Renewable Energy In The Europe Union For Year 2012

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union have released publication of renewable energy usage in energy consumption for year 2012.
This report indicate that 14% energy is from renewable resources.

In 2012, energy from renewable sources was estimated to have contributed 14.1% of gross final energy consumption in the EU28, compared with 8.3% in 2004, the first year for which this data is available. The share of  renewables in gross final energy consumption is one of the headline indicators of the Europe 2020 strategy.

Wind Maps of Africa, Europe, South America, Central America

International Renewable Energy Agency have posted new maps with wind speed data for Africa, Europe, South America, Central America.

This maps shows wind speeds at 10 km resolution and 10 m height.

The wind maps have been developed and shared by the Spanish National Renewable Energy Center. The maps are calculated by simulating atmospheric conditions with the SKIRON mesoscale model. GFS 12 UTC cycle, from NCAR/NCEP is used as input. 

The calculation periods vary between the simulated areas. The SKIRON long-term simulation is launched to cover the full years, generating hourly maps to the entire simulated period. 

This methodology has been successfully validated with measurements spread over four continents. 

Biogas - Digestate As Fertilizer

Treatment of animal manure and slurries in biogas plants results in biodegradation of organic matter to inorganic compounds and methane.
In practice, the anaerobic degradation rate of organic matter from animal manure and slurries is about 40% for cattle slurry and of 65% for pig slurry.

The degradation rate depends at large on feedstock type as showed in table 1.
Due to degradation of organic matter, digestate is easier to pump and easier to apply as fertilizer, with reduced need of stirring, compared to untreated slurry.

Efficiency From Hydrophobic Surfaces

Video presentation by Karen Gleason professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

Presentation is about increasing efficiency by using hydrophobic surfaces in heat transfer, in this example it is increasing efficiency in condenser in steam power plants.
Using the hydrophobic surface can increase total efficiency in steam power plant by total of 4%.

Utilization And Properties Of Biogas

Biogas has many energy utilisations, depending on the nature of the biogas source and the local demand. Generally, biogas can be used for heat production by direct combustion, electricity production by fuel cells or micro-turbines, CHP generation or as vehicle fuel.

Helping You Identify Energy Savings In Lighting

Best way to save energy is to switch to energy saving light bulbs. Best energy saving light bulbs are LED light bulbs.

LED light bulbs can save you up to 75% energy. In chart bellow you can see energy savings and consumption with LED light bulbs versus traditional light bulbs.

How to Design a Solar-Powered Computing Device

Intel have recently published white paper on subject "How to Design a Solar-Powered Computing Device"

This white paper describes different types of embedded solar-powered computing devices and provides design suggestions for Intel Atom processor-based platforms. It covers hardware and software practices for developing ultra-low power devices, as well as open source software available to designers.

Quantification Of Solar Energy, Solar Power Calculator [Spreadsheet]

As solar energy we understand the energy that falls on the earth in the form of sunlight. The sun is the source of solar energy and it is renewable and virtually inexhaustible source of energy. The sun produces 1,1*10²⁰ kWh per second [1].

On the border of the earth's atmosphere the average solar energy varies from 1340 to 1390 W.m^-2. The average value of the energy is called the solar constant. Solar constant is the maximum quantity that can fall into the stratosphere, and this is the maximum value that can be obtained per square meter. [2]

This article will explain how to calculate direct, diffuse and total solar energy emitted from sun to earth surface and also parameters that determine position of the sun in the sky.

Spreadsheet in available for download in LibreOffice Calc and MS Office Excel format for easy and fast calculations.

Subsea AC Cables - Photo Of The Week

ABB's Subsea AC Cables [1]

Three Things To Know When Choosing Led Light Bulb

Led light bulbs are getting more and more popular and they are slowly replacing standard incandescent light bulbs.

Because their low power consumption they are perfect for use with home PV solar panels and
small wind turbines.

While everyone is switching to led light bulbs because of low power consumption and luminous efficacy, people are forgetting about color temperature, luminous flux and color rendering index.

Calculating Theoretical Power From Wind Turbine

We started from raw data output from anemometer and created histogram. Now we can use that processed data to calculate theoretical power from potential wind turbine.

From created histogram you can easily calculate theoretical and power and estimate energy production for given period or a whole year.

Vesta's The World’s Biggest Wind Turbine

Vestas has successfully installed world's biggest wind turbine at the Danish National Test Centre for Large Wind Turbines in Østerild.

Vestas' V-164 [3]

Creating Histogram

In statistics, a histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of data. It is an estimate of the probability distribution of a continuous variable and was first introduced by Karl Pearson.

In this article i will be demonstrating how to use raw data from anemometer creating histogram.
This way histogram can be used to as an representation of selected wind speeds to total wind speed.

This data can be later used to calculate theoretical (and real) power output from current wind speeds or proposed wind turbine and also to estimate energy production.

Solar Powered Window Socket Concept Or Reality?

Solar powered Windows Socket in concept for product that is getting lot of attention on the Internet. While concept idea is nice there is some technical problems with this concept.

In this article I will explain why I think this product concept is not reality with current technology. I decide to write this editorial because of the comments and reactions regarding this product on the internet.

The Solar Powered Windows Socket is designed by Kyuho Song & Boa Oh and I will not criticize design part of product but only technical and technology aspect of product.

The product

First I will talk about this product so you can get the basic idea what it does. It was first mentioned on yankodesign.com.

It is basically a wall plug that have solar cell on other side and suction plate that allows it to be mounted on windows or any glass surface.

The London Array - Photo Of The Week

The London Array view from satellite Landsat 8 [1]