Hitachi, To Purchase ABB Power Grids For $7 Billion. Confirm Talks On Potential Deal.

Hitachi Ltd. and ABB Ltd. are in talks for a purchase / sale on power grids after the ABB Ltd., Swiss engineering giant was considering the sale of the division earlier this year.

ABB mentioned Hitachi discussions are looking to expand and re-define an existing strategic power-grid partnership between the two companies that goes back to 2014, companies revealed in a statement Wednesday. Hitachi also made a similar statement after trading hours in Tokyo. It’s the first time either has commented on a potential transaction.

Nikkei reported Wednesday that Hitachi is preparing to buy the power grid division for as much as 800 billion yen ($7 billion). They are planing to reach an agreement as early as this month after a final assessment.
Hitachi shares declined 0.7 percent Thursday in Tokyo, after jumping as much as 2.4 percent in early trading. ABB rose 4 percent in Zurich trading Wednesday, the highest in almost eight months, giving it a market value of about $43 billion.

Tesla To Ship 3,000 Model 3 Cars A Week To Europe Via Zeebrugge From February 2019.

 
Zeebrugge local media and ICO, International Car Operators, a transportation firm, are reporting that  Tesla would be shipping 3,000 vehicles per week to Europe starting February 2019. 
Belgian news channel (Dutch) Focus-WTV, is reporting that the Tesla cars would be arriving every week in the port of Zeebrugge. The news outlet noted that the electric cars are shipped through the services of transportation firm International Car Operators (ICO), which operates a site on the Zeebrugge docks. 
It also falls in line with Tesla's announcement of availability of orders for the Model 3 in Europe, Earlier this month. Tesla has laid out plans for starting volume production for the European markets in January.
The Tesla Model 3's will be shipped from either Oakland or San Francisco harbors and will take about 15 days to reach the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.
International Car Operators (ICO) has also invested in preparing the docks for the reception of the Teslas.

California Has More that 500K Electric Cars, Half As Much As All Of USA!

According to Veloz, California has reached milestone in electric cars. More that half a million vehicles were sold in the state, that is almost 50% of the all the electric cars sold in the USA. Veloz calculates the number of electric cars sold in California using national monthly sales data produced by HybridCars.com and Baum & Associates, a Michigan based market research firm, InsideEVs.com and estimates from the California Air Resources Board to determine the percentage of sales for battery electric and plugin hybrid electric cars expected in the state 

  

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2018
MEDIA CONTACT: Christina Heartquist
415-453-0430

California Sells Its 500,000th Electric Car

State is dominating electric car adoption rate with record number of new models on the horizon. Major milestone celebrated by one-of-a-kind coalition that aims to boost sales even more

Sacramento – According to tracking by Veloz – a first-of-its-kind public-private coalition of major electric car industry stakeholders, California hit its 500,000th electric car sales milestone in November.

For a fact sheet on the electric car market and Veloz’s philosophy, click here.

“This unprecedented, exponential growth of the electric car market is only the beginning,” said Josh Boone, executive director of Veloz. “But we need to accelerate the uptake of these cars to make a real difference. Air pollution negatively impacts the health of all. That is why we need ‘Electric For All.’”

Veloz’s monthly “Sales Dashboard” shows total sales of electric cars in the state for November hit 512,717, up 30 percent from the month before and 164 percent from a year ago. Overall, this year has seen exponential growth in electric car sales. Electric cars accounted for 7.1 percent of California car sales in the first three quarters of the year with fully electric, zero-emission car sales outpacing plug-in hybrid sales 4.1 percent to 3 percent respectively.

“Reaching 500,000 electric vehicles in California is yet another indicator that the future of transportation is electric. And that future is approaching faster than ever,” said Veloz board chair David Hochschild. “We have seen monthly sales of electric vehicles triple this year and California is well on our way to 5 million by 2030.”

