energy

A solar solution to supply the world with 22 Energy TW

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A recent Ember report explained how Europe had eliminated coal as an energy source in 2024 and gave way to renewable energies, such as solar. In fact, in the same analysis, Spain registered a continuous increase in photovoltaic generation, reaching 21% of its electricity almost double that the European average (11%). So far everything is fine, but this boom of the solar is carrying that alternatives for the installation of panels in other surfaces, such as aquatic. International investigation. A study group, led by Carlos D. Rodríguez-Gallegos, has evaluated The state and potential of floating photovoltaic facilities (FPV) worldwide. For this analysis they have used the largest global database that collects the information of 1,142 commercial FPV systems from 2022. In addition, they took the geographical references of reservoirs, which cover a total area of ​​more than 2.2 million square kilometers. The object of study is to analyze its implementation and performance, in addition to studying advanced configurations such as bifacial panels, inclination angles and monitoring systems. The investigation had contributions from researchers from the You will be Singapore and from the National University of Singapore (NUS), as well as the Polytechnic Higher School of the Litoral de Ecuador, the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, the Concordia University of Canada and the University ofokin of Australia. Asia, the leader. Almost 90% of the installed floating solar capacity is in the Asian continent and China leads it with almost half of the accumulated capacity. This world predominance is due to favorable, ambitious objectives focused on renewable energy and regulations designed to support the expansion of FPV. Although Asia leads the development of floating solar panels, Africa is also exploring this technology. Zimbabwe advance with a 250 MW plant In the Kariba dam, projecting to reach 1 GW. In Ghana, A 5 MW system In a reservoir it will be expanded to 15 MW, while Cape City, in South Africa, has completed several smaller projects. With abundant sun and limited water resources, Africa seeks to meet your energy needs through these initiatives. Take advantage of water areas. The installation of photovoltaic systems on aquatic surfaces has presented different benefits, according to the study. First, optimization of limited space in areas with scarcity of earth. In addition, FPVs help reduce the evaporation of water in reservoirs and to maintain the temperatures of the lowest solar panels, improving their efficiency. On the other hand, this technology avoids related conflicts about land use. To give an example, in the Swiss Alps, They have demonstrated that these facilities can prosper even in adverse conditions, reaching higher performance regardless of altitude. The study results. From the analysis that the average size of the FPV has increased in the last ten years of 0.09 MW in 2013 to 1.40 MW in 2022, and, in parallel, the average power density has gone from 82 W/m² at 123 w/m². Researchers have identified optimal configurations to maximize electrical performance, such as the use of solar monitoring systems and bifacial panels, which capture the reflected light, thus improving energy generation. In economic terms, FPVs have proven competitive. For example, the project director has signed up for an Indian initiative that achieved a cost of installation of just $ 0.41 per watt, which reinforces the economic viability of this technology against other renewable energy options. However, these facilities also face certain challenges such as the initial cost can be very high by infrastructure. In addition, technology adaptability to different bodies of water (sweet or salty) and logistics complexities can also increase costs. Looking at the high seas. Looking ahead, the research team plans to explore FPV applications on the high seas, investigating its energy potential, innovative designs and the challenges that costs and maintenance present. According to its estimates, covering only 10% of the surface of 249,717 continental reservoirs could generate a capacity of up to 22 TW, sufficient to satisfy all world consumption of electricity and up to 5% of the global water demand. Image | Chn Energy Xataka | China is ready to inaugurate an ambitious floating solar plant. Its objective: solve a big pending problem

The price of energy that its chips factory is using in Ireland

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The tuning of an advanced semiconductor factory equipped with machines with avant -garde lithography It costs up to 30,000 million euros. This is precisely what will cost the plant that Intel will build in Magdeburg (Germany) If the project finally goes ahead. And, as we tell you at the beginning of last November, this company has decided delay the start of construction of this factory until 2029 or 2030. Initially the works were going to start during the first half of 2023, but The negotiation of subsidies forced to delay this date until the summer of 2024. However, Finally Intel and the German government agreed as a construction start date May 2025. Anyway, the four or five years of lag planned by this company are a consequence of the delicate situation in The one that is intel. The cost of energy is crucial to preserve the competitiveness of a factory The center of the conversation on this occasion is not occupied by the Magdeburg plant, although we stay in Europe; It is monitored by the factory that Intel has in Leixlip (Ireland). These facilities began producing integrated avant -garde circuits In the Intel 4 node In September 2023, and they are also manufacturing semiconductors in the Intel 3 node. This plant is equipped with equipment of extreme ultraviolet lithography (UVE) produced by the Dutch company ASML, and has a fundamental role in Intel infrastructure to serve its European clients. Intel is paying for electricity in Ireland that in the US or Israel As we have seen in the first lines of this article, the cost derived from the tuning of a last niche plant is very high, but, in addition, Intel has just stumbled with a problem in his Leixlip factory: The price of electricity in Ireland. According to this US company, this cost amounts to 15 cents per kilovatio houra figure that is approximately double high as in the US or Israel, which are the venues of some of its most advanced semiconductor production plants. As we can intuit, the price of electricity paid a chip factory has a direct impact on the final cost of the integrated circuits it produces. And, therefore, also in its competitiveness. Intel has rushed to ensure that the future of the Leixlip plant is assured due to the very important role he plays in his infrastructure, but in Rte They argue that he is negotiating with the Irish government to find a way to reduce the cost of electricity that he is currently paying. Presumably it is likely that the State finally assume a part of the cost of energy. Image | Intel More information | Rte In Xataka | The US does not press only Nvidia and Asml against China. Prepare more restrictions for TSMC, Intel and Samsung

