Pocket-Size Folding Solar Charger Maximizes Surface Area

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Excerpt: AmbienTec has revealed a new set of solar power chargers with folding designs that the maximize the surface area of pocket-sized units.  The AmbienTec SolarFold and SolarFan solar power chargers can produce 3 minutes of talk time for every 10 minutes of charge.The AmbienTec SolarFold and Sol …

Pollution-Free Yacht Powered By Solar Power Unveiled

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Excerpt: The world's largest pollution-free yacht, the PlanetSolar, was unveiled Thursday at the HDW Shipyard in Germany.Designed by a team of international engineers, PlanetSolar is a multihull white catamaran topped by about 5,300 square feet of black photovoltaic solar panels consisting of some 3 …

University Of Michigan Creates 9 Cubic Millimeter Solar Power System

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Excerpt: Advances in solar power aren't always the most immediately exciting sort of developments (a more efficient solar panel still looks like a solar panel), but this new solar power system developed at the University of Michigan certainly won't have any trouble turning a few heads. Not only is it 1,0 …

DOE Announces $100M To Be Made Available In Recovery Act

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Excerpt: At the inaugural ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit today, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced $100 million in Recovery Act funding will be made available to accelerate innovation in green technology, increase America’s competitiveness and create new jobs. Today’s announcement comes as s …

Solar Power For U.S. Soldiers

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Excerpt: The scene is a familiar one from the nightly news: a U.S. soldier on patrol in a remote locale, outfitted in the latest high-tech gadgetry – radios, night vision goggles, navigation gear – devices that enhance mission capabilities and help keep the infantry safe.While such electronic wiz …

Solar Analysis Tool Available As iPhone Application

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Excerpt: Solar installers and consumers looking for a simple-to-use, yet powerful, portable solar site analysis tool can now download the SMA Solarchecker iPhone application from the Apple App Store.  The free iPhone application provides users with a quick way of finding out how much energy - and revenue - …

Optical PV Cell Testing System Provides Non-Destructive Analysis

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Excerpt: CRAIC Technologies released the 20/20(TM) UV-visible-NIR microspectrophotometer.  20/20(TM) microspectrophotometer is designed to non-destructively analyze many types of microscopic samples from the deep ultraviolet to the near infrared. Analysis of samples can be done by absorbance, reflectanc …

Is The Future For Solar In Deserts Or On Rooftops?

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Excerpt: A recent study by David Anthony says that solar energy, despite all of the effort to increase its usage, still only accounts for less than one percent of the energy we consume.   The amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth's surface every hour is greater than mankind's total demand for en …

IBM Creates Solar Cell Comprised Mostly Of Earthly Elements

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Excerpt: IBM announced it has built a solar cell -- where the key layer that absorbs most of the light for conversion into electricity, is made entirely of readily-available elements -- that set a new world record for efficiency and holds potential for enabling solar cell technology to produce more energ …

Mitsubishi Sets New Bar For Efficiency of PV Cells

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Excerpt: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced it has set two world records for photoelectric conversion efficiency in polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells, achieved by reducing resistive loss in the cells. Photoelectric conversion efficiency is the rate at which sunlight energy is converted i …