Solar Power

A Spanish start-up called Proton New Energy Future has unveiled Ebörd, a smart table that has a wireless charger built into the entire surface, allowing it to charge multiple devices at once. Better yet, it harvests energy from the Sun or even artificial light.

Snowy places aren’t ideal for harvesting solar energy – panels can’t do much if they’re buried under blankets of snow, of course. Now a team from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a new device that can produce electricity from snow itself.

London-based Studio Bark has done a superb job with this contemporary take on a traditional barn-style house. Named Black Barn, the recently-completed home runs fully off-the-grid and is designed to resemble the local agricultural buildings in rural Suffolk, England.

Another year is winding up, so it's time to look back at the scientific breakthroughs that excited us this year. From innovative new materials that open the door to more advanced tools and products, to discoveries that continue to push the borders of human knowledge, 2018 didn't fail to deliver.

Though broad strokes paint a useful overall picture of rates of solar uptake in the US, there’s a lot to be learned from drilling into the finer details. Stanford scientists have built a new machine learning tool specifically to do the job, and it goes by the name of DeepSolar.

Following years of research and development, an accidental fire and rebuild, and around a month in the Dubai desert, Virginia Tech students have won the 2018 Solar Decathlon Middle East with the FutureHaus. The prefabricated modular home runs from solar power and was assembled in under two days.

The automotive world's attention may be focused on the high-performance parts of SEMA 2018, but Hyundai is previewing a very different style of performance-enhancing component. Beginning around 2020, it will add solar roof panels to both electrified vehicles and gas models.

More than 30 years after the worst nuclear disaster in history, the Chernobyl area is once again producing power. From the (somewhat literal) ashes of the Nuclear Power Plant springs the Chernobyl Solar Power Plant, which was officially launched with an opening ceremony on Friday.

We sat down with the CIO of Array Technologies Ron Corio in Melbourne to discuss the latest innovations in the realm of solar tracking, and what the future may hold for this increasingly solar as a form of renewable energy.

Apple is paired with Foster + Partners, Google with BIG and Thomas Heatherwick, and Facebook's architect is Frank Gehry. The social media giant recently commissioned him to expand its HQ in California. The new building was completed in 18 months and has several sustainable features.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have developed a new way to build solar cells containing bacteria, which are more efficient than similar systems and can even work on dim, cloudy days.

This cuboid studio cantilevers over a steep slope above and behind the owners' main residence, offering them additional room to work, relax, and entertain, while enjoying the ocean view. It also features solar panels that produce enough electricity to run both the studio and the main house.