Vicky Sanderson: Solar-powered light bulbs now shine in Canada

Long, blisteringly hot summer days have been the silver lining for those farmers who, along with more conventional crops, harvest the sun for energy. But city slickers who invest in solar-powered products can also profit from long stretches of sun-soaked days.Outdoor solar lights have become increasingly popular over the past few years. A new entry is a cute and clever solar LED unit from Paradise Lighting.Shaped like a conventional incandescent bulb and made out of durable plastic, it has a coated string to turn it on and off. There's also a clip that can be easily attached, for example, to the belt loop of a little person making his or her way to a campground privy after dark.
The possibilities for these bulbs, which take AA batteries, are endless. At the cottage, we hung several on branches gathered in an old milk can — an eco-friendly way to provide soft lighting at the dock after dark. I also keep one by a sunny window to use in case of power failure.Regular readers will recall that I was enthusiastic about these bulbs earlier in the season. At the time, however, they were only available through Camping World, a U.S. website that, as it turns out, charges Canadian consumers exorbitant shipping and handling fees. Someone at Home Depot must have a good eye for great product, because the lights are now available in packs of four for $35. Shipping to my north Toronto home would be about $5.
Many farmers in parts of Ontario and farther east would have been happy to see the sun dip behind the clouds and give way more often to rainy skies over the past few months. The extreme dryness has not good news for those who grow corn and grains, and it has compounded the effect of a late frost, which put a serious dent in such crops as pears, peaches and plums.Consumers can still take advantage of the harvest by pickling, canning and preserving. Plenty of information, along with recipes, can be found at the website for Bernadin, a well-known maker of canning supplies available at food retailers. More jam and canning recipes are available from Foodland Ontario, which also publishes a seasonal online brochure with recipes that focus on fresh, local produce. There are also good tips for buying and storing fruits and vegetables.Another upside to hot dry weather has been the slow growth of grass. Still, many find even infrequent mowing of grass to be a bore. For them, there's the Husqvarna robotic Automower — an energy-efficient, electronic mower that its makers say uses less energy than any conventional mower, which makes it cost-effective to run — once you get past the price tag of $2,900, that is.

Solar farm plan to mix sheep and electric cells

A DONCASTER village is being targeted for a ￡10 million solar power generation scheme.TGC Renewables is drawing up plans which would use around 50 acres next to Tudworth Road, Hatfield, to develop a solar farm made up of dozens of photo-voltaic cells which turn the suns light into electricity.The site the company is investigating is three fields of agricultural land. The intention is for it to be dual use - solar farm and potentially sheep grazing.
The firm has yet to apply for planning permission for the project but says the project has the potential to produce up to nine megawatts of energy - enough to power around 2,000 homes.Spokeswoman Justine Hackney said: "The solar farm would be ground-mounted and south-facing with 5m gaps between the rows. Obviously, what can be seen depends on where a person is standing in relation to it. If the project did progress into planning, we would produce visualisations as part of a broader community consultation."We think it is a great opportunity for the area to be part of the UK’s renewable energy generation efforts.
"Solar farms offer clean, safe and Best Custom Solar Light. Their environmental impact is minimal - they are silent, non-polluting and, installed at ground level, have limited visibility. The land they utilise is returned to original state at the end of the project life which is between 25 to 40 years."They are far safer than other conventional energies, some of which have already demonstrated their capacity for long-term damage on a catastrophic scale. Any energy produced in the UK also offers security of supply and supports the UK economy, providing local business and employment opportunities."
It would generate power during daylight hours with or without direct sunlight. The construction process usually takes about three months, subject to planning consent.It is the second solar farm plan to emerge in Doncaster this month, following proposals for a 100 acre scheme at the former Askern Colliery site, on Norton Common Lane, which is out for consultation.The solar consignments will be delivered to them this week following the shipment of these Best Custom Outdoor systems to the province yesterday.The 28 solar consignment included panels ranging from 10watts to 20 watts with their batteries, panels, connections and bulbs.The assistance came under the Western provincial government livelihood fund project which was made possible by the provincial ward member to assist the villagers improve their lives.In the past the villagers depended much on kerosene which is very expensive to buy in order to light up their homes during the night.