Chips that recover energy when working

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Michael Frank has been working in a technological discipline that seems like science fiction for more than three decades. One that apparently pursues something impossible. And yet, it may not. The goal? Than using a chip manages to recover energy. Chips have always done the opposite. They consume energy. A lot. More and more, especially now that we are immersed In the era of glottone artificial intelligence. And yet Frank is immersed in the development of the call “reversible computing“As they explain In IEEE SpectrumLast summer Frank left his work as a scientific engineer in Sandia National Laboratories to join a very special startup called Vaire Computing. It is there where he intends to become what he has already estimated in his studies: according to his investigations, reversible computing could Allow energy efficiency 4,000 times higher to that of alternative options. In Vaire Frank and his team are working in a chip prototype that will be manufactured in the first quarter of 2025 and that is very ambitious. Even so, for the first time a chip is expected to recover energy when used in an arithmetic circuit. Then, in 2027, they hope to have a supply processor designed for artificial intelligence inference. The advanced version of said chip, which will theoretically be 4,000 times more efficient than the current ones, It will take 10 or 15 years to arrivetheir creators warn. What is reversible computing In 1961 Rolf Landauer, an IBM engineer, discovered that deleting a bit of information on a computer had an energy cost and produced heat. For him there was a solution: try to compute tasks without erasing information. A traditional xor door is not reversible: you cannot recover entries just knowing the exit. If an additional output is added, a copy of one of the inputs is reversible. Thus, the two outputs can be used to “disassemble” the door Xor and recover the entrances and, with them, the energy used in the calculation. Source: IEEE Spectrum. Landauer made clear that it seemed unchanged, because store all the information You would fill the memory With unnecessary data. More than a decade later Charles H. Bennett, physicist and information theoretical in IBM, discovered a solution. Instead of storing intermediate results in memory, you could reverse the computing process, “disbelieve it” to store only the final inputs and outputs. “Almost 100% of the energy used by a chip ends up being dissipated as heat, so we are basically evil. But in a reversible chip you never dissipate energy. Do not allow energy to become heat, and recycles internally.” The idea was taking shape in academic environments, and in the 90 Frank ended up being one of those who immersed themselves in their promises. The problem is that when developing that concept they saw that although energy was recovered in the circuit, it was lost in the external power supply. Vaire Computing was founded by researcher Hannah Earley and entrepreneur Rodfo Rosini. Earley explained In TechCrunch How “almost 100% of the energy used by a chip ends up being dissipated as heat, so we are basically missing it. But In a reversible chip you never dissipate energy. Do not allow energy to become heat, and recycles internally. “ In Varie they have apparently propose na solution with traditional CMOS transistors. To do this, they use the so -called “resonator”, a system that manages to recover energy by changing a bit from 0 to 1 so as not to turn it into heat and store most of it into the transistor itself. That idea has already been explored in the past, but in Vaire they seem to have managed to integrate that resonator into the chip. They will start with a little ambitious chip and then work on those chips for inference to which they will be theoretically what will be what will be theoretically really demonstrate How far can you get with reversible computing, also well explained in this small essay published in the Newsletter Exponential View. Of course, It is one thing to promise those efficiencies and another very different to achieve them. The proposal is very interesting and of course could raise a revolution that accelerated the development of much more powerful chips and that were not so voracious in terms of energy consumption. It remains to be seen if they will achieve it. Hopefully yes. Image | Wu Yi In Xataka | The 2 Nm chips race will start in 2025. And it will be the most fierce of all

In full desert, Saudi Arabia is preparing its next great energy bet with the help of a partner: China

