Embracing Renewable Energy in Kuwait

The Middle East has huge potential when it comes to renewable energy. Due to the all-year-long sunshine, and flat planes, it is a suitable area for solar and wind farms. This potential must be used! Because of that fact, many companies who are in the clean energy business choose to move to Kuwait. Opportunities are endless, and everyone should start embracing renewable energy in Kuwait. Let’s research this topic a bit more, to discover the true potential and possibilities! Types of renewable energy sources In order to better understand the nature of renewable energy sources in Kuwait, it is crucial …

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What are the Benefits of Renewable Energy Use?

Renewable energy, or clean energy, comes for natural processes that are regularly replenished. For example – sunlight and wind. The sun keeps shining and the wind keeps blowing. Many people think of renewable energy as a new technology, but in fact, we have been using it for a long time for lighting, heating, and transportation. It is true that people have been using cheaper but dirty energy like coal or gas for the last five hundred years. However, now that scientists have found less expensive methods of capturing wind and solar energy, tables are turning. Renewable energy is booming and …

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What’s wrong with big solar in cities? Nothing, if it’s done right

Many of us are familiar with developments of big solar farms in rural and regional areas. These are often welcomed as a positive sign of our transition towards a low-carbon economy. But do large-scale solar installations have a place in our cities? The City of Fremantle in Western Australia is considering a proposal to use a former landfill site for a large-scale solar farm. The reportedly 4.9 megawatt solar power station on an eight-hectare site would be, it’s said, Australia’s largest urban solar farm. The initiative is part of Fremantle’s ambition to be powered by 100% clean energy within a decade. The proposal is facing some community …

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New Tech Could Turn Windows Into Solar Panels

See-through solar cells have been created which could turn windows into small-scale power plants. Researchers at Michigan State University have developed thin, transparent, plastic-like material that can act as an energy-generating coating on windows, and provide additional power when coupled with a rooftop solar installation. While the technology has existed in its early stages since 2015, it is only now developed enough for projects of scale. The technology works by utilising organic molecules within the transparent film that absorb ultraviolet and infrared lightwaves – which are invisible to the human eye – and converts them into electricity by directing these lightwaves to small photovoltaic cells at the edge …

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Melbourne’s Trams To Be Solar Powered

Melbourne’s trams network will soon be powered by the first large-scale solar plant to be built in Victoria. The solar plant, which will be completed by the end of 2018, is expected to be located in Victoria’s north-west. The state government announced on Thursday that the solar plant would produce 75 megawatts of power, with about half of that production to be linked to the tram network. Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government would use its purchasing power as a “large energy consumer” to boost investment in renewables. The project is expected to create 300 …

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German Battery Giant Teams with Australian Solar Tile Maker to Take on Tesla – Again

German battery storage giant and major Tesla rival, Sonnen, has opened up competition on yet another front in Australia, with the announcement this week of a partnership with a local roofing company that is set to launch its own version of an integrated solar tile. Sonnen said on Thursday that it had signed an agreement with Australian company Bristile Roofing to be the national supplier of solar powered energy storage systems for homes using its new solar tile, which is due to hit the market in September. Under the deal, Bristile will offer the Sonnen AC Coupled modular battery storage system …

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Queensland worm farmer invents solar powered compost machine

A Queensland worm farmer believes she has invented the world’s first commercially-produced solar powered compost machine. “It certainly is, yes, and we are happy to say it has been designed here in Australia and running entirely on solar,” said Penny Mitchell, from Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast. Waste material is put into two bins that rotate with the power of the sun, breaking down the matter with time. Ms Mitchell said the market for solar powered compost bins was environmentally conscious businesses that wanted to reduce their carbon footprint. “We are getting quite a bit of interest, we have had …

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Is It Time We Upgrade Our Energy Network?

Australia is an exciting place to be right now – changes that previously took 25 years to happen are now happening in five years, and with a customer-led shift in the utility sector to a market in terms with transition. In response, we must find ways to coordinate all the complexity in the market. On the generation side and on the low side, the grids are the glue behind it all. We need grid extension, transitional lines for power transfer, and examples of reinforcement of our distribution grids with a lot of the centralised generations embedded. Increased efficiency in our …

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Sydney community solar project: “solar beer”

A City of Sydney-backed community solar project that will put a 30kW PV system on the roof of a craft brewery in the city’s inner west will be opened to local investors this weekend. The project, which will install 120 solar panels at Young henry’s brewery in Newtown, won $40,000 in funding from the City of Sydney in November. The PV system will supply around 25 per cent of the brewery’s total electricity use, with no up-front capital costs. NSW-based community solar group Pingala, which is leading the project, said on Wednesday that it would launch the community investment round …

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Solar uptake spikes on farm & in rural industry in Tasmania.

Tasmania’s uptake of solar power is up 25 per cent, whilst the nationally solar uptake has fallen by 24 per cent over the same period. The figures come from the government agency, the Clean Energy Regulator (CER), that documents the issue of solar certificates nationally. Solar power advocates Solar Citizens said the data revealed the trend reversal. Consumer campaigner with Solar Citizens, Reece Taylor said in the first five months of this year the uptake of small scale solar in Tasmania had been up by at least 25 per cent and could be higher because of the lag in CER …

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