Energy

Solar tower will power Las Vegas at night

SolarReserve has completed the central point of a solar project that uses molten salt storage to deliver power to the grid well after the sun has gone down.

The startup company today said it has completed the 540-foot tower of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project near Tonopah, Nev., which is expected to start delivering 110 megawatts by the end of 2013. When it comes online, it's projected to have 10 hours of storage, the longest full-load storage capacity for a solar plant.

Adding storage turns solar into a continuous power source and allows project developers to earn more … Read more

Nest vows to fight Honeywell thermostat suit

Nest Labs today said it will "vigorously defend" itself from a patent infringement lawsuit filed by thermostat giant Honeywell.

The startup issued a statement two days after it got hit with the suit along with Best Buy, which sells its smart thermostat. The lawsuit seeks damages and an injunction to halt the sales of Nest's Learning Thermostat.

Nest Labs' statement from today is:

"We at Nest are proud of creating products that bring true innovation to home efficiency and we are continuing to innovate and bring products to market. The Nest Learning Thermostat is already making … Read more

IBM tips into microscopic manufacturing

A team of researchers have designed a material durable enough to operate on a microscopically small scale, a step toward fabricating nanoscale biosensors and optical equipment.

IBM Zurich today announced the results of a collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to build an ultra-small probe tip, which is 10,000 times smaller than a pencil point. Because it's substantially harder than previous designs, it's hard enough to be a component in microscopic mechanical machines.

For example, these tips could be part of in-body monitors to track glucose levels in diabetic patients or sensors … Read more

Google gets Greenpeace props for work on energy

Google received top accolades from Greenpeace for its work advancing cleaner energy, while Apple and Facebook didn't make the environmental watchdog group's IT industry list of leaders.

Greenpeace released the latest of its periodic Cool IT Leaderboard today and singled out the work of Google on renewable energy technology and policy.

Energy consumption from computing, including large data centers, continues to grow rapidly, one reason why Greenpeace has targeted cloud computing companies. "The IT sector might like to consider itself forward-thinking, but it is keeping far too quiet while the dirty energy industry continues to exert undue … Read more

Startup Soraa lights up with 'LED 2.0'

To build a better light fixture, startup Soraa started right at the foundation with a different kind of LED chip inside.

The Fremont, Calif.-based company tomorrow will come out of stealth mode and launch its first product, a spotlight which uses efficient LEDs (light emitting diodes). The MR 16 bulb replaces a 50-watt halogen and uses 12.5 watts and it offers a better beam and light quality, said Soraa CEO Eric Kim.

The bulb from Soraa, which has raised more than $100 million in venture capital, is the first in a planned line of LEDs for general lighting … Read more

Cree: LEDs aren't just more efficient, they're better

Cree today introduced an LED lighting component that will bring prices down significantly, but the company has come to realize that only cutting prices won't make LED lighting mainstream.

The company said its latest XT-E White LED delivers an industry-best 162 lumens per watt at room temperature. Boosting the price performance of LEDs results in a cost reduction of about 25 percent at the retail level in a year or two, said product marketing manager Paul Scheidt.

That's significant given that LED lighting has a higher upfront cost than more established products, but Scheidt said the industry's … Read more

Heat-absorbing robot shares the warmth when you're cold

As I'm writing this post, I'm desperately trying to find a way to warm up my feet and hands. I suppose ditching the ice-cold soda would be a good place to start, but I need some caffeine on this post-Super Bowl Monday. If only I had Hagent, the heat-spewing robot, by my side.

Hagent is a portable heating concept by German designers Andreas Meinhardt and Daniel Abendroth. Though it looks like a simple black box on the outside, the mobile bot is capable of searching out heat, absorbing it, and then re-releasing the heat in cold places. … Read more

DOE-backed Beacon Power finds buyer post-bankruptcy

Beacon Power, which had received a government loan and then went bankrupt, has found a buyer, in a deal that will recoup some of the loaned money.

The flywheel energy storage company today said it has reached a deal with private equity firm Rockland Capital to buy most of its assets for $30.5 million. That includes Beacon Power's intellectual property around flywheel grid storage and a New York energy storage project partially financed by a Department of Energy loan guarantee.

If the deal is finalized, the Energy Department stands to recover 70 percent of the loan, according to … Read more

Solar startups set new power records

If solar startups Alta Devices and Semprius were in the server business, one would be developing a deluxe high-powered server while the other would be stringing thousands of Linux boxes together. Both approaches, though, are showing promise at bringing the cost of solar power down.

Alta Devices today said it set the record for the most efficient solar cell, able to convert 23.5 percent of sunlight into electricity. The University of California at Berkeley spin-out said the efficiency mark, verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is a step toward commercializing its novel solar technology.

The company is making … Read more