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Solar Power

How Sustainable is a Solar Powered Website?

We present our website’s energy and uptime data, calculate the embodied energy of our configuration, consider the optimal balance between sustainability and server uptime, and outline possible improvements.

Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security

To improve energy security, we need to make infrastructures less reliable.

How to Run the Economy on the Weather

Adjusting energy demand to supply would make switching to renewable energy much more realistic than it is today.

How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone

Matching supply to demand at all times makes renewable power production a complex, slow, expensive and unsustainable undertaking.

How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid

Solar panels on window sills and balconies can supply more power than you would think.

Slow Electricity: The Return of DC Power?

Directly coupling DC power sources with DC loads can result in a significantly cheaper and more sustainable solar system.

Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s

From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, urban farmers grew Mediterranean fruits and vegetables as far north as England and the Netherlands, using only renewable energy.

Reinventing the Greenhouse

Contrary to its fully glazed counterpart, a passive solar greenhouse is designed to retain as much warmth as possible.

How Sustainable is Stored Sunlight?

Energy storage is often ignored when scientists investigate the sustainability of PV systems.

How Sustainable is PV solar power?

Almost all solar PV panels are now produced in China, where the electric grid is about twice as carbon-intensive and about 50% less energy efficient than in Europe.

The Solar Envelope: How to Heat and Cool Cities without Fossil Fuels

Modern research, which combines ancient knowledge with fast computing techniques, shows that passive solar cities are a realistic option, allowing for surprisingly high population densities.

The Bright Future of Solar Thermal Powered Factories

To power industrial processes like the making of chemicals, the smelting of metals or the production of microchips, we need a renewable source of thermal energy.