17 percent more power than most conventional 60-cell panels.

“U.S. manufacturing makes a lot of sense for LG after the imposition of Section 201 tariffs,” said Jade Jones, senior solar analyst at GTM Research. “The company focuses on higher-efficiency modules, exclusively focused on n-type monocrystalline modules. As such, LG’s modules demand a higher premium than the standard multi or p-type monocrystalline PERC (passivated emitter and rear cell) modules being shipped to the U.S., so the 201 tariff would impact LG pricing more.”

But while this is a smart move for LG, companies have now reached the point where total domestic crystalline-silicon module capacity exceeds the 2.5-gigawatt cell quota under Trump administration’s trade remedy, Jones added. The Section 201 decision allows for 2.5 gigawatts of foreign-made solar cells to be imported tariff-free each year, for the duration of the four-year tariff period.

“There is no room for more suppliers to add module capacity in the U.S. if they want to import non-tariffed cell capacity,” Jones said.

Jones’ calculation excludes SunPower’s SolarWorld facility and Tesla’s joint U.S. manufacturing plant with Panasonic, as both ventures have cell-to-module integrated capacity.

Once all of the recent new manufacturing announcements have ramped up production, more than half of U.S. crystalline-silicon module capacity will be foreign-owned, she said. That does not include Tesla’s Buffalo solar facility, despite its connection to Japanese multinational Panasonic.

LG said Wednesday that it selected Huntsville for its new solar module production plant after conducting a competitive multistate search.

The company has a long history of working in Alabama. LG established its service division in Huntsville in 1987, after launching the company’s first U.S. manufacturing subsidiary in 1981. Today, Huntsville continues to serve as LG’s headquarters for North American service operations. The campus also includes the technical call center, service training center, field service operations and parts warehouse.

Local policymakers heaped praise on the tech giant for investing further in their region. Attractive state and local incentives were a key element of LG’s decision.

“LG has a long history as a leading corporate citizen in Alabama,” said Governor Kay Ivey, in a statement. “Now, LG is launching our state’s first solar manufacturing plant, which represents a major milestone both for Alabama and for the company. We look forward to seeing where this great partnership takes us in the future.”

The solar factory announcement coincides with several other major LG manufacturing initiatives in the U.S. The South Korean company is currently finishing construction of a new $250 million washing machine plant in Clarksville, Tennessee, which is expected to create 600 new jobs when production starts in the fourth quarter. The Trump administration announced tariffs on foreign-made washing machines in January.

Later this year, LG will open an advanced electric-vehicle components factory in Hazel Park, Michigan, as well as an expanded research and development center in Troy, Michigan. The two facilities will collectively create nearly 300 new jobs. Finally, LG is investing $300 million in its new North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The office park is expected to open in 2019.

WENDELL — A first-of-its-kind, community-owned solar project is expected to break ground this year in this tiny town of around 800 people.

Northeast Solar, based out of Hatfield, is building the 990-panel, 324.6-kilowatt solar array, and expects to start construction around Labor Day.

The project is a municipal cooperative, meaning Wendell residents will have the option of buying-in and becoming owners of the array.

The cooperative is expected to be popular in Wendell where many rooftops are inadequate for personal, family-owned solar panels due to shade from surrounding woods.

“Over two-thirds of residential properties in Massachusetts are poor sites for solar. A solar cooperative allows those households to switch to clean energy,” said Greg Garrison, president of Northeast Solar.

The solar array, having been approved at a Special Town Meeting in February, will sit on a 1.33-acre lot at 97 Wendell Depot Road — a property now under the Selectboard’s control in order to host the third-party project. The cooperative will allow 50 members — all Wendell residents — to join.

Members will own a portion of the panels and array structure, and pay fees for maintenance and administration, as well as a lease. Those fees will flow through the land owner, the town, which in turn pays for the solar array Northeast Solar installs.

Joining the cooperative — a legal corporate body in Massachusetts — takes three steps, all of which will be facilitated by Northeast Solar.

“Our job is to create the legal framework, and install the array,” said Garrison, adding

The first step is submitting a letter of intent to Northeast Solar, as well as a $500 deposit.

Garrison said Northeast Solar has already received letters of intent from interested residents, and will be drawing up contracts with residents — the second step in joining the cooperative — shortly after Wednesday, July 4.

During the contract phase, residents will be able to choose how many panels they wish to buy — and therefore how much of the array they will own. Garrison declined to state how much members will have to pay per panel, and said that negotiations will be private.

He added that the cooperative is worth joining because members will be eligible for current and future tax incentives and will save money after a few years — when the money saved on electric bills offsets the cost of buying panels. Members will also be “democratically” switching to clean energy.

