In third world countries, solar power refrigerators are used most commonly. These solar refrigerators works by harnessing the solar energy, and they preserve the goods like meat, vegetables and dairy. The much needed vaccines are also placed in those refrigerators to avoid them from spoiling. The portable devices of the solar refrigerators can be constructed easily by use of simple components, and it really works in the areas where there is no electricity or unreliable power supply.

Different size and technology solar power refrigerators are being already employed in Africa. The biggest challenge for solar power refrigerators is unreliability of the sunshine, as its available several hours in the day but sometime it’s cloudy for days. So to have constant refrigeration phase, change material is added.

Solar Refrigerators Impact on Environment:

Conventional refrigerators are having some dangerous impacts on the environment such as contributing to ozone layer depletion and global warming. The substances in refrigerators that cause the ozone layer depleting and global warming are chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s), in their insulation foam or their refrigerant cycle are the most harmful. In 80′s, CFC’s were banned then they were replaced with substances such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) both are the ozone depleting and contribute to global warming chemicals. Solar energy use for refrigeration tries hard to have minimum impacts on the environment. Read the full story

Solar energy may be the most abundant source of energy, but many people avoid its usage due to the uncertainty of the weather. If you use solar energy to power your house, then what do you do on a cloudy or rainy day?

There are three main alternative options available that can provide unlimited power even if the sun isn’t cooperating. In case you want to live independently, completely off the grid, but can’t trust your PV panels to supply all the electricity you’ll need all the time, you can use a backup generator when the solar generation becomes low.

Having dished out plenty of solar power info, I got to think whether or not the majority of people are even unaware of the brains behind the project, the Solar Panel? Whatever the metaphor, lets familiarize us with the photovoltaic physical workings of this super hero enigma.

How They Do And What They Do?

As mentioned, the principles of photovoltaic physics are used to convert the energy of the sun in to electricity rather than just heat. Now the impressive scientific stuff has been duly noted, let me paint a much simpler picture.

Solar cells are not made using pure silicon but instead have impurities added to it. Why? Because pure silicon crystals are non reactive in a stable state, which is not good as the electrons need some form of instability to be productive. So in this context some impurities must be required.

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Surely no one will accepts such type of electricity, which is available only in daytime and usually on clear days only. For such situation we needs electricity storage devices (batteries). But sad to say, that batteries add a lot of cost and maintenance to the PV system.

Anyhow currently, it’s a necessity if you want to be completely independent. One solution to this problem is to connect your house to the utility grid, buying power when you need it and selling to them when you produce more than your need. In this way the utility acts as a practically infinite storage system.

Of course in most cases the utility have to agree to buy power from you at a much lower price than their own selling price. You will need special equipment to make sure that power you sell to your utility is occurring at the same time as theirs means that it shares same sinusoidal waveform and frequency.

For that safety is basic issue also, the utility has to make sure that if there’s a power outage in your neighborhood, your PV system wont try to feed electricity into line that lineman may think is dead. That is called islanding.

If you decided to use the batteries then keep in mind that batteries should be maintained and also replaced after certain number of years. Usually PV modules lost for 20 years or more while batteries don’t have such long useful life. Batteries in PV systems can be very dangerous because of the energy they store and the acidic electrolytes they contain, so for that you will need a well-ventilated, non-metallic enclosure for them.

Though there are different types of batteries are used but one common characteristic is all batteries is that they are all deep cycle batteries. While a car battery is a shallow cycle battery, deep cycle batteries can discharge more of their stored energy while still maintaining long life. While car batteries discharge a large current for a very short time only for starting up your car and they are immediately recharged also when you drive. A PV battery has to discharge a smaller current for long period (during night), and gets charged then in daytime.

Think is a Oslo-based car company that makes electric-cars. Last month, It rolled out its first electric car for European market from its plant in Finland. Think chief executive announced that they will be building their first car in December, 2011 at the newly constructed plant in Indiana.

The new subcompact electric car is currently being called “Think City”. Company is planning to sell the first car in U.S. as early as October, 2010. These early models will be imported from Finland. These cars will be followed by production of U.S. produced cars in January, 2011. Mr. Richard Canny, CEO of Think has been quoted as a source of above information.

Think is likely to make an investment of around $50 million at its assembly plant in Elkhart County, Indiana. The auto manufacturer is expecting to get around $20 million in subsidy from U. S. Government in shape of tax incentives and human resource development funds.

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Total has recently signed a research contract with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to build up new batteries. The purpose of these batteries is to facilitate the storage of solar power.

The rationale behind the combined research project of Total and MIT is mainly to develop a long lasting, less expensive battery appropriate to save the power produced by solar panels. The main challenge for these two companies is to design a battery that has enough capacity to store power.

These two companies have taken an important initiative to develop alternative energies mainly used in accelerating the development and consumption of solar power. 

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A new kind of solar panel is on the horizon. It is incredibly small and can be woven into textiles like curtains and roofing materials to create a more energy-efficient home. The organic photovoltaic-laced textiles move to follow the sun and can create about 16,000 watt-hours of electricity.

Sheila Kennedy, an architect at design firm Kennedy & Violich, is the leader behind the emerging technology, which the firm integrated into a prototype called Soft House. The Soft House is a prefab home equipped with several large, flexible curtains that soak up the sun’s energy and transform it into electricity.

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So, your little gadget just ran out of juice. You live in a wilderness and there is no shop around for 20 square miles. You don’t have to worry if you have this little “NO PO PO” (No Pollution Power) batteries. Just pee into your batteries. Absurd? This is what I thought about when I looked at this picture below in an article I found while stumbling. In fact Maria of ixibo.com sent it to me.

I was curious about this newly discovered source of energy. Also I was also very much concerned about the health of the person, whose urine is used in the photo below. It is pale to an alarming extent.. Aaargh..

So I did a little google search on NoPoPo Batteries. I found this and this and this

It doesn’t really sound practical for everyday use, does it? But as vile as the Nopopo (which stands for no pollution power) batteries sound, you don’t just point and shoot/aim and go all over the batteries to recharge them. Instead, there is a pipette. Though, how you pee into it without getting it all over your hands, shoes and the floor is a mystery.

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