Renewable Energy

July 2018
IC Offers High Accuracy for Real-Time Power Measurement
CHANDLER, Ariz.— In systems that use both AC and DC power, the implementation of dual-mode power monitoring traditionally requires multiple ICs to ensure superior performance and accuracy. Growing applications such as solar inverters, smart lighting and cloud servers often use both modes to maintain safe opera
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Date:
07/31/2018
Three £5 million energy research hubs and a new £1 million network in solar energy that will build multidisciplinary collaborations between universities, academic bodies and industry were announced today by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The three Supergen Energy hubs will
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Date:
07/27/2018
Europe Thrives on Renewables Despite Unpredictable Weather

This graphical abstract shows the impact of long-term weather variability on the operation of the European power system and how this scales with uptake of wind and solar power out to 2030. We find that ambitious decarbonization leads to much greater influence of long-term weather patterns, with a 5-fold increase in operational variability by 2030. Several relevant metrics can be reasonably approximated by linear functions of variable renewable penetration, providing a shortcut for estimating the impacts of intermittency.

Researchers in Ireland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have shown how long-term weather patterns affect wind and solar renewable energy technologies across Europe. Using 30 years of meteorological data, the scientists have examined and further modelled the impact of renewable energy on the electricity sector ou
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Date:
07/26/2018
Organic Solar Cells Used in Roof Tiles Generating Power

A solar tile

An international team of materials scientists from France, Russia and Kazakhstan found a way to boost the efficiency of organic solar cells several times. The new study, published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, has shown that ordered structures based on organic molecules can be used to produce solar power
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Date:
07/25/2018
Hydrogen and Plastic Production: Catalyst With Dual Function

Dulce Morales, Steffen Cychy, Stefan Barwe, Dennis Hiltrop, Martin Muhler and Wolfgang Schuhmann (from left)

Chemists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have developed a new, low-cost catalyst for plastic production. It turns a biorefinery product into a starting material for the synthesis of plastics, which could represent a sustainable alternative to widespread PET. At the same time, the potential energy source hydrogen ca
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Date:
07/24/2018
How to Build Efficient Organic Solar Cells

This is Feng Gao, associate professor at Linköping University, Sweden.