“This model, which we’ve been working on for over three years, is the only way we can make solar democratic,” Garrison said. “The people own and administer this array.”

The final step once the panels have been bought is for the new owners to actually join the cooperative. Cooperative members will receive power directly from these panels and the cooperative will have a 20-year lease of the town-owned land, with options for 10-year extensions.

The cooperative is expected to fill up quickly, Garrison said, because it is small and only allows for 50 members.

“Owners in this system will receive a lower purchase price than standard residential installations,” Garrison said. “Co-op owners will receive the federal tax credit, Massachusetts SMART incentives, and on-bill credits to their electric bill. Within a few years, co-op owners will have fully recovered the cost of ownership and will be able to reinvest their energy dollars back into their local community.”

Over the life of the array — 20 years — members of the cooperative will save about $1.3 million dollars on energy expenses, money that will go back into the local economy, Garrison said.

According to Garrison, Northeast Solar, a company of 17 people, plans on building larger community solar cooperatives allowing more members if the Wendell site is successful.

Once construction begins, the project is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete.

According to Garrison, Montague, Northampton and Easthampton have all expressed interest in the same model, and Northeast Solar is also looking at locations in Greenfield and Leverett.

Norwegian energy company Equinor announced this week that it has completed the installation of the world’s first battery for an offshore wind farm at its 30 megawatt (MW) Hywind Scotland floating offshore wind farm, which is the world’s first floating wind farm.

First approved by the Scottish Government back in late 2015, Hywind Scotland began generating electricity in October of last year and, in February, Equinor (then known as Statoil) revealed that not only has the project been a success, but that the project is outperforming expectations and generating electricity at levels consistently above that of its seabound offshore cousins, wind turbines that are built into the seafloor.

Even before Hywind was completed and operational, however, the two companies behind the project — Statoil/Equinor and Masdar — conceived of plans to add a battery storage option to the project, which would be the first time a battery storage project has been attached to an offshore wind energy project. The project was given the go-ahead, and earlier this year the two companies announced they would use the project, known as Batwind, to further study the potential of integrating battery systems with wind and solar.

Announced on Wednesday, Equinor revealed that Batwind has been completed and the 1 MW battery provided by Younicos, and located at an onshore substation, will now be able to dynamically balance power from the offshore wind farm.

“The variability of renewable energy can to a certain extent be managed by the grid,” said Sebastian Bringsvaerd, Development Manager for Hywind and Batwind. “But to make renewable energy more competitive and integrate even more renewables to the grid, we will need to find new, smart solutions for energy storage to provide firm power. How to do this in a smart and value creating way is what we are aiming to learn from Batwind.”

“We’re very proud to partner with Equinor and provide our expertise from over 200 megawatts of storage projects to this pioneering project,” added Karim Wazni, Managing Director of Younicos. “By adding energy storage capabilities to another world “first” – the world’s first floating wind farm – we hope to demonstrate the essential role that storage plays as we continue pushing the frontier in producing sustainable energy. Specifically, we’ve equipped Batwind with our intelligent Y.Q software, which ensures that the battery ’learns’ the optimal storage conditions. Our software tells the battery when to store electricity and for how long, and when and how much to inject back onto the grid.”

The inauguration of one of the largest wind farms in Egypt will take place on Saturday as part of a wider drive to expand renewable energy capabilities in the country.

The wind farm, which is located in the Gabal el-Zeit area of the Red Sea governorate, will be inaugurated by the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy. With an overall capacity of 580 megawatts (MW), and a total of 300 wind turbines, the wind farm contains three projects.

Osama Norman, the head of the EGP 12 billion project, released in a statement to the press that the wind farm was the “biggest in the world” with regards to area, number of turbines and the capacities generated from the project.

Launched in 2015, the first stage of the project, which includes 120 wind turbines generating 240 MW of power, is already up and running and connected to the country’s national grid.

The new wind energy project consists of a migratory bird monitoring system which operates via radar in order to shut down. Moreover, cautionary steps have been taken to protect birds whose routes of migration run through the wind farm area.

The new project is a part of a number of new investments the Egyptian government has made to diversify into renewables energies such as recent plans to build the world’s largest solar farm near the southern city of Aswan.

A $22 million investment was more recently made in a deal between Egypt’s leading solar power solutions provider, KarmSolar and a private real estate developer, El Badr for Investment and Commercial Spaces, which will enable their new project to be fully dependent on solar power.

Although Egypt has traditionally depended heavily on oil and gas as its main energy supply, it is a strong candidate to become an clean-energy dependent country with plenty of land, sun and high wind speeds according to National Wind Atlas.

Figures released by the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy stated that Egypt aims to generate 20% of its energy generation from renewable sources by 2022 and 42% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2025.