But, even with California capturing almost 50 percent of national electric car market, almost 70 percent of counties across the state received a failing grade for ozone pollution caused by tailpipe emissions. Veloz recognizes that while electric car sales are increasing at a rapid clip, it is not happening fast enough to achieve the deep cuts in emissions that the state needs to achieve to protect people’s health and curb negative impacts on the environment. That is why they launched the public awareness campaign “Electric For All” to educate and inspire Californian’s to drive electric.

“We’re seeing a clear trend toward electrification here at home and abroad,” said Boone. “With the ‘Electric For All’ campaign, even more Californians will know about and experience these great cars. And, like these half-million people, many, many more will fall in love with a better way to drive.”

Veloz has its finger on the pulse of California electric car market and releases a detailed report on sales and infrastructure each month. The data is aggregated from a number of trusted sources and packaged in an easy to read and share “Sales Dashboard.” Watch for this release or check the sales dashboard each month to stay up electric car adoption in the state.

Taycan, The Young Wild Horse, From Porche Will Liven Up The Electric Car Scene.

Taycan (pronounced tie-kahn) - Young Wild Horse

Why go electric? asked Los Angeles Times from Porsche Chief Executive Oliver Blume;

Because of the CO2 targets worldwide. We have a big motivation: We have to do it.

We’ve had big success in electric motor sports. We’ve won three of the last four 24 Hours of Le Mans races with the 919 Hybrid. We carry over what we do in motor sports to the road. In Europe, more than 60% of Panamera sales are hybrid.

When asked about #Tesla, "The Taycan is often described as a Tesla-fighter, but you seem to hold Tesla in high regard?." Mr. Blume answered;

“If you look at what Tesla has done, if you look at their volume and look at their price level, it’s truly astonishing.
If you can do that with one brand and a sales network that is not comprised of dealers and a real sales organization, it’s even more astonishing.”

L.A. Auto Show LAT

It may be possible to produce fertilizer at the farm, using just sunlight and nitrogen from the air.

Titania - Titanium dioxide

A specialized X-ray source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has aided researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology to confirm the existence of a long-hypothesized interaction between #nitrogen and titanium dioxide (TiO2) – a common #photoactive material also known as #titania – in the presence of light. The catalytic reaction is believed to use carbon atoms found as contaminants on the titania. This might provide a sustainable way to produce Ammonia fertilizer, even at small scales by the farmers in the developing countries.
If this experimental process could be scaled up, it might one day help power clean farm-scale fertilizer production that could reduce dependence on capital-intensive centralized production facilities and costly distribution systems that drive up costs for farmers in isolated areas of the world. Most of the world’s fertilizer is now made using ammonia produced by the Haber-Bosch process, which requires large amounts of natural gas.

“In the United States, we have an excellent production and distribution system for fertilizer. However, many countries are not able to afford to build Haber-Bosch plants, and may not even have adequate transportation infrastructure to import fertilizers. For these regions, photocatalytic nitrogen fixation might be useful for on-demand fertilizer production. Ultimately, this might be a low-cost process that could make fertilizer-based nutrients available to a broader array of farmers, said Marta Hatzell, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.
Source

Dutch Windmills Will Power Google Eemshaven Datacenter.

The Dutch  windmills and dikes  are well known to the world. They have provided power to mill grains, pump water for reclaiming land from the sea and lately to attract tourists. The Kinderdijk mill site is a UNESCO World Heritage site, where you can see and admire those large wood structures with vanes known as sails, are dreamy reminders of technical past of the Dutch.
The knowledge transferred well in to the current windmills, Wind Turbines, the huge towers with even larger blades converting wind in to electricity will power a very 21st century Google data center, in Eemshaven, the Netherlands. The
Google signed a long-term agreement with Dutch power company Eneco, to power the data center entirely by renewable energy from its first day of operation, in 2016. The agreement is to buy the entire production of Eneco windfarm -- currently under construction at Delfzijl, near Eemshaven -- for the next ten years.
Dutch windmills to power Google’s Eemshaven data centre

SILEVO Launches Breakthrough Triex Solar Technology!

