Power and Electrical Engineering

’Smart’ Energy Devices and Real-time Pricing Information Enable Increased Options for Consumers, Bringing Power to the People

SEATTLE – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announced today the launch of the Pacific Northwest GridWiseTM Demonstration projects, a regional initiative to test and speed adoption of new smart grid technologies that can make the power grid more resilient and efficient.

Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., representatives from the Department of Energy,

Penn State engineers have shown that a white-LED system for lighting and high data-rate indoor wireless communications, coupled with broadband over either medium- or low-voltage power line grids (BPL), can offer transmission capacities that exceed DSL or cable and are more secure than RF.

Colored LEDs or light emitting diodes are currently found in the numbers on digital clocks, remote controls, traffic lights and other applications. Recently, white LEDs have emerged in the mark

Risø National Laboratory, Technical University of Denmark, The Danish Meteorological Institute, Elsam and Energi E2 in Denmark have jointly developed a new method for predicting the energy produced by wind turbines. The method will save millions for electricity producers and consumers

In Denmark more than 5,000 wind turbines produce an average of more than 20 per cent of the Danish power consumption.

The electric utilities must supplement wind energy production with power fro

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have discovered that a phenomenon called carrier multiplication, in which semiconductor nanocrystals respond to photons by producing multiple electrons, is applicable to a broader array of materials that previously thought. The discovery increases the potential for the use of nanoscrystals as solar cell materials to produce higher electrical outputs than current solar cells.

In papers published recently in the journals Nature Physics and

The Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have cooperated in developing a novel laser sensor which measures two quantities that are important for turbine engineering more precise than ever before: firstly, the tip clearance between the rotating blades and the turbine casing over and, secondly, the vibrations resulting from the blades’ supersonic velocity. The novel laser Doppler profile sensor, which has been developed by Professor Jürgen Czarske and his t

Cidetec Technology Centre’s Energy Department has designed a prototype for a motorised bicycle that works off fuel cells. The project, financed by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Government, involved using a bicycle kindly provided by the ORBEA bicycle manufacturing company and the pedalling action of which is assisted by a motor. The novelty lies in that the battery power source for the motor is substituted by a fuel cell which, for its operation, only needs oxygen from the air and hydrogen contained un