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Saudi Arabia is facing a fiscal deficit Due to the expensive investments in projects such as The Line, which are part of their 2030 vision to diversify its economy. However, one part compensates for another, and that is that the Saudi country is focused in covering everything with solar panelsbut it has not taken into account until now where it could store energy. Short. Saudi Arabia has officially connected the largest energy storage system (Bess) in the world in Bisha, province of ‘Asir. The project has achieved a milestone in the country’s strategy due to a 500 MW/2000 MWh battery system. The operating company is Saudi Electric Company and uses advanced technology supplied by ByD. A larger initiative. The project, called Bisha Bess, is part of a broader initiative of the Arab country to further strengthen your renewable energy infrastructure. The nation is looking for more than half of its energy to come from renewable energiesso you have seen in storage the necessary component for this transition. Saudi Arabia has found that the batteries provide flexibility to the network and allows the integration of intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind. Apart from being part of the National Vision 2030 Plan, Bisha Bess is part of different large -scale storage initiatives. In an ongoing tender, the list of 33 prequalified bidders was published in early January and revealed that Masdar, Acwa Power, EDF and Totalenergies compete for 15 -year storage service contracts. 122 storage units. The Chinese company byd have prefabricated the 122 units, each integrates a 6MW energy conversion system (PCs) along with four iron and lithium phosphate batteries (LFP) batteries, each with a capacity of 5,365MWH. The design is modular to optimize space, improve system integration and minimize failure points. Desert construction. Although the batteries were supplied by the Chinese company byd, the project was carried out by a consortium formed by State Grid Corporation of China and Alfanar Projectswho were in charge of engineering, equipment acquisition and installation construction. The installation, located in an extremely challenging desert environment, has presented significant difficulties, such as high temperatures and frequent sand storms. To deal with these obstacles, the engineers perfected the installation techniques and optimized the start -up processes, ensuring the reliability of the long -term system. If you can’t with them, join them. This famous phrase can be attributed to the Saudi kingdom, who has thought about China. At the time he began to enter this race for the renewables, Arabia Saudi began to great. However, in the field of Megaestructures and renewablethe Asian giant has no rival. Although the Arab country is developing different projects in renewables, others that also integrate clean sources such as the city of Neom, is not having the expected success. However, there is a sector where you could compete with China: nuclear energy. The kingdom has the ability to Extract and process Uranium, which would position him as a key actor. Image | Red Sea Project SA Xataka | Saudi Arabia has just opened another of its colossal projects: the world’s longest driver transport system

an electrical grid that works 24/7 with solar energy

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We tend to assume that solar energy is intermittent, but there is nothing that petrodollars can’t solve. And Abu Dhabi is precisely the first city in the world to announce a large-scale solar plant designed to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The news. The pulse of the United Arab Emirates does not tremble investing what is harvested with its fossil fuels in renewable projects that will one day replace them. Its capital, Abu Dhabi, has just signed for 6 billion dollars the installation of a photovoltaic plant on a public service scale with a particularity. According to Masdar, the developer, it will be the first solar plant designed to supply clean energy 24/7 thanks to the combination of the Emirati sun, millions of solar panels and a huge storage system. The details. The huge project, participated by the state company EWEC (Emirates Water and Electricity Company), will combine a 5.2 GW photovoltaic plant with a 19 GWh battery storage system. Once connected, the plant will not only power millions of homes, but will be responsible for up to 1 GW of the grid’s base load, the minimum power required by the electrical grid that is traditionally covered by more stable thermal sources, such as coal. and gas. Alliance with China. As is happening in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the Emirates is strengthening ties with Chinese companies for this renewable drive. JA Solar and Jinko Solar They will supply 2.6 GW of solar panels each based on TopCon technology, which has higher efficiency and lower degradation rate. For its part, CATL will supply the batteries directly integrated into its HAVE storage systemwhich promises zero degradation in five years and a capacity of 6.25 MWh per container. POWERCHINA and the Indian multinational Larsen & Toubro will be in charge of the design and construction of the plant, which will generate 10,000 jobs. Green Emirates. The Abu Dhabi project, whose roadmap marks the start of operations in 2027, is framed in a long-term plan of the United Arab Emirates: the Energy Strategy 2050. The country hosted the COP28 summit, in which United Nations countries emphasized the urgency of installing more sustainable energy solutions. Sultan al Jaber, who chaired the summit, is also Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates and president of Masdar, promoter of the solar plant. “For the first time, we will transform renewable energy into 1GW of reliable baseload power, at unprecedented scale,” highlighted al Jaber in a statement. In Xataka | More billionaires, less oil: Abu Dhabi’s plan to become the new Singapore

The renaissance of nuclear energy is underway. And the microreactors are preparing to give it a boost

