Archive for the 'Solar power' Category

Looking forward to long days with lot of sunshine made me check out what’s up in the research kitchen regarding wearable solar technology, speak flexible and hopefully lower cost solar panels.

My most promising find: Konarka, one of the hot favorites in the field of wearable solar power working on Power Plastic® that converts light to energy. This simple yet powerful mission of Konarka moved them to the forefront not only in research and development but very close to actual manufacturing of the first Power Plastic® materials.

The advantages of Power Plastic® will be: inexpensive, lightweight and flexible - just the stuff needed to be build power into Wearable Electronic products enabling them to have their own low cost embedded sources of renewable energy.

In a recent press release Konarka announced a first-ever demonstration of Inkjet Printed Solar Cells.

‘Demonstrating the use of Inkjet printing technology as a fabrication tool for highly efficient solar cells and sensors with small area requirements is a major milestone,’ commented Rick Hess, president and CEO at Konarka.

How does it work? Inkjet printing is a commonly used technique for controlled deposition of solutions of functional materials in specific locations on a substrate and can provide easy and fast deposition of polymer films over a large area. That’s scientist language explaining the function of an good old Inkjet printer I am sure most of our reader know and have connected to the computer.

This demonstration from Konarka confirms that organic solar cells can be processed with printing technologies with little or no loss compared to ‘clean room’ semiconductor technologies such as spin coating.

The advantage of this solar cell printing technology is the simpler and cheaper manufacturing setup required and the possibility to print solar cells on different materials like plastic and potentially on fabrics.

It is not expected to create high power solar cells in this way but powerful enough to collect light supplying products like sensors that have lower power requirements.

When will Power Plastic® become available for use? No clear signal yet out of Konarka but this will also depend on how ‘hot’ the interest from the market will be to use the Power Plastic® in commercial products.

If the solar bag trend that started last year continuous or becomes even hotter = bigger this year, Power Plastic® might be put on the fast track to commercialization.

Wherever there is light there will be (soon) power in your clothing and bags.

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Researchers at INL (Idaho National Laboratory), along with partners at Microcontinuum Inc. (Cambridge, MA) and Patrick Pinhero from the University of Missouri, are developing a way to collect energy from the sun with a technology that could potentially cost pennies a yard, be imprinted on flexible materials and still draw energy after the sun has set.

That’s a long and bold statement but how could this become reality?

Tiny nano-antenna array capable of collecting power by pick up infrared radiation not only from the sun when it radiates down during the day but also from the Earth when it radiates back up after dark.

The best performing solar cells today usually transform less that 40% of the usable energy into electricity. Flexible solar cells have half of this efficiency.

INL’s discovery could push this efficiency up to 80 percent if they can transfer this idea into mass-production.

Another advantage of this new technology is the cost: commercial solar cells are made of silicon and doped with exotic elements to boost its efficiency. The supply of processed silicon is lagging and they only get more expensive as demand increases.

The new approach uses a special manufacturing process to stamp tiny square spirals of conducting metal onto a sheet of plastic. This process makes it potentially cheaper and mass produceable on a roll to roll basis.

INL’s discovery could push this efficiency up to 80 percent if they can transfer this idea into mass-production.

As the well informed reader of talk2myShirt knows, Solar Fashion is becoming the next big thing in fashion and having a continuos power supply for Smart clothing will make them run day and night.

A brilliant, out of this world technology that will one day make our power T-Shirt work - day and night

source: INL

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The Textile International Forum and Exhibition we posted about a few days ago introduced another revolutionary textile technology: the Solar Textile after showing us the Textile Oven.

The Solar Power Textile is foldable and more suitable for integration into clothing than flexible solar panels used at the moment in many bags.

Having the softness of textiles, the use of such Solar Textiles do not pose any wear limitation for clothing.

Mr. Lin Cheng-chu, vice-director of the Weaving Research Department at the Taiwan Textile Research Institute (TTRI) explained: “In the near future, bags or jackets made with solar textiles will provide electricity for PDAs, cellphones or digital media players.”

Another revolutionary e-textile that comes out of the kitchen of TTRI is a foldable capacitor with similar properties in terms of integration into clothing as the solar textile. If this foldable capacitor becomes available on the market, it will have a big impact on Wearable Electronic products. Having a power storage that behaves almost like textile will transform clothing into power storing batteries.

I do not expect the storage capacity will run a laptop anytime soon but for small devices, especially bio-sensors for heart rate or similar functions might be within reach soon.

According to Mr. Lin, the solar textile technology will probably materialize in as early as one to two years.

Combine foldable solar textiles and foldable power storage textiles and we get a nice, self contained textile power house invisible integrated into our clothing to run all our gadgets forever.

[source: The China Post]

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Solar power is taking over the battle field after being one of the hottest items in all kind of bags this year.

The Australian army is testing new solar cell technology made from a secret compound and can produce hours of low-level energy to power radios, night-vision goggles, communications equipment and sensors to detect enemy positions.

The new panel weights just 14oz, and works even in cloudy conditions because it harnesses solar radiation rather than direct sunlight.

The Australian military spent around 2 million US$ on this project with the aim to find a better solution to power all the high-tech equipment the soldiers of our time have to carry around on the battle field.

As with many new technologies, the military is often on the forefront of research and first applications, mainly because of the fast amount of resources and money available in the military sector.

The good point is that most of those new developments will trickle down to civilian use and I can only hope the new secret solar compound will make its way to solar fashion for the 2008 season - yeah, I am a big optimist but one can have his/her dreams, right?!

