For politicians, electrical engineers and journalists, energy efficiency and renewable energy are hot topics, but what thinks the consumer about these issues? A new study tries to find out, how French, English, German and American perceive energy efficiency.
With three new photovoltaic power plants, Italy increases the share of renewables in its energy mix. At the same time, the country’s largest manufacturing site takes up production.
In general, 'renewable energy' is about electricity. The reason is simple: Practically everything mankind has invented over the last century runs on electric power, even most of a modern car's systems, combustion engine or not. Since mankind has still not really mastered harnessing naturally occurring electricity like lightning, transforming mechanical, chemical or quantum-physical forms of energy into electricity is still the challenge – with the laws of thermodynamics as limiting factors. However, there's more to 'renewable' than wind or sun.
In a survey conducted in Q2 2011 of 100 senior M&A practitioners involved in the renewable energy sector, 72% expect an increase in renewable energy mergers and acquisitions activity. This could be attributed to a number of factors, including the devastating effects of the Fukushima disaster.
Green power is an unstable commodity. Photovoltaic plants rest at night, and wind turbines stand still when there are lulls in the wind. This is why in the future there will be a need for intermediate storage of considerable amounts of environmentally friendly power. A big issue for Fraunhofer, the large German research institution which is going to demonstrate various solutions at the Hanover fair.
Wind turbines are getting bigger and more powerful, and their control systems need to follow this trend, becoming increasingly complex. It’s a good thing that industrial control systems have become very flexible in the past, so they can be used in this application area without the need for much adaptation.
Three of the 13 sub-fairs of Hannover Messe 2011 focus on power generation - conventional and renewable. According to the organizer, »Wind« is the leading trade fair for Wind Generation Technology, Components and Services, »Energy« concentrates on Renewable and Conventional Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution, while »Power Plant Technology« is a show for Power Plant Design, Systems, Operation and Maintenance.
Power saving technologies and »intelligent« power networks that connect renewable energy sources are not only good for the environment but also beneficial for the electronics industry. Since all kinds of parameters need to be checked regularly and results compared, measurement systems are especially important.
These days, the winds of change are blowing over North Africa and it’s hard to predict the political situation of next week, let alone a decade from now. Not the best precondition for a long-term multi-billion-Euro critical infrastructure project, one might think. One might be wrong: Desertec is still on track, and even a bank is banking on it.
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