ANS TechGlance

Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) announced on November 24, 2010 that AIST successfully demonstrated  operations of  a new type of organic photovoltaic devices (solar cells organic) using optical absorption due to charge transfer between the different organic molecules.  Organic solar cells are expected as new technology for manufacturing solar cell sheets that can be bent, lightweight, and now, have been actively studied and developed worldwide.  This time,  successful photoelectric conversion from near infrared light over the wavelength of one μm  was confirmed using the  photovoltaic devices fabricated using organic molecules consisting of two molecules. This technology based on the new principle w ill enable more effective energy conversion from the light to electricity. Source: AIST's News Release (Japanese) 12/1/10

RIKEN has announced that its researchers have   successfully developed a revolutionary new polymer film that changes shape upon irradiation with UV and visible light.  The announcement continues, " Described in  Science , the film is the largest-ever example of a material whose molecular elements are ordered in three dimensions on a macroscopic length scale, marking a breakthrough in techniques for molecular design and processing." When this technology becomes popular, the direct conversion of light energy into a mechanical force may enable us to obtain a highly efficient energy conversion method from the solar light energy. Source: RIKEN News Release 11/17/10

Nova Energy, an entrepreneurial company based in Hyogo Japan, developed tidal power generation systems and started its trial testing off the coast of Awaji City in the first half of the year  2010. The key component of the system is a tuna shaped turbine "MAGURO TURBINE", of which type number NT-001 has a 6-meter-long body with a 3 meter-diameter of propeller, is designed to generate 10kw at 3 knot tide current speed.　Maguro Turbine is not actually for generating electric power but to generate oil pressure power which is transformed to rotate oil turbines for electric power generation. 　For a country surrounded by the sea, like Japan, there could be huge potential to use the sea power of clean energy.  We do hope the trial will be successfully completed together with a reasonable cost performance result. Source: News archives on Nova Energy's  web site (Japanese)              A TV program uploaded on YouTube (Japanese) 10/7/...

New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) has announced that the organization, working together with a group of School of Information Science, Hokkaido University, successfully developed a newly structured rotor segment type of axial-gap motor for use of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV).  The output performance of the new motor is comparable with the conventional rare-earth magnet motor although its magnetic material consists of ferrite magnets only without using any rare earth.  A result of actual load testing under a constant torque range shows 51.5KW which is equivalent to conventional HEV battery performance. This technology has been developed as a part of "technology development for the next generation high performance  automobile  battery systems ".   The new technology has strong potential to relieve auto-manufacturers from extremely competitive situation in procurement of the rare-earth material which is supposed to be...

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan (AIST) announced that its collaboration research team has developed a communication technology which uses the direct current (DC) power line of a solar panel as a communication line. The newly developed communication technology is expected to be used for monitoring of power generation in each solar panel, easy detection of malfunctions and high-efficiency power generation, etc.  Technologies of solar energy generation seem to be moving one step further intelligently to control and maintain the solar panel unit.  For details of the news announcement, please click here. Souse: AIST News Release 9/8/10

Honda unveiled a newly developed personal mobile tool, U3-X. It is reportedly said that U3-X is designed not to exceed 6km/hr as a maximum speed per hour and has capability to go up and down on a slop for pedestrians in offices or hospitals. Seeing is believing... 9/25/09

There must be a variety of leading edge technologies and components required for Smart Grid which is recently assumed as the next generation electric power distribution network. Electric power has been supplied by an electric power company to every building or facility wherever needed. "Internet" is often used as an analogy of Smart Grid since various information generators are connected to the internet . In this context, the electric power supply network has been used as "down load" only while Smart Grid will enable us to download and upload of the electricity for multiple directions as the information traffic flows on the internet . An important difference from Internet , however, Smart Grid has to assure stable and continuous power supply without no delay. No "Best Effort" is allowed on Smart Grid. Smart Grid sounds pretty smart and beautiful as written and pronounce. However a huge amount of new technologies and efforts for standardizat...

