Nov 5 2009 10:56AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
Blog This! using:  Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

Do you have a good topic for a technical paper for the 2010 “Designing with LEDs” Workshop to be held March 17 at the Santa Clara Convention Center? We’re looking for papers on power control, thermal management, optics, and lighting control and networking. If so, please fire off an abstract summarizing your paper in 300 words or less and send it along with author information (name, title, company, and contact information) to me at mconner@reedbusiness.com. Deadline to submit is December 4.

The LED Workshop, which is the only event of its kind to focus on the HB LED drive and control electronics as well as thermal management, will be a great place to see and discuss the latest advances in this booming technology, and to network with fellow designers and developers. For more in...Read More

Nov 4 2009 10:57AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
Blog This! using:  Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

Reader Jim K left a comment on Monday’s post, “Micro-inverters offer one solution for optimizing solar efficiency,” asking for a list of micro-inverter companies. As mentioned, Enphase is the only one that I know of that’s shipping product, but here’s a list of companies which have made announcements at least of their intention to sell micro-inverters:

• ·         Accurate Solar
• ·        

Nov 3 2009 11:19AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (16) |
Blog This! using:  Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

The lead-in to this post is here: Micro-inverters offer one solution for optimizing solar efficiency.

Probably the most well-known micro-inverter company is Enphase, which sells a 200W inverter for about $200 or about $1/W. This compares with a 3kW string inverter for about $2,000 or about $0.66/W.  Enphase suggests that the additional $.33/W is compensated for by the lowered installation labor and investment costs.

...Read More

Nov 2 2009 9:38AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (11) |
Blog This! using:  Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

Power-generating installations of solar photovoltaic panels are changing. Rather than the massive solar farms of the past10-20 years, smaller residential and industrial roof-top installations are gaining favor. These small-scale installations have different characteristics from the solar farms with their acres of arrays of solar panels that all face in the same direction and receive the same amount of sunlight. Solar farms have no obstacles such as neighbors’ trees or utility poles to shade a panel, causing a panel-to-panel variation in power output. On the other hand, residential and industrial installations have some features in common with solar farms: They are subject to dirt and require washing at regular intervals, and have panels that age at slightly different rates, causing variations in panel outputs.

S...Read More

Oct 22 2009 1:13PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (5) |
Blog This! using:  Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

When I saw the headline over at Make magazine, “Eternal flame replaced by LEDs,” I thought I understood immediately what the article would be about. Some monument somewhere which previously had a natural gas flame was “lowering its carbon footprint” by switching to LEDs. Not exactly.

It seems the memorial, located in the Ukraine, was erected after WWII to commemorate the many, many who died there. Natural gas was one of the plentiful commodities under the USSR regime, and for 50 years there was no trouble getting the flame illuminated with its own natural gas line. However, when things started to fall apart in the USSR several years ago, the free natural gas stopped, and it was to...Read More