Renewable Energy

A new class of elastic energy converters is emerging, with the ability to capture energy from a variety of different motions. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is pushing to deploy them, first in a series of strange, bendy wave energy designs.

Swedish company SeaTwirl says its floating vertical-axis wind turbines have what it takes to dramatically reduce the cost of deep offshore wind energy, and it's signed a deal with Westcon to build and deploy a commercial-scale 1-MW turbine in Norway.

Boston startup T-Omega Wind says it's prototyped and tested a unique floating offshore wind turbine that can withstand massive storms, but at 20% the weight and around 30% the price of conventional designs, unlocking the world's best wind resources.

CalWave has been working on its xWave clean power technology for many years now, and has announced the successful conclusion of an extended open-ocean test off the coast of San Diego, in which the device demonstrated over 99% system uptime.

We interviewed the core team at Norway's World Wide Wind to learn more about its floating, tilting, contra-rotating, double turbine design, which it says can unlock unprecedented scale, power and density to radically lower the cost of offshore wind.

Norway's World Wide Wind has a radically different take on offshore wind power. These floating, vertical-axis wind turbines feature two sets of blades, tuned to contra-rotate – and they promise more than double the output of today's biggest turbines.

Sea Wave Energy Ltd has been working for more than a decade on an ultra-cheap floating wave energy device. With several prototypes tested, the company is promising capacities over 100 MW, with unheard-of energy cost figures under 1 cent per kWh. Hmm.

We've seen some inventive ideas around how giant turbine blades might be saved from landfill at the end of their lives, and scientists have just thrown another one into the mix with some wide-ranging, and delicious, potential.

An exciting candidate when it comes to alternative battery chemistries is sodium-ion, and a research team in Russia has developed a novel battery of this ilk that boasts some impressive energy density, and may also be resistant to low temperatures.

Wave Swell Energy's remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results.

Polar Night Energy says it's developed and commercialized a super-cheap, super-simple way of storing energy for anywhere between hours and months, simply using heated sand. Its first 8-megawatt-hour thermal battery has gone online in Finland.

Before perovskite can become viable for solar cells, it needs to overcome a major durability issue. Engineers at Princeton have unveiled a new perovskite solar cell design that tests suggest could last as long as 30 years of real-world use.