A Japan national project, Japan Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Demonstration Project driven by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry demonstrates its result at the Fuel Cell EXPO 2009. It is important to point out that the result has brought up with a cross border collaboration involving not only Japanese auto manufactures, oil and gas suppliers but also US and Europe based companies, such as Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Nippon Oil, Tokyo Gas and so on. Click here to see a video and text description for further details. Source: DigInfo 5/6/09

Bio Battery sounds interesting .   The technology product seems to be changing our concept of battery when it's commercially available in the market.  Source: DigInfo via YouTube 3/4/09

According to the spillover's specification sheet, it runs 100km  (assuming at a constant speed rate of 30km/h) once the  lithium-ion battery is charged from the regular power supply  of 100VAC, whilst one time of charging takes 6 to 8 hours. Its  weight and length are 360kg and 2.48 meters respectively. Source: DigInfo via YouTube 2/9/09

About one year ago, February 2008, I introduced at this blog site  Spiral Magnus  wind generator designed and manufactured by MECARO .  It seems that the new generator is now in commercial production.  The first commercial unit reportedly installed in Ogata Village, Akita Prefecture, Japan last November.  This video is a brief presentation on the product. According to the supplier, MECARO , the strong advantage of Spiral Magnus are in low speed rotation, exceptionally quiet operation, long lasting durability as well as high efficiency and stability in power generation that have been enabled by Spiral Effect together with MECARO's patent technology. Typical specifications data extracted from the supplier's web site are as follows. Wind Turbine Diameter: 11.5m Rated Output: 12kW Rated Wind Speed: 11m/s Rated Rotor Speed: 30rpm Cut-in Wind Speed: 3m/s Cut-out Wind Speed: 30m/s Wind Load Survival Rate: 60m/s Source: MECARO's  promotion video via Y...

Airdolphin is the name of a cute wind power generator.  Airdolphin is compact, light and simple no-screw body structure inspired by traditional Japanese handcraft techniques, the supplier, Zephyr says.    The core rotor has three ultra-light carbon fibre blades that are uniquely designed dramatically to reduce air flow noise.   The robust body generator cuts in at a wind speed of 2.5m/s and cuts out at a 50m/s, while a windload survival rating is 65m/s.  A rated power figure is 1kw at 12.5m/s wind speed. Typical figures of Model Z-1000 are extracted from Zephyr's specifications sheet as follows. Rotor Diameter: 1800mm Mass: 17.5kg Mount Diameter: 48.6mm Number of Blades: 3 Blade Mass (per piece) : 380g Body Material: Aluminum die cast Body Construction: Screw-free joints (based on traditional Japanese handicrafts) Product Finish: Teflon-based paint Control System: Built-in Zephyr-Original Power Management System* (ZPMS) with: Power-Assist Function Stall Mode Safety Control Batt...

Transforming ocean wave power to electricity seems to be an excellent solution to save natural resources! Hope it will be in commercial use shortly. 1/13/09

This energy controller seems to be pretty good for  controlling a stand alone solar battery system and wind generator system together located in a remote site.     A brief interpretation and summary of the product catalogue written in Japanese are attempted by me as follows. This device controls charging and discharging electric power generated both by a wind generator and photovoltaic power generator.  This hybrid controller has features all -in-one required for an ecological power generation system of 12-250W or 24V-500W.  Applications areas of this controller will be stand alone systems, such as emergency lighting, street lighting, eliminating, water-pumping and so on.   With data communication interface, this controller can communicate with a central control office where all the data is monitored and controlled.  Dimensions are Ｗ１２０×Ｈ３００×Ｄ８０ｍｍ.   Source: Web-site of Ftech Co., Ltd 1/3/09

Quieter and safer wind generating turbine with a better wind load survival rating sounds great, and in fact the outward appearance of the newly announced wind turbines, Spiral Magnus , looks lighter than the conventional blade type of wind turbines, while the new machine cylinders instead of flat blades to produce power is thus reportedly quieter, safer and provides more power than flat blade wind turbines. Attached, is one of video movies available at YouTube site, and the description of the video movie says, "The Spiral Magnus's design is based on German physicist Dr. Magnus's theory in which the wind velocity and pressure changes as it passes around the cylinder causing a lifting force that spins the cylinders similar to the motion of a baseball. With the spiraling fins surrounding the cylinder to catch the wind, four times as much dynamic lift is created as wind turbines with flat blades." According to the description, the Spiral Magnus can generate 30 MWh el...

Spherical shape of a solar cell sounds unique and unparalleled in its capability to achieve a better conversion rate between solar energy and electricity than the conventional flat cell. In fact, the sphere, because of its own shape, must be ideal to absorb direct and reflected lights while a flat one can't take the reflected light from the reverse side. The production process, Kyosemi Corporation , the manufacturer of the solar cell, seems to be also incomparable to dramatically reduce wasted material of silicon. The spherical solar cell, Sphelar ®, is just one millimetre in diameter, seem to have great potential for varieties of application. One of the new applications, Kyosemi supplies, is SphelarVoice ™, a battery-free wireless audio optical information system using Sphelar ® cells. I've found a good video movie on YouTube that resents the uniqueness of these points. It's should be better than a lengthy description in writing. Seeing is believing. Take a look at th...