Category: Asia

3000 MW by 2020 in Malaysia

Malaysia‘s parliament announced the country’s installation targets for renewable energies and the plan to install 3,000 MW of renewable by 2020.

They expect that 1,250 MW will be generated by photovoltaic installations and another 1,065 by biomass.

With the implementation of these ambitious targets Malaysia follows other Asian countries like Thailand or Taiwan.

The Malaysia’s Minister of Energy announced that the legislation will come into effect in midsummer this year.

The 2011 quota for photovoltaic power is 29 MW with 9 MW set aside for projects smaller than 1 MW.

Malaysia’s feed-in-tariffs for photovoltaic power are divided into six different sections:  systems smaller than 4 kW, between 4 and 24 kW, between 24 and 72 kW, between 72 and 1 kW, between 1 MW and 10 MW and installations between 10 and 30 MW.

World’s first solar powered town in Japan

Japan will have the fist solar powered town in Fujisawa City.

Japan has learned its lessons from relying too much on nuclear energy after all the dark hours the nation has spent since the

Fukushima plant disaster and is now turning to solar energy instead to power up the lives of the people there.

Japan will built a smart town which will work with nine private sector firms to build a sustainable urban town which will see solar systems and battery storage technology installed in all homes and town facilities.

The project can become a model town that can be replicated in Japan’s earthquake-damaged areas.

This will be the first completely solar powered town in the world and it will have a thousand homes, playing residence to a population of about 3,000 people.

The project, which costs US$742 million and spans 19 hectares, will be completed in 2014.

A new trend: Solar powered handbag

The interactive design firm, Diffus created a new innovation of solar powered handbag.

The glittering solar powered handbag use as design elements solar panels attached to it.

With the help of Swiss embroidery company Forster Rohner and the Alexandra Institute, Diffus wired 100 tiny solar panels onto the bag’s exterior , enough to generate power for your cellphone or other mobile device.

When the bag is opened, the fiber optics are activated and illuminating it during dark hours, allowing you to pick out your keys from your bag at night without fidgeting around.

Japan wants a solar powered nation

After all the disasters, Japan is still optimistic to achieve a nuclear free eco-system.

Japan has a new plan for a solar powered nation by 2030.

Japan is soon going to begin a universal solar panel initiative for all their structures in the time frame of 20 years.

There are plans to make solar panels for all residential and commercial buildings in the country.

We hope that Japan’s ambition to become reality.

Floating stadium in Qatar

The German architectural firm Stadium Concept has developed a new prototype for the FIFA World Cup 2022 the Floating Stadium.

This amazing construction was developed keeping in view the importance of maximizing the use of financial resources, and also it has an ecological balance.

This floating stadium can be relocated to seaside venues across the oceans.

Unlike traditional stadiums this one comes with highly efficient mechanism of renewable energy systems like the hydro-power, wind and solar energy systems, making it dependent on nature friendly processes to meet its energy requirements.

The floating stadium is structured on multi-levels and it has the base comprises of a floating disk.

The level above would have the stadium access, and will serve as the level of the sports pitch. Around the pitch level, would be the main structure of the stadium bowl, meant for housing the audience.

Above the stadium bowl, would be the stadium roof, which would act as the main cover for the whole structure.

This concept can be transported around the globe, which is a good choice for investors.

Empower your iPhone with the solar window charger

Solar energy undoubtedly is one of the best eco-friendly discoveries in the world.

The XD Design solar window charger uses the solar energy to the optimum level.

This window charger can be attached to the window easily and it comes with a small as well as big USB output.

The charger works on a simple mechanism – the outside body catches the sunlight and the smoothly designed inside charges the gadget.

It comes with a 1400mAh rechargeable lithium battery and a mini usb cable and costs a whopping 49, 90 €.

It’s made of plastic and weighs a light 0.135 kg.

This small solar gadget is a wonderful eco-friendly product and am sure many households would welcome such a product with open arms.

With the rising problems in electricity supply and burning of non-recyclable energies, solar energy seems to be a superb way out.

Beauty always comes with a price.

Green kitchen system powered by solar energy

Whenever we think of kitchen appliances, numerous contraptions like refrigerators, stoves and ovens come to our minds.