Twenty-five researchers from seven research institutes have put their heads together to draw up rules for designing high-efficiency organic solar cells. The research is led by Feng Gao, associate professor at Linkoping University, Sweden. Organic solar cells, made from carbon-based materials, present unique ad
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Date:
07/16/2018
Power IC Brings Reduced Heat Generation to Data Centers
IRVINE, Calif. -- Fabless power semiconductor company Helix Semiconductors announced that Agility Power Systems (Agility) is using the MxCTM 200 IC for its innovative, 1 kilowatt, high-efficiency 48VDC to 12VDC power converter. Agility designs highly efficient switched capacitor power conversion devices targeted at
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Date:
07/11/2018
Multi-chip module PWM Buck Regulators have high current density
ON Semiconductor announced the release of three new highly-efficient mid-voltage PWM buck converters. Supporting a wide input voltage range of 4.5 V to 65 V, an output current of up to 10 A and output power of 100 W, ON Semiconductor’s new FAN6500X family of buck converters combines the time tested fixed
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Date:
07/11/2018
Compact 3W and 10W board-mount power supplies
XP Power is launching its low-cost VCE03 and VCE10, 3W and 10W series of board-mounted AC-DC power supplies with extended universal input range from 85VAC to 305VAC, covering all nominal AC inputs from 100VAC to 277VAC in a single ultra-compact design. Both the VCE03 and VCE10 provide a complete AC-DC solution
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Date:
07/11/2018
A2B Transceivers Deliver Unparalleled Flexibility
Analog Devices announces three enhanced Automotive Audio Bus (A2B) transceivers that deliver unprecedented capability to tailor system-level performance to even the most stringent electromagnetic compatibility requirements. The new AD242xW series offers configurable transmit power levels, enabling the developer to
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Date:
07/11/2018
CUI Partners and SnapEDA Offer Free PCB Footprint Files
CUI today announced that it has teamed up with SnapEDA to provide designers with a catalog of free, ready-to-download PCB footprints and symbols for CUI’s range of board mount electromechanical components. Circuit board design has historically been a time-consuming and challenging process due to the variety of pro
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Date:
07/11/2018
Mouser Adds 25 New Suppliers in First Half of 2018
Mouser Electronics has added more than 25 new suppliers YTD to its already vast line card of over 700 suppliers. With an already extensive portfolio of products and suppliers across the board, the additional suppliers bolster the product choices for Mouser’s unique design engineer customer base and component buye
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Date:
07/11/2018
M12 Slim Design with HARAX Quick Connect
Following the trend of miniaturisation, HARTING is expanding its M12 family in the field of slim design connectors with HARAX insulation displacement Quick Connect connectors – the slim, field-installable solution for automation technology. This allows fast and uncomplicated cabling on site. The new A and
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Date:
07/11/2018
New 650V IGBTs Deliver Class-Leading Efficiency with Soft Switching
ROHM has announced the availability of two new types of 650V IGBTs that combine class-leading low conduction loss with high-speed switching characteristics. This makes them ideal for power conversion in general-purpose inverters and converters for consumer appliances, such as ACs and IH (Induction Heaters), as
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Date:
07/11/2018
Infineon’s CoolGaN opens up a new horizon in power management
The key benefits of gallium nitride (GaN) are, amongst others, high power density, best-in-class efficiency and decreased system costs. Infineon Technologies is starting volume production for CoolGaN™ products by the end of 2018, the company announced during PCIM Europe. Engineering samples of the high reliable Ga
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Date:
07/11/2018
Transducer’s for leakage current measurement of PV inverters
The LDSR model is an innovative, low cost and lightweight (25g) component, with a reduced footprint. The LDSR is dedicated to measuring the leakage current of 300 mA nominal up to 900 mA peak at 2 KHz frequency. Its main application is in transformerless photovoltaic (PV) inverters for the residential market, wh
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Date:
07/11/2018
Authorised Yuasa battery distributor Gresham Power Electronics, the Salisbury based Defence and Commercial power conversion specialist, announces the availability of two series of high reliability VRLA batteries (valve-regulated lead-acid) from Yuasa’s wide industrial product range. VRLA batteries are more commo
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Date:
07/11/2018
Bacteria-Powered Solar Cell Converts Light to Energy, Even Under Overcast Skies
University of British Columbia researchers have found a cheap, sustainable way to build a solar cell using bacteria that convert light to energy. Their cell generated a current stronger than any previously recorded from such a device, and worked as efficiently in dim light as in bright light. This innovation could
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Date:
07/05/2018
PSDcast - Hard vs Soft Switching

Bruce T Renouard, the CEO of Pre-Switch.

On this episode of the PSDcast, we're chatting with Pre-Switch about hard and soft switching and some of the fundamental differences between the two ...
Date:
07/03/2018
Nitride Semiconductor for Environmental Photovoltaics

(a) This is a copper and Copper Nitride. (b) Theoretical Calculation for P-type and N-type Copper Nitride. (c) Direct Observation of Fluorine Position in Fluorine-doped Copper Nitride. (a) An image of thin film copper plates before and after reacting with ammonia and oxygen. Copper metal has been transformed to copper nitride. (b) Copper insertion for an n-type semiconductor and fluorine insertion for a p-type semiconductor. (c) Nitrogen plotted in red, fluorine in green, and copper in blue. Fluorine is located at the open space of the crystal as predicted by the theoretical calculation.

A Tokyo Institute of Technology research team has shown copper nitride acts as an n-type semiconductor, with p-type conduction provided by fluorine doping, utilizing a unique nitriding technique applicable for mass production and a computational search for appropriate doping elements, as well as atomically resolved mi
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Date:
07/03/2018
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