Ningguo City could be first solar-powered city in China
A Chinese tellurium mining company, Apollo Solar Energy, has signed a non-binding letter of intent with the Ningguo Municipal Government to begin a joint venture to design, build and run a 30x50 square kilometre solar city in Anhui Province, China.
The letter presents Apollo with the chance to become a 51% shareholder with the Ningguo City Investment Company, which could lead to proving how cost-efficient the use of solar energy for an entire community could be. Other investors would own 49 percent of the ventures shares between them.
As it stands, if the plans go ahead, Ningguo will be the first city in China to use solar power as its number one source of energy. Apollo's eventual aim, it says, is to make a completely zero-emission city in China. It won't be easy, though: it's believed that the entire project including a 10 GW grid-connected solar power station, will take up to 8 years and costs up to $14 billion.
SourceLabels: China, Solar power, Solar Powered, Solar Technology
Solar cell powers LG e-reader
LG Display has developed a solar-powered e-reader, which it says gives a day's power after four or five hours in the sun.
The Solar Cell e-Book is based around a 100m solar cell just 0.7mm thick and weighing 20g. It fits the six-inch TFT LCD display panel which the company already produces.
Produced by placing electrodes onto a glass or plastic substrate, the cell is lighter than the standard type of crystalline solar cell based on silicon wafers, says LG, and means process efficiency can be raised through increasing the substrate size. Because the technology is similar to TFT-LCD, the entry barrier is relatively low for LCD manufacturers such as LG.
“E-books are attracting a lot of attention because they offer the advantage of storing thousands of books’ worth of contents in an easy-to-carry device. The idea of e-book combined with solar cell will offer users the added benefit of longer usage," said Ki Yong Kim, head of the Solar Cell Office at LG Display.
sourceLabels: LG, solar cells, Solar power, Solar Powered
Future Apple Devices May Be Solar-Powered
Employees at Apple have filed a patent for integrating solar cells into portable devices by placing them underneath the layers of a touch-sensitive display, according to the filing.
Solar power could help make devices truly portable, freeing from the need for wires to connect them to a power supply.
When generating electricity from solar panels, the larger the panel the better -- but as the patent "Solar cells on portable devices" warns, after allowing space for buttons, screens and a way to hold the device, only a small area is left on most devices for solar cells.
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PC WorldLabels: Apple, ipod, isolar, solar cells, Solar Powered
