Renewable Energy News

Lower electricity costs for consumers and more reliable clean energy could be some of the benefits of a new study by researchers who have examined how predictable solar or wind energy generation is and the impact of it on profits in the electricity market.

A new study found drought and heat waves could make air pollution worse for communities that already have a high pollution burden in California, and deepen pollution inequalities along racial and ethnic lines. The study also found financial penalties for power plants can significantly reduce people’s pollution exposure, except during severe heat waves.

Scientists have created a comprehensive ‘roadmap’ to guide global efforts to convert waste energy into clean power.

Renewable energy experts have come up with an environmentally-friendly plan to dispose of solar panels at the end of their life.

Sunlight can be used to produce green hydrogen directly from water in photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells. So far, most systems based on this ‘direct approach’ have not been energetically competitive. However, the balance changes as soon as some of the hydrogen in such PEC cells is used in-situ for a catalytic hydrogenation reaction, resulting in the co-production of chemicals used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The energy payback time of photoelectrochemical ‘green’ hydrogen production can be reduced dramatically, the study shows.

Researchers design a solar harvester with enhanced energy conversion capabilities. The device employs a quasiperiodic nanoscale pattern, meaning most of it is an alternating and consistent pattern, while the remaining portion contains random defects that do not affect its performance. The fabrication process makes use of self-assembling nanoparticles, which form an organized material structure based on their interactions with nearby particles without any external instructions. Thermal energy harvested by the device can be transformed to electricity using thermoelectric materials.

Researchers have developed a cheaper and more energy-efficient way to make hydrogen directly from seawater, in a critical step towards a truly viable green hydrogen industry. The new method splits the seawater directly into hydrogen and oxygen — skipping the need for desalination and its associated cost, energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Hydrogen fuel could be a more viable alternative to traditional fossil fuels, according to University of Surrey researchers who have found that a type of metal-free catalysts could contribute to the development of cost-effective and sustainable hydrogen production technologies.

A new sodium battery technology shows promise for helping integrate renewable energy into the electric grid. The battery uses Earth-abundant raw materials such as aluminum and sodium.

Scientists have succeeded in synthesizing fumaric acid, a raw material for plastics, from CO2 powered by solar energy. Typically, fumaric acid is synthesized from petroleum as a raw material to make polybutylene succinate, a biodegradable plastic, but this research shows that it can be synthesized from CO2 and biomass-derived compounds using renewable energy.