But what if there was a conception that included all of these mechanisms into a single exclusive system? Well, Iran’s Milad Taleghani has exactly conceptualized that, and rather notched up a green level by envisaging this system to be powered by clean solar energy.

Christened as the Funva, this avant-garde appliance (already runners-up in LG conceptual life contest, 2011) will feature a plethora of kitchen friendly attributes.

The artistic form of Funva goes along practical lines, as the collective element is conspicuous in the whole system.

One end of the sole-shaped table features the main control panel (the ‘kitchen’s heart’ according to the creator).

This panel is the major component that is fed by the house solar system, and it will comprise of numerous features that range from solar lighting fixtures, cooking system, dishwashers to even holographic displays and digital color pallet.

The other end of this table is incorporated with a small refrigerator and flanked by futuristic seating arrangements.

Mirroring the collective element of the design, Taleghani has also thought of kitchen walls as giant LED screens.

One can fascinatingly change the colors of LEDs and, in effect, of the walls by controlling aforementioned digital color pallet.

So at the end of the day, we have an advanced appliance that caters to all kitchen considerations by itself, albeit with a clean, sustainable demeanor.

Another kind of renewable energy: Human Waste

Another renewable source is biomass and is a biological material produced from living organisms and their byproducts, such as food waste, wood, excreta etc.

An excellent biomass is now considered the human waste.

More companies are turning to renewable energy from biomass.

The anaerobic digestion is the best method, which produce biogas, comprising of methane and carbon dioxide, which is used directly as cooking fuel.

The advantages of using human waste is that this will help protecting natural resources when the resultant product is used for cooking, fueling and will benefit to lower the greenhouse effect.

All you need to know about geothermal energy

Geothermal energy can be defined as a sort of renewable energy derived from the heat generated deep in the earth’s crust.

The temperature of the earth crust rises one degree Celsius for every 30-50 meters and the heat is brought to the surface by thermal conduction.

This clean renewable energy is used in some countries for cooking and heating for thousands of years.

Geothermal resources can be harnessed into electricity, for hot water and for heating your homes.

Electricity generation technology consist of three methods: dry steam method that uses steam as it comes from the underground source to drive the turbines, flash steam method which makes use of the underground hot water (360 degrees F) is pumped to the surface where it flashes to steam and drives the turbines and binary method that makes use of heated underground water and runs it through a heat exchanger where it heats a fluid with a lower boiling point that flashes to steam and drive the turbine.

In the top producers of electricity from geothermal energy are United States, Philippines and Indonesia.

Currently only 24 countries have geothermal power stations.

Finding a suitable build location is a major drawback to geothermal energy because to trap geothermal energy must provide hot rocks in the layer of the Earth’s crust that would heat the water pumped into the well at suitable level and not all the locations are completely reliable.

Investment costs in geothermal energy are very high.
Drilling is more than half the cost.

The other ugly part of geothermal energy is the hazardous gasses and minerals such as mercury, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia and arsenic come upon the surface along with hot water.

In conclusion geothermal power in the long run is seen to be very cheap, but the initial cost of installing the power will definitely be high and has some risks.

Solar power installations had a huge growth rate in 2010

Solar energy is racking up major increases in installed capacity year after year.

2009 was a bad year for solar energy, because the growth rate slowed to 24% which was a disappointing pace.

According to PVNews, 2010 saw a growth increase of 141% over the previous year, more than doubling the amount of new solar installations from 7.2 GW to 17.5 GW.

It seems the weak performance of 2009 was due to economic uncertainties.

Chinese manufacturers have contributed greatly at this increase with cheaper crystalline solar cells.

China’s market has little to no environmental regulations in place and the production of solar cells is a toxic business.

The thin film solar cells have the potential to be much cleaner to produce than crystalline cells and are largely manufactured in the west.

Thin film solar cells still only make up about 5% of the solar market.

Nine of the top fifteen producers of PV cells are based in China or Taiwan.

In the next years will be a significant challenge on solar market and subsidies are critical for the expansion of solar power.

Investment continues to occur at a rapid pace, and the solar industry has shown a remarkable ability to change with the times and continue expanding.