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5 Breakthrough Technologies Changing the Future of Power

Sabrina Lopez
June 10, 2015
3 min read

2015 is already proving to be a big year for alternative energy, and new sophisticated technologies continue to seem like something out of a Sci-Fi. Here are five recent advancements taking the alternative energy industry by storm while improving our lives and ensuring a cleaner future.

1. Bionic Leaf

Scientists at Harvard recently introduced the bionic leaf, which utilizes a catalyst to make sunlight split water into hydrogen and oxygen. From there, a bacteria is engineered to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into a liquid fuel called isopropanol. Researches are currently approaching a 1 percent efficiency rate of transforming that sunlight into fuel, thus having effectively recreated the efficiency of photosynthesis.

Learn more about the bionic leaf.

 

2. Powerwall Battery

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Following its announcement of a battery to power homes, businesses, and utilities on April 30 this year, Tesla has since taken pre-orders worth roughly $800 million in potential revenue, according to Bloomberg Business. 

Tesla’s home battery,  Powerwall, is a rechargeable lithium-ion model that mounts on the wall and comes in 7-kilowatt-hour or 10-kilowatt-hour versions. According to Tesla, deliveries will begin at around $3,000 in late summer.

“Our goal here is to change how the world uses energy fundamentally,” Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said. “We’re talking at the terawatt scale. The goal is a complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.”

Learn more about Tesla’s Powerwall Battery here.

 

3. Perovskites

Perovskites are artificial materials with a crystalline structure, which has proven more efficient than silicone in many ways.

Stanford University researchers recently discovered that using lead, ammonia, and iodine could produce perovskites in high volume and at a very low cost. In doing so, they hope to use perovskites to accompany silicon in improving the efficiency of solar cells—a goal that shows great promise. In fact, during a Stanford test, a silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 11.4 percent increased to 17 percent with perovskite.

 

4. Solar Suitcase

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The solar suitcase has been making recent headlines, and although it may be small, its impact has been tremendous.

When Dr. Laura Stachel stepped into a maternal health clinic in Nigeria back in 2008, she found that the off-grid facility lacked so many resources that midwives often delivered babies by candlelight. And because of something as simple as the lack of electricity, women were 70 times more likely to die in childbirth than women in the U.S.

Together with her husband, a solar educator, Stachel devised the Solar Suitcase, a pack equipped with high-efficiency LED medical lighting, a universal cell phone charger, a battery charger, and outlets for 12V DC devices.

The husband and wife team launched We Care Solar in 2009, and last year alone, the Solar Suitcase served 256,800 mothers worldwide.

Learn more about the We Care Solar and the Solar Suitcase.

5. Polymer Solar Cells

Polymer solar cells, called P1D2, are showing promise to increase solar cell efficiency. The research comes from the University of Chicago's chemistry department, in partnership with the Institute for Molecular Engineering and the Argonne National Laboratory. In recent tests, P1D2 broke down more easily, allowing more electrons to travel faster, resulting in a 15 percent increase in solar cell efficiency.

Are you interested in alternative energy for your home or business? If you want to learn more about solar to help you go green and save money on your electricity bills, schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our solar experts. If you have any questions before scheduling a consultation, you can also check out our solar FAQ page.