[via: SciFi Tech]

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During my regular scan of companies we have posted about in the past, I discovered an update on Noon Solar’s website. Actually, their Website is under construction but it shows a new layout (image on the right cut out of their new site) and most important, the announcement that the new Solar Bag collection will be in store on November 15.

We marked this day in our calendar and look forward to see what Marianne Fairbanks and Jane Palmer, the founders of Noon Solar, have build up over the last few month since we posted about Noon Solar.

What makes Noon Solar different to most other companies is the throughly ecological pureness that both ladies have as their leading motivation to create a range of solar bags.

Besides the solar panels, which are laminated onto fabric and sewn into the bags, Noon Solar uses only biodegradable materials like leather tanned with vegetable-based substances rather than heavy metals that cause pollution, and natural-dyed fabrics, all stitched together by a Costa Rican factory that abides by fair labor practices.

There are various companies worldwide who make solar-powered bags, but Marianne Fairbanks and Jane Palmer believe their level of environmental and humanitarian commitment sets them apart from the competition.

Noon Solar had their first product on the market last fall by offering 50 satchel-style bags designed for men or women. They where sold primarily at two high-end boutiques in Chicago. The bags, which came in four shades of leather retailed for $400 to $700 and sold out quickly.

After the initial success, the team spent the next twelve month to design their second collection for fall 2007 — six shoulder and messenger bags in a variety of colors of leather and fabric.

But Marianne Fairbanks and Jane Palmer have already started thinking about the 2008 bag collection where they want to add magnets that allow people to buy a couple of bags and move the solar panel from one to another - an excellent idea to reuse the solar panel on different bags.

According an article by Crain Communications Inc., the founders of Noon Solar would love to see copycat, eco-friendly solar designers emerging that fit more people’s price range.

“We want to start the trend,” Ms. Fairbanks says. “We want to make it exciting so it can trickle down and become the thing that’s sold at Target for $20.”

This statement is very close to our ‘mission’ on talk2myShirt: we love to help people and companies to come together, sharing ideas and have interaction to make Wearable Electronic a thing for ‘everyday - everyone - everywhere’ a useful, practical and hot looking product.

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Hobby photographer and professionals alike have next to their power hungry cameras plenty of other gear in their camera bags for making the perfect shot to get famous.

Eclipse Solar Gear has a new camera bag that gives power to the Shutterbugs among our readers, the Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag.

Next to the Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag, Eclipse Solar Gear has a large range of solar power bags spanning Backpacks, Messenger Bags, Camera Bags and Bike Bags. All of them are ready to collect the sun light and convert it for the power hungry gadgets in our bags.

The Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag looks very good and has all the features a photographer expects from such a bag: Made of durable 1680 Denier Nylon, the large main cavity can handle a digital camcorder and a digital SLR camera with room left for accessories. It has internal dividers adjustable to fit snugly around any camera model. Side pockets with internal webbing help organizing memory cards, batteries, or other equipment.

What makes the Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag different to ‘normal’ camera bags is the integrated flexible solar panel on the top cover that provides power to trickle charge rechargeable batteries, camera batteries, or other electronic device like cellphone, MP3 player, …

The solar charging solution can be utilized by using the common 12V automotive adapter made for your device. No other special adapters are needed.

With the Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag you can recharge your camera while racing from one photo shot to another and have not to worry about running out of power while having all the celebrities lining up in front of your camera lens.

Amazing is the cost of the Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag, just $ 84.99 by RitzCamera.com. This price makes the Ion Camera/Video Gear Bag the cheapest solar power bag I have seen so far.

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Asking: “What is in your Bag?” seems to be a trend judging on the many blogs that have this line as topic.

For us the answer is: Solar Power and other other stuff of course. Having solar power in the bag is fairly easy nowadays.

You can either make a solar bag yourself or get one of the many solar bags on the market like the one form Imaginenergy, a Portland, Oregon based company that is in the consulting and contracting business about and around Solar energy.

Imaginenergy is not a typical bag brand but their Fusionbag looks quite good. It’s a durable and comfortable messenger bag, with an integrated flexible and waterproof solar panel.

The Fusionbag comes with a power module that can be charged via the Solar panels and on rainy days via AC power. This option provides power from your bag anytime. The power module is strong enough to handle even your laptop.

The Fusionbag comes in four different colors with a price tag of $ 350.- and can be ordered online by Imaginenergy.

If this price is a bit too hefty, you can always consider following our DIY Solar Bag project and make your own or you grab the one and only one we have left from our Etsy shop. The choice is yours to charge up your bag.

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Here is an example of how Wearable Electronic products should not be made.

The item in question is a Solar Backpack the online computer and peripherals shop Computer Supermarket from UK has added to their offerings.

This backpack is made by Nanomars, a Taiwan based company that makes consumer electronic products and computer peripherals. Backpacks and bags from Nanomars have first surfaced on the Computex Taipei back in June.

Nanomars uses glass solar panels that are easy to break, heavier and of course not bendable/flexible like the plastic solar panels that are used in all the other solar bag products we have posted about.

To merge a stiff piece of technology like this type of solar panel with soft materials usually used in bags and backpacks (this model is not a hard shell backpack) is a big NO, style wise and function wise.

Although we like every initiative to merge textiles with technology, using a stiff solar panel on an otherwise good looking backpack design does not fulfill the requirements we from talk2myShirt expect and demand from wearable Electronic products.

Computer Supermarket is selling the Solar Backpack for $ 120.- but I recommend looking for a more stylish and practical model from the wide range of solar bags available in the market.

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