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The physicists and engineers involved in the development of fourth generation nuclear fission reactors They are working to propose new designs that conceptually may be very different from those of previous generations. Of course, the requirements that these new nuclear power plants must meet are clearly defined. The first of them consists of achieving the maximum possible sustainability, so that the fuel is used to the maximum to produce energy, the amount of radioactive waste resulting from the process is minimized and its management is as efficient as possible. The second requirement concerns the economic investment that must be made to start up and maintain the nuclear power plant, which must be as low as possible so that it can be compared to the expenditure required by other sources of energy, thus reducing the risk. financial. And the third and final requirement stipulates that safety and reliability must be high enough to minimize the probability of damage to the reactor core. Besides, if an accident occurred It should not be necessary to take emergency measures beyond the nuclear power plant facilities. Westinghouse and Radiant working on the world’s smallest reactors The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a very detailed report in September 2024 entitled “Energy, electricity and nuclear power estimates for the period up to 2050”. In it, it analyzes the short and medium-term future of nuclear energy and delves into its role as a means of generating electricity that can contribute to the achievement of global climate objectives. However, the most interesting thing is that this organization predicts that global nuclear power will increase by 2.5 by 2050. Microreactors use uranium-based isotropic tristructural particles as fuel Compact and modular nuclear reactors play a crucial role in achieving that vision, but microreactors will also likely play a very important role. As their name indicates, they are compact and modular nuclear reactors much smaller than conventional fission machines. As we can predict, they produce less energy than the latter, usually 50 megawatts or lessbut thanks to their size they can be installed in remote places where it is not possible to set up a traditional nuclear power plant. However, nuclear microreactors have more advantages. On the one hand, its installation is relatively simple and much faster than that of conventional reactors. In addition, they do not require large water cooling systems, they operate in an automated manner and their maintenance is simpler than that of a traditional nuclear plant. And, interestingly, the eVinci and Kaleidos microreactors being developed by the American companies Westinghouse and Radiant use uranium-based tristructural isotropic particles (TRISO) as fuel. The particles of this fuel are the size of a poppy seed and contain uranium, carbon and oxygen encapsulated in a carbon-ceramic shell that is capable of withstanding extreme temperatures. On paper this nuclear fuel is the most robust ever developed to date. An interesting note: Radiant uses helium as a coolant, while Westinghouse uses a passive heat duct system. These two companies have the financial support of the US Department of Energy (DOE) and plan to place their microreactors on the market in 2030 as long as, of course, they obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Image | Westinghouse Electric Company More information | IEEE Spectrum In Xataka | Bill Gates has an ambitious nuclear energy project. And now it also has an associated Spanish company

If the question is “can a country sustain itself with renewable energy alone”, the answer is right here: Portugal

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Two years ago, Portugal reached 75% renewable electricity thanks to the expansion of hydroelectric, wind and solar energy. However, this new year seems to be closer to that goal on an annual basis. In short. In a recent report from Ember, Portugal has achieved a milestone by becoming a pioneer in the global energy transition. Before closing this last year, because only 10% of its electricity consumption came from fossil fuels. This represents a record low, with electricity production from gas and other “dirty” sources falling to 5.1 TWh, the lowest figure since 1979. Additionally, locally generated renewables met 71% of the country’s energy needs, while an additional 20% came from mostly low-carbon imports from Spain. Reducing emissions. Spain’s neighbor has shown that it is possible to drastically reduce dependence on fossil fuels without compromising energy supply. This achievement has placed the Portuguese country as a pioneer, aligned with other leading countries like Denmark and Chileand projects a future where more than 90% of its energy will be renewable by 2030. In addition, the definitive closure of its last coal plant in 2021 underlines its commitment to this agenda. Regarding the consumption of gas to generate electricity, it has decreased by almost half from one year to the next, demonstrating the change in the Portuguese energy system. Ultimately, total gas consumption has fallen by 17%, marking its lowest level since 2003. In data. The International Energy Agency has shown that Portugal has achieved this boom in renewables, thanks to public policies, strategic investments and a focus on the development of clean infrastructure. In 2024, Portugal’s electricity mix was made up of 28% hydroelectric, closely followed by 27% wind energy, 10% solar, 6% biomass and 20% imports from Spain, which complement each other. . Imports from Spain. A part of the electricity consumption in Portugal comes from the Spanish electricity networks. This exchange has reinforced the collaboration between both countries in the Iberian Peninsula, where the energy of both nations totals 82% coming from clean sources. By sharing a well-interconnected electricity grid and prioritizing decarbonization, our neighboring country benefits from a mostly low-carbon import, which reinforces its commitment to a sustainable energy matrix. This cooperation model demonstrates how regional alliances can accelerate the energy transition and guarantee supply stability in a context of high renewable penetration. Image | Pexels Xataka | The overtake of renewables is a reality: solar and wind energy are elbowing their way into Europe

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