SmartEnergy

Ultracapacitors: Best Option for EV Energy Storage Technology
The market need for EVs will only increase with time and more consumers will make the switch to fuel-efficient vehicles. Rugged, durable ultracapacitor cells provide the best solution for acceleration, energy recapture, peak load shaving and other high power applications.

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Embedded digital control facilitates adaptive power control strategies
Able to swap seamlessly between utility ac line and local battery backup power, the intermediate-bus architecture (IBA) that the telecoms industry has refined over decades to become cost-competitive with traditional offline-only sources is an attractive alternative for system architects needing high availability in a wide range of industries. New developments in areas such as intelligent power management strengthens the arguments in favor of the IBA.

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Coupling a Supercapacitor with a Small Energy Harvesting Source
Supercapacitors store energy and deliver peak power in support of energy harvesters. This article reviews the characteristics of supercapacitors and the key issues designers should consider when pairing them with small energy-harvesting sources.

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Teardown: The power inverter - from sunlight to power grid
This teardown of a solar inverter card traces the path of harvested DC power from the photovoltaic panel, through boost conversion, power inverter and massive filtering of the created AC power signal required by the power grid.

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Power electronics for smart energy require innovative packaging technology
Power electronics is becoming increasingly important when it comes to Smart Energy markets such as regenerative energy, e-mobility and energy saving. In order to tap into these markets, innovations in packaging technology are needed in five areas: Solder joints, module base plates, module layout, chip temperatures, and current densities.

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When the Power Fails: Designing for a Smart Meter’s Last Gasp
A smart meter is powered by the same bus the meter is monitoring. When power is lost, the meter must record state information to flash memory or send out a wireless signal -- the meter’s last gasp. The problem of efficiently and cost-effectively providing hold-up energy typically falls to power supply designers. Try one of these flyback switch mode designs to provide for that last gasp.

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Circuit Protection Design for Photovoltaic Power Systems
Learn about the special circuit protection requirements of solar energy systems.

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Guidelines released for comparing energy efficiency of networking platforms
Guidelines released for comparing energy efficiency of networking platforms

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Top 10 articles in Smart Energy for 2011
What were the important topics within the Smart Energy technical community in 2011? An analysis of what happened with solar power startup Solyndra was the clear winner, followed by articles on LEDs and smart meters.

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Cost may gate li-ion batteries as an enabling technology for EVs
Engineers are up against the gating factor of battery pack cost as they try to improve the safety of electric vehicles.

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Hot topics in Smart Energy for 2011 – Part 1
What were the important topics within the Smart Energy technical community in 2011? Judging by traffic to this site’s top articles, they were a varied lot, ranging from LED lighting to the smart grid to new approaches to power conversion efficiency.

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Primary-Side-Control with Active PFC Offline LED Controller
Designing a successful LED light depends on adapting what is essentially a DC device to run using the AC mains signal—which typically requires more circuitry than incandescent bulbs.

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Solyndra: Its technology and why it failed
Solar is not about building a better mousetrap - it's about reducing costs and increasing scale.

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High-Voltage CMOS process features galvanic isolation for smart-energy designs
New process exceeds 600 Vrms at 150°C over ten years lifetime.

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Wireless-powered telemetry system monitors dragonflies
An engineering team at Duke has developed a wirelessly powered telemetry system to study dragonflies in flight.

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Call for Abstracts for next LED Workshop – March 28, 2012 in San Jose
The Call for Abstracts is open for technical papers for the next “Designing with LEDs” Workshop.

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Energy harvesting and renewable energy sources
Energy harvesting is hot, and the Power Solutions: Smart Energy Technologies and Techniques Virtual Event by EETimes will address major issues associated with the design and integration of solar- and wind-harvesting systems.

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PPTC Devices Help Protect High Brightness LEDs
High brightness LEDs are energy-saving, cost-effective devices that are enabling the next generation of lighting solutions. However, excessive heat or inappropriate applications can dramatically affect LED lifetime and performance. Including circuit protection in your design can help improve LED performance and lifetime.

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Energy harvesting module suits thermoelectric, vibrational, photovoltaic sources
Thermoelectric generators (TEGs), inductive coils, and photovoltaic cells tend to have output voltages that range below half a volt. This module serves as a bridge between the energy source and the application.

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Battery Charge Control: Dedicated ICs vs Microcontrollers
Microcontrollers can be used to directly control battery charger power conversion circuits. However, microcontroller circuits and firmware are normally more expensive to design and test and often cost more to produce than chargers based on dedicated charge control ICs. Here are the tradeoffs to consider when making a choice between microcontrollers and dedicated charge control ICs for battery charge control.

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Smart Energy Profile (SEP) 2.0 Uncovered
The Smart Grid can enable and empower consumers to manage their energy consumption in coordination with their Electric Utility. The Smart Energy Profile 2.0 (SEP 2.0) is an emerging standard that is designed to enable informed consumer participation and implementation of Demand-Response Programs by the Utilities.

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Cree takes a page from Amazon’s playbook with its new LED TEMPO Service
LED device manufacturer Cree sees the quality – or lack thereof – of packaged luminaires as being a major obstacle to LED acceptance; The company now offers design test and evaluation services.

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The importance of sustainability in design engineering
Carbon, energy, water, and waste data embedded during the design phase has more to it than simply good environmental stewardship. Design engineers can use global standards and trends in sustainability to get electronics projects off the ground, and drive accelerated development.

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Are ac mains-dimmable LED lamps green?
This article provides a comparison between the 60 W incandescent lamp and two commercially available mains dimmable LED lamps including the light output versus power consumption under different dimming situations using phase-cut dimmers. In addition, it looks at the contribution of higher order harmonics to total system dissipation.

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Designing smarter: single-battery applications
Designs using a single boosted battery can reduce your project’s overall cost and size.

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