Science and Enterprise

Tag: cleantech

  • Renewable Power Storage, Management Modules in Development

    Systems that integrate renewable power sources with battery storage and management modules are being developed for pilot testing at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. The first of the modular systems, with a 50 kilowatt capacity, will be constructed on the Karlsruhe campus by the end of the year. The modular energy systems are being…

  • MIT Start-Up Building Solar Thermal Systems for Clinics

    A not-for-profit company established by students and alumni at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is testing a solar energy system that generates electric power and hot water for isolated health clinics in Africa. The team led by Matthew Orosz, a recent Ph.D. recipient in mechanical engineering, will describe its work in an upcoming issue of the…

  • ARPA-E to Fund $43 Million for Energy Storage R&D Projects

    Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), in the U.S. Department of Energy, will support 19 new research and development projects to improve the management of energy storage technologies for vehicles and electrical power grids. The projects, totaling $43 million, will be funded out of the Energy Department’s Advanced Management and Protection of Energy Storage Devices (AMPED)…

  • European Venture Volume Up, Science Company Investments Drop

    Venture capital (VC) investment volume rose in the second quarter of 2012 compared to the second quarter of 2011, but the number of VC deals dropped sharply. The number and volume of investments in European science-based companies, says financial industry research service Dow Jones VentureSource, declined by double-digit percentages in the second quarter of 2012…

  • New Method Devised to Predict Distributed Grid Power

    Computer scientists at University of Southampton in the U.K. have developed mathematical techniques that encourage accurate predictions of distributed electric power contributions to regional power grids. The work of Valentin Robu and colleagues from Southampton’s Agents, Interaction and Complexity Research Group was presented this week at the Twenty-Sixth Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Toronto. As…

  • $2.6B Venture Fund Aims for Health Care, Energy Companies

    New Enterprise Associates Inc., a venture capital company in Chevy Chase, Maryland, says it has closed its 14th fund with $2.6 billion in capital. New Enterprise says the new fund is its third consecutive property exceeding $2.5 billion, and brings the company’s total committed capital to more than $13 billion across all of its funds.…

  • VC Funding Cut for U.S. Firms, Science Companies Take Hit

    Venture capital investments in U.S.-based companies are down for the second quarter of 2012, with software and Internet companies favored over enterprises based on scientific discoveries. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, a financial industry research service, companies in the U.S. raised $8.1 billion in 863 deals during the second quarter of 2012, a nine percent…

  • Highly Transparent Solar Cells Developed for Window Glass

    Researchers at University of California in Los Angeles have developed solar cells with greater transparency that can be made to fit over windows and generate electric power. The findings from a team of UCLA engineers, materials scientists, and chemists appeared earlier this month in the journal ACS Nano (paid subscription required). The team developed a…

  • Grant to Fund On-Board Systems Extending Electric Car Range

    University of California in Riverside has received a one-year $95,000 grant from the California Energy Commission to develop algorithms that find the route requiring the least amount of energy for an electric car’s trip. The research will be done by the Center for Environmental Research and Technology, part of the university’s Bourns College of Engineering.…

  • Researchers Develop Battery Components as Painted Layers

    Materials scientists and chemists at Rice University in Houston, with colleagues in Belgium, have created a battery that can be applied as spray-painted layers. Their findings appear in the online journal Scientific Reports. The team led by materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan devised a method for applying five components of a lithium-ion battery — two current collectors,…