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RALEIGH, N.C. -- Apple ( AAPL ) plans to build the nation's largest private fuel cell energy project, a nonpolluting, silent power plant that will generate electricity from hydrogen in North Carolina. Apple filed its plans with the North Carolina Utilities Commission last week to build the 4.8-megawatt project in Maiden, about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte. That's where Cupertino-based Apple has built a data center to support the company's iCloud online data storage system and its Siri voi...... continue reading
From: Distributed Energy Topics: Technology
By David Engle
Little-known and under-publicized at the time, a provision of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 has since made rapid strides towards advancing what would be a revolutionary goal: a complete revamping of our nation’s electrical grid system and ratepayer electricity markets. If this initiative, often called the “smart grid,” stays on the track that industry groups are now busily charting, it will not only change the grid, but fundamentally redefine how distributed energy (DE) generators do business—and perhap...... continue reading
From: Distributed Energy Topics: Grid Metering, Technology
By Daniel P. Duffy
A new type of fuel cell has been developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Instead of using hydrogen to react with oxygen and produce electricity, the new fuel cell uses a process called direct carbon conversion. This new type of fuel cell is called a Direct Carbon Conversion Fuel Cell (DCCFC). In direct carbon conversion, extremely fine carbon particles are joined in an electrochemical process with oxygen molecules to produce pure carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and electricity. The carbon for...... continue reading
From: Distributed Energy Topics: Fuel Cells, Technology
By Daniel P. Duffy
No process that creates energy or does useful work is 100% efficient. The laws of thermodynamics see to that. For example, the typical efficiency of a coal burning electrical power plant is only about 40%. That is, only 40% of the heat energy produced by burning the coal actually becomes an equivalent amount of electrical energy. The other 60% is lost as waste heat. The trick is to capture this waste heat and make it perform useful work. The potential of waste heat as an energy source has remained large...... continue reading
From: Distributed Energy Topics: Energy Efficiency, Equipment, Technology
By Elisa Wood
The US Department of Energy (DOE) and several wind turbine developers anticipate an increase in the use of wind power given rapid advancements in turbines that can produce energy from low-speed wind. These turbines are designed for regions where the wind blows at 13 miles per hour or less, too slow for conventional equipment. "It is a big, if not the biggest, thrust of wind design and research these days—to optimize turbines for low wind speed," says John Chinook, principal engineer of Chinook Wind, an ...... continue reading
From: Distributed Energy Topics: Technology, Wind
By David Engle
Does combined heat and power (CHP) make sense at your facility? It's a critical question but not always easy to answer. Nor is the procedure for answering it always approached the same way - a factor that obviously might yield varying conclusions, depending on one's methodology. In fact, answering it typically involves three distinct levels of analysis: First, a preliminary screening will see if a location is even suitable as a likely candidate. Then, a "level two" assessment will take the question into...... continue reading
From: Distributed Energy Topics: Cogen, Technology