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Category: sustainability – Page 360

Circa 2017

Transformers are found at generating stations and distribution substations. Their primary function is to reduce the high voltages used to transport electricity long distances to the lower voltages needed by homes and businesses. But today’s transformers only operate in one direction. They are poorly equipped for boosting electricity from local sources — typically wind and solar — to the higher voltages needed to mesh efficiently with the larger grid.

Beginning in 2,010 researchers at the National Science Foundation’s FREEDM Systems Center at NC State introduced the first solid state transformer. It could perform all of the functions of a traditional transformer, but could also redirect power as needed to address changes in supply and demand.

“The SST is a fundamental building block in the smart-grid concept,” says Iqbal Husain, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the school and director of the FREEDM Center. “It can scale down voltage for use in homes and businesses, but it can also scale up voltage from solar panels or other residential-scale renewable sources in order to feed that power back into the grid. And because the SST is a smart technology, it can switch back and forth between those two functions as needed.”

Continue reading “Solid State Transformers Could Be Key To Smart Grid Functionality” | >

Circa 2020

Since electric vehicles first started hitting the mainstream, people have been asking “why doesn’t that have a solar panel roof?” The answer has always been the same: solar panels just don’t generate that much power. That’s not a huge problem for solar racers, with their ultra-light weight and super-aerodynamic shapes, but for the minuscule daily range a solar roof would give you on your typical daily driver, you’re still gonna need to plug it in.

Ah, but what if your daily driver was the closest thing on the road to a solar racer? An EV truly designed with ludicrous levels of efficiency as the primary goal? Something so aerodynamically slippery that it makes a mockery of the production car world? Well, that’s the Aptera. And its manufacturers claim that its 180 small solar panels, making up an area of more than three square meters (32.3 sq ft), will harvest enough energy that many drivers will never have to charge it.

The top-spec Aptera can self-generate as much as 45 miles (72 km) of range per day in ideal conditions, which is more than twice the average daily mileage of American car owners. And that doesn’t have to be a terribly large amount of energy, thanks to its extreme frugality.

Continue reading “Aptera opens orders on 1,000-mile solar EV that never needs charging” | >

When Gigafactory Texas was starting its construction, officials in the area started to fondly describe the project’s pace as the “Speed of Elon” on account of its rapid progress. This “Speed of Elon” seems to have never let up since Giga Texas broke ground about 13 months ago as the first image of a pre-production Tesla Model Y was just shared online.

The image was initially shared on Instagram, and it depicted a black Model Y that looked fresh out of the production line. The post was eventually deleted, but not before the image was shared across platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. It’s difficult not to be excited, after all, considering that Giga Texas broke ground just over a year ago in July 2020.

Based on the recently-shared image, it appears that Giga Texas’ Model Y production facility is now ready to start cranking out the all-electric crossovers, at least to some degree. The vehicle was not alone in the picture either, as another Model Y in the background could also be seen passing through the assembly line.

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Tesla has a number of programs that have the potential to change markets, and one of these is arguably the 4,680 cells. Created using a dry electrode process and optimized for price and efficiency, the 4,680 batteries could very well be the key to Tesla’s possible invasion of the mainstream auto and energy market. If Tesla pulls off its 4,680 production ramp, its place at the summit of the sustainable energy market would be all but ensured.

Unfortunately, Tesla’s publicly disclosed target for the 4,680 cells’ production ramp appears to have been made on “Elon Time.” This means that during Battery Day last year, Tesla’s target of hitting a capacity of 10 GWh by late September2021included some optimistic assumptions. Similar to other projects like Elon Musk’s Alien Dreadnaught factory, however, the pilot production of the 4,680 cells have met some challenges.

Tesla admitted to these difficulties during the Q22021earnings call, when Elon Musk explained that one of the main challenges in the 4,680 cell production ramp was related to the batteries’ calendaring, or the process when the dry cathode material is squashed to a particular height. Partly due to the use of nickel in the 4,680 cells, which are extremely hard, some of the calendar rolls end up being dented.

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