Silevo Inc based in Fremont California, not very far from where Solyndra was located, has announced the industry's best performance to cost ratio for solar cells, or modules, a collection of solar cells.
The company offers Trilex Technology which is a hybrid silicon based high efficiency photo voltaic cell that consists of crystalline silicon N-type substrates, thin-film passivation layers and a tunneling oxide layer. Powered by "tunneling junction" architecture.
The current manufacturing Triex cells demonstrate between 20% and 21% conversion efficiency on full size substrates.
Silevo says that it is in a pilot production mode and plans to go in to high volume production in the first half of 2012.

Silevo Press Release;

FREMONT, Calif. — October 12, 2011—Silevo, Inc., a solar cell innovator and photovoltaic solar module manufacturer, today emerged from stealth mode to announce the industry’s best performance-to-cost ratio for solar modules by evolving the use of silicon with new groundbreaking technology. Founded by leading executives and engineers from the semiconductor industry, the Silevo mission is to enable the rapid acceleration of solar energy reaching grid parity to transition today’s subsidized photovoltaic (PV) market into a self-sustaining market with widespread adoption.

The Silevo proprietary Triex™ technology evolves silicon-based PV as the first hybrid solar solution to combine high-performance crystalline silicon N-type substrates, thin-film passivation layers, and a unique tunneling oxide layer – all in a single solar module. Powered by breakthrough “tunneling junction” architecture, these three materials together enable the Triex module to deliver high efficiency, competitive module costs, and optimal energy harvest. Based on these criteria, Silevo offers the industry’s leading system cost value.

“Until now, the solar industry has not had a module that optimizes both performance and cost at a ratio that creates optimal levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). While thin-film modules offer good cost and energy harvest, their low efficiency leads to a high balance-of-system (BOS) cost,” said Dr. Zheng Xu, founder and CEO, Silevo. “Conversely, high-efficiency crystalline silicon can drive lower BOS costs; however, high manufacturing costs and poor energy harvest negate these efficiency advantages.

With Triex, Silevo offers the best of all three key parameters – high efficiency, low cost manufacturing, and low temperature coefficients for high energy harvest — creating the highest value and, we believe, a major industry milestone,” he said.

Triex’s “silver free” technology also eliminates the use of costly silver pastes that traditional c-Si device manufacturers rely on for electrodes – typically the second highest priced material in a module after silicon itself. By utilizing a low resistivity copper-based metallization scheme instead, Silevo is immune to silver’s increasing cost issue in the marketplace, while capturing the performance advantages of copper.

Triex Drives Leading System Cost Value

Silevo is currently producing modules in pilot production, manufacturing Triex cells that demonstrate between 20 – 21 percent conversion efficiency on full-size substrates with proven production materials.

“Since our collaboration started in 2009, Silevo has matured their cell technology from R&D cells of ~13 percent efficiency to pilot production cells of ~21 percent efficiency – an impressive 60 percent improvement. They have achieved these gains by rethinking conventional silicon cells and taking innovative approaches to optimize all aspects of device performance rather than focusing on incremental improvements to efficiency” said Dr. Bruce King, PV Performance team lead, Sandia National Laboratories.

The Triex technology roadmap shows headroom for up to 24 percent conversion efficiency in commercial products. As well, Triex yields cell temperature coefficients of -0.22%/C, which will enable thin film module like energy harvest in real world service environments.

“The technological achievements of Triex coupled with the Silevo team’s strong background in semiconductor production and solar manufacturing equipment provides us confidence that the company will smoothly transition into high volume manufacturing,” said Chris Beitel, vice president of business development and marketing, Silevo.

Silevo combines the skills of innovative solar and semiconductor talent in its Silicon Valley corporate headquarters and R&D center with an experienced manufacturing operations base in Asia to deliver the highest-performance and lowest-cost commercial product that drives solar towards grid parity. Silevo recently closed $33 million in financing with new lead investor New Margin, along with existing investors GSR & DT Capital. The round is being used to build the high-volume manufacturing facility in Hangzhou, China, and further drive advanced research for Triex in Silicon Valley to 24 percent conversion efficiency.

Availability

Customer qualification samples are shipping today from the pilot production facility in Fremont, CA, with high-volume commercial production to begin the first half of 2012.

