Jun 29 2009 9:46AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (8) |
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Ten companies, including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Apple, Motorola, Texas Instruments, RIM, and Samsung, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the European Commission in Brussels to develop and standardize on a universal charger based on the micro-USB connection. These chargers will work with data-enabled mobile phones that support USB data exchange.

According to this article in the BBC, “Currently there are more than 30 different types of chargers for handsets throughout Europe. EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen says he also wants to see the common charger expand in the years ahead ...Read More

Jun 26 2009 10:26AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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No big plans for the weekend? How about some DIY solar energy project plans? BuildItSolar has a plethora of plans. Some that look especially good:

-Solar-charged EV scooter (“Don rides the scooter 5 miles to work each day, and can fold the panels out for charging the battery while parked at work.”)

--Solar pool and hot tub heating

-I especially liked the section on water efficiency, including rainwater harvesting and graywater use. (Its only ...Read More

Jun 24 2009 10:12AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (11) |
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Last month, researchers at the University of St Andrews in Scotland announced their efforts to develop a rechargeable lithium-air battery that could deliver a 10x increase in energy capacity compared to that of currently available lithium-ion cells. Research has included investigating the materials issues associated with a non-aqueous O2 electrode. (Keeping the water out while letting in oxygen from the air is tricky but necessary because of lithium's violent reaction with water.)

"The key is to use oxygen in the air as a re-agent, rather than carry the necessary chemicals around inside the battery. says Professor Peter Bruce of the Chemistry Department at t...Read More

Jun 22 2009 9:24AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (5) |
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Big news on the PMBus front: TI has announced that they’ve signed a license agreement for Power-One’s digital power technology patents. Note that TI is licensing the patents on digital power control technology including the configuring, control and monitoring of power systems – TI is not licensing Power-One’s control bus itself. Also, the license will extend only to OEMs using TI power control chips as point-of-load controllers; It will not extend to merchant power supply manufacturers using TI parts. TI says that it doesn’t want to make decisions for its customers in the merchant power supply space. (Keep in mind that Power-One a major player in that space.) The license also extends to TI power modules.

...Read More

Jun 19 2009 11:20AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (10) |
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TI’s alternative energy blog, TInergy, has a mild rant on the common-but-mostly-useless $/W metric often used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of solar power systems. Common wisdom says that when solar panels reach $1/W they will reach cost parity with grid electricity. However, $/W for the solar panel doesn’t taking into account variations in cell efficiency, inverter efficiency, control electronics, and installation costs. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, we all get our electricity bills with rates listed in $/kWh, which can vary widely (in addition to being tiered); $.10/KWh is a good number. $/kWh is the real rate we use to evaluate whether solar power is cost-effective, and it requires knowledge of the efficiencies of each pi...Read More