No:38- September 2017
Education at Turkey's first renewable energy high school began on Tuesday in the Turkish capital Ankara with the attendance of Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak.
School will be one of Turkey's flagship institutions in energy efficiency and savings, says Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak.
According to Albayrak, solar panels and wind turbines will provide energy required for heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation systems in the Eryaman Cezeri Green Technology Technical and Industrial Vocational High School.
"It will be one of Turkey's flagship institutions in energy efficiency and energy savings," Albayrak said.
With infrastructure providing high-energy efficiency, the school will consume 23.6 kilowatt-hours of energy annually, the minister said.
The cost of 60 years of energy, water etc. in a standard high school is around 257 million Turkish liras ($72.7 mln), Albayarak explained, and said "in this school, this will amount to 71 million Turkish liras, meaning more than 180 million liras in savings."
"This means at least 80 percent of total energy savings compared to other high schools," he added.
He also shared that the school cost 26 million Turkish liras with its 26 classrooms, six laboratories, 10 workshops, an indoor sports hall as well as a 147-bed dormitory.
European Utility Week which is regarded as the premier business, innovation and information platform connecting the smart utility community, will gather experts from utilities, network operators, vendors, consultants, startups and system integrators covering the entire smart system value chain in the Netherlands from October 3 to 5.
The event will focus on regional and global devleopments in grid optimisation, renewables, energy storage, smart metering, smart cities, smart homes, energy services and efficiency, energy trading, intelligent buildings, data management, analytics, and IoT, cyber secutiry, smart gas and smart water.
The event will have two programs with two distinct purposes. The first one - summit will include strategic discussions while the second part – hub sessions – will include more practical industry solutions.
More than 400 expert speakers will give the insight to drive the industry forward.
ELDER will be organizing the workshop of its Horizon 2020 funded project SmarterEMC2 within the European Utility Week event. The project brings together industrial, research and academic partners with background on different areas of ICT and Power systems with a common goal of achieving a breakthrough in the energy domain, through the integration of ICT solutions with the Power Systems. In this workshop, the ICT tools that were implemented in the context of SmarterEMC2 will be presented. These tools are now being used in real life pilots, where Demand Response, Virtual Power Plant Operation and Low Voltage Grid Management services are being demonstrated. Visitors will also be presented early findings of the pilot phase.
Workshop will be implemented on 4th October at the European Utility Week event room #G109 from 13:00 to 16:00. Please find the agenda of the workshop here.
Researchers from the University of Manchester are studying the use of materials to make solar energy panels cheaper and more efficient.
The university released its research findings on Tuesday outlining the potential to reduce the cost of production and manufacturing of solar cells used in solar panels. These findings should make electricity cheaper for the public by using polystyrene particles instead of expensive polymers, common in the traditional manufacture of panels.
"Traditional photovoltaic panels incorporate silicon to harvest the light which is converted into energy but it is an expensive, energy-intensive material to produce. Recent research has turned to panels using a cheaper compound, perovskite, as the light harvesting layer instead of silicon," the research said.
The research shows that by using insulating polystyrene microgel particles in Perovskite Solar Cells, a new kind of solar panel, it is possible to increase the rate of power conversion efficiency and with potentially relatively lower costs per watt.
Current Perovskite Solar Cells typically use organometallic halide perovskite as a light absorber, which degrades when exposed to water, making their practical use limited.
The cells also rely on a hole-transportation layer, which promotes the efficient movement of electrical current after exposure to sunlight. But manufacturing the hole-transportation organic materials is very costly and these lack long-term stability, the university said.
"The perovskite layer in solar cells is not inherently unstable, but the required hole-transportation organic materials are. Hole-transportation organic materials made of congregated polymers are thin but they are also relatively expensive and contribute a significant portion of the total cost of the solar cell. In this study we used polystyrene, which is one ten thousandth the cost of polymers to produce, and is also hydrophobic which helps improve the stability of Perovskite Solar Cells," explained Brian Saunders, professor of polymer and colloid chemistry at the University of Manchester.
"More research is required to realize the full potential of the Perovskite Solar Cells technology, Saunders said and added, "That is why we’re looking at how best to produce Perovskite Solar Cells, keep them dry and make them even more commercially viable in the future," Saunders added.
Article
Electricity Networks: Infrastructure and Operations IEA
Too complex for a resource?
“Too complex for a resource?” is an issue paper on electricity transmission and distribution network operations and investment in liberalised electricity markets with low carbon policies. It presents the complex policy, regulatory and market context in which networks have to provide services to the market.