About Silevo, Inc.

Silevo, Inc., formerly known as Sierra Solar Power, was founded on the principal that technical innovation can evolve silicon-based cells and modules to both increase performance and lower costs. The company was founded in 2007 by leading executives and innovation engineers from the semiconductor industry with the business strategy of combining U.S.-based headquarters and R&D facilities with scalable, automated, low cost manufacturing operations in Hangzhou, China. Silevo’s unique technology and a low cost operations model aligns with its mission to transition today’s subsidized PV market into a self-sustaining future that furthers widespread solar adoption. For more information, please visit www.silevosolar.com.

Contact Information:

Schwartz MSL Gina Manassero 415-512-0770 Silevo@schwartzmsl.com Silevo, Inc. Chris Beitel (510) 771-1394 Chris_beitel@silevosolar.com

The Carbon Footprint Of Your Life On Google Is Zero

Google has been making milestones, trying to help the planet go green. I always imagined those big server farms must be sucking energy like black hole. But my thoughts was proved wrong and even though these servers do draw energy, per user per month, it is much less than, in Google's words, a light bulb left on for three hours. I am not sure if it an incandescent, CFL or the ridiculously expensive bu efficient LED bulb that we just started using. In either case it is a lot less energy usage than running your own servers, specially for small business'.
Either was Google as one of the largest cloud service providers in the world, saving energy wastage and we reported yesterday how much energy GMail and YouTube Saving. But the story does not stop there and even the little energy per user mentioned above, is offset by Google's Carbon offset program, Google has been carbon neutral since 2007.
Google also has set the path for other big boys to go green sooner than later, Microsoft, Yahoo followed the Google footsteps and even got competitive in setting up green initiatives.
Google also invests heavily on green energy, like the investment on Geothermal energy, renewable energy projects, and so on.
I am glad, that I am / we are using Google services to the fullest, ok not the fullest but as much as we could.

Official Google Blog: How our cloud does more with less

Solyndra Going Bankrupt? 1,100 To Go Jobless!

I was very surprised to see this morning news splattered across many TV stations in the bay area that Solyndra has shuttered it's doors.
I pass this facility on 880 twice a week on my way to work in Mountain View (That is another story, burning gas to save bridge toll and traffic) and always remember how President Obama visited the facility and placed and encouraged hopes on job creation, solar technology, Cleaner environment and American innovation.
Those hopes and livelihood of 1,100 people are on the rocks. Company has not provided any information to employees but later released a press release stating;

August 31, 2011 11:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time

FREMONT, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Solyndra LLC, the American manufacturer of innovative cylindrical solar systems for commercial rooftops, today announced that global economic and solar industry market conditions have forced the Company to suspend its manufacturing operations. Solyndra intends to file a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code while it evaluates options, including a sale of the business and licensing of its advanced CIGS technology and manufacturing expertise. As a result of the suspension of operations approximately 1,100 full-time and temporary employees are being laid off effective immediately.
Despite strong growth in the first half of 2011 and traction in North America with a number of orders for very large commercial rooftops, Solyndra could not achieve full-scale operations rapidly enough to compete in the near term with the resources of larger foreign manufacturers. This competitive challenge was exacerbated by a global oversupply of solar panels and a severe compression of prices that in part resulted from uncertainty in governmental incentive programs in Europe and the decline in credit markets that finance solar systems.

“We are incredibly proud of our employees, and we would like to thank our investors, channel partners, customers and suppliers, for the years of support that allowed us to bring our innovative technology to market. Distributed rooftop solar power makes sense, and our customers clearly recognize the advantages of Solyndra systems,” said Solyndra’s president and CEO, Brian Harrison. “Regulatory and policy uncertainties in recent months created significant near-term excess supply and price erosion. Raising incremental capital in this environment was not possible. This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate.”

Customers who have implemented Solyndra solutions can be assured that their systems will generate economical, clean, solar power for decades.

Contacts

Solyndra
Dave Miller, Director Corporate Communications, 510-440-2979