EBHS student raising funds to send solar-powered lamp kits to Indian people in need

This summer, while other kids are playing video games or cooling off at the beach, one township teen is spending his time raising money to light up the lives of others half a world away.Suchir Karmarkar, 14, launched the New Jersey-based nonprofit initiative LightUpIndia last September to bring solar-powered lamp kits to households with school-going children in rural India that lack electricity. So far he has raised more than $2,500, in part through candy, water and soda sales at Little League games and Indian cultural events. Friends and family members who heard about his project have also donated.
At a cost of $80, the solar kit comes with a solar-powered lamp, a solar candle and a cable that connects the lamp to a solar panel installed on the roof of the house. The sun charges the panel and powers the lamp for up to five hours, Suchir said, noting that it even works on cloudy days."It's much more convenient and safer than a kerosene lamp, which could be hazardous to operate. It lasts much longer as well," he said.Through research, Suchir learned that more than 275 million people in India are without electricity and nearly 100 million more are affected by extremely unreliable access, according to the International Energy Agency. By some estimates, 100 million schoolchildren do not have access to dependable electricity or face severe power shortages at home.
In April, Suchir's mother, Manisha, took time off from her job as an analyst to accompany Suchir to the western Indian state of Maharashtra to purchase and install the first kits. With help from Suchir's grandfather and uncle, a social worker was hired to locate needy families in nearby villages to receive the kits.Each morning, Suchir and his mother rose before dawn to beat the sweltering afternoon heat and set out for their destination. Even Manisha, who grew up in the nearby city of Akola, was shocked by the poverty they encountered — two parents living with four or five children in oneroom houses made of tin."It was 110 degrees there, and in that hot weather they live without electricity. And once it gets dark, it's completely dark. I can't tell you how bad it was," Manisha said.In seven days, Suchir was able to provide solar kits to 25 families in 15 villages."When I showed them how the solar kit charged and I hit the button, the light switched on and their faces were immediately blanketed with smiles," he recalled, noting that some people shed tears and others saluted his grandfather for such a useful gift from his grandson.

Sunflowers inspire more efficient solar power system

A field of young sunflowers will slowly rotate from east to west during the course of a sunny day, each leaf seeking out as much sunlight as possible as the sun moves across the sky through an adaptation called heliotropism.It's a clever bit of natural engineering that inspired imitation from a University of Wisconson-Madison electrical and computer engineer, who has found a way to mimic the passive heliotropism seen in sunflowers for use in the next crop of solar power systems.Unlike other "active" solar systems that track the sun's position with GPS and reposition panels with motors, electrical and computer engineering professor Hongrui Jiang's concept leverages the properties of unique materials in concert to create a passive method of China Power Bank Suppliers in the direction of the most direct sunlight.
His design, published in Advanced Functional Materials and recently highlighted in Nature, employs a combination of liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE), which goes through a phase change and contracts in the presence of heat, with carbon nanotubes, which can absorb a wide range of light wavelengths."Carbon nanotubes have a very wide range of absorption, visible light all the way to infrared," says Jiang. "That is something we can take advantage of, since it is possible to use sunlight to drive it directly."
Direct sunlight hits a mirror beneath the solar panel, focused onto one of multiple actuators composed of LCE laced with carbon nanotubes. The carbon nanotubes heat up as China Lighting Africa Offers absorb light, and the heat differential between the environment and inside the actuator causes the LCE to shrink.This causes the entire assembly to bow in the direction of the strongest sunlight. As the sun moves across the sky, the actuators will cool and re-expand, and new ones will shrink, re-positioning the panel over the 180 degrees of sky that the sun covers in the course of the day. "The idea is that wherever the sun goes, it will follow," says Jiang.
In Jiang's tests, the system improved the efficiency of solar panels by 10 percent, an enormous increase considering material improvements in the solar panels themselves only net increases of a few percent on average. And a passive system means there are no motors and circuits to eat into increased energy harvest. "The whole point of solar tracking is to increase the electricity output of the system," says Jiang.

DOE Caliper report indicates AR111 LED lamps not ready for prime time

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has completed Series 17 of testing through the DOE Solid-State Lighting Caliper program. Report 17 analyzes the performance of a group of five LED products labeled as AR111 lamps, a niche product. Results indicate that although the lamps may perform acceptably and provide some energy savings, this product category is lagging behind other types of directional LED lamps and continued performance improvement is warranted. A summary of the results is available on the DOE SSL website.For comparison, the eleven 6-in downlights tested in Round 14 of Caliper testing performed substantially better than halogen or incandescent downlights. Ten of the eleven LED products met Energy Star criteria for correlated color temperature (CCT) and color rendering index (CRI) and the efficacy was equal to or better than the system efficacy of a typical compact-fluorescent lamp (CFL) downlight luminaire.
Beginning in 2012, each Caliper summary report focuses on a single product type or application. Products have been selected with the intent of capturing the current state of the market – a cross section ranging from expected low- to high-performing products – with the bulk characterizing the average of the range. The Department allows detailed test results from Caliper testing to be distributed in the public interest for noncommercial and educational purposes.The net loss of $0.9 million improved $0.3 million compared to the second quarter's 2011 net loss of $1.2 million on $0.5 million lower sales.Net sales decreased during the second quarter of 2012 as compared to the prior year's second quarter as a result of lower sales from our Solutions business. This reduction was partially offset by a $0.7 million increase in our Products business as a result of increased sales of LED products.
Joe Kaveski, Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Our second quarter sales fell within our guidance of $7 - $8 million. We are encouraged by the 45 percent sequential increase in net sales and the 7.4 percentage point increase in gross profit margins from the first quarter of 2012. Furthermore, we expect to see significant increases in sales during the remainder of 2012. This is due to our expanded proposal pipeline in our Solutions business, additional shipments to the US Navy from our $23 million contract and from continued sales of our LED products anticipated in our second half of 2012."

LED driver R&D underscores intelligent control, higher efficiency

Widening LED adoption in various lighting applications is spurring further R&D in China's LED driver industry. Suppliers are developing more intelligent variants while continuing to improve product efficiency and reliability. This is to match the requirements of current-sensitive diodes and boost power-saving features.Smart types represent less than 2 percent of the country's output but makers are building up the category via enhanced RGB color- and color temperature-changing units. Many China Solar Mp3 player and charger Suppliers are enabling dimming functions to suit landscape lighting and streetlamps. They also plan to release variants with stepless adjustment, and time and induced control capability. To enable the last, companies are adding sensors, which will alter brightness levels or turn off the light.
Following this trend, Shenzhen Moso has produced 11 intelligent dimming programs, including indoor TRIAC, 0 to 10V and IR. Time, DALI, PLC, TCP/IP, RS-485/DMS-512, timing under 100 to 240VAC power supply, ZigBee and GPRS control are likewise supported. The maker offers products for indoor, outdoor, wired and wireless setups.At present, the majority of enterprises in China underscore dimmable LED drivers based on analog, TRIAC and pulse width modulation methods. The last two are widely adopted. Most TRIAC models are used in less than 100W residential and commercial lights, which are replacing incandescent bulbs. For higher wattage applications such as street and tunnel illumination, PWM-dimmable power supplies are offered.
China Solar radio and charger Offers are looking to broaden intelligent configurations to systems with networking capability by tapping technologies in the Internet of Things, including cloud computing.To bolster their selections, suppliers are also elevating efficiency levels, aiming for 95 percent after breaching 90 percent previously. Shenzhen Moso has models for streetlamps with the latter rating. Such units, however, are a minority, with mainstream varieties still in the 80 to 90 percent range.To achieve the target on a mass scale, companies are adopting power factor correction and PWM to complement current technologies used. The first method raises the power factor and lowers the THD of the input current, reducing distribution loss. PWM, meanwhile, utilizes current mode control to enhance the response time, which can boost efficiency during light-load conditions. Most makers employ soft switching and synchronous rectification, which respectively lessen switching loss and voltage drop.

Install A Dmx Lighting Controller For The Best Lighting Show

Nothing can produce a much more interesting nightclub happening then the correct blend of the crowd, the songs and the club ambience so long as by the lighting and special effects being adequately managed by way of a good DMX lighting unit. The problem is that if you flip the mistaken switch at the wrong time the show can fall flat. Since DMX lighting controllers can be used to control 512 channels there is a lot of room for error. The greatest suggestions is to label the channels as the equipment is being plugged in to assure that pitfalls aren't produced and that every person who consumes the equipment knows which is heading on.
Some clubs make the mistake of relying far too seriously on their DJ to perceive which is heading on, but which takes place once they get in touch with in ill or also quit?  A fill-in or replacement DJ will be definetely completely lost where there is no appropriate labeling and it may take days or also weeks to type the whole mess out. Suitable labeling helps retain every person on the same page and allows the club to function adequately also if a new DJ has to take at the time of for a night time or permanently.
A DMX lighting unit is essential to offering your patrons with a gratifying nightclub or bar happening whether or not you own a dance club or have live bands performing. People anticipate to see a show and be immersed in the happening of patronizing your establishment.  Getting a good DMX lighting controller and software bundle helps you reside up to and exceed their anticipations and having a adequately label unit helps the DJ supply that happening for them. Your club has the ability in nowadays's day and age to supply an happening that a person used to get only at a high ticket live performance or party with the correct DMX lighting and special effects set up.
Nothing may be much more useful in obtaining the a lot from your controller in contrast to adequately labeling the DMX controller with each element's name.  Doing so also comes in helpful must you want install a new lighting fixture or special effect element, in particular if it is changing something else no want hint the cables in order to perceive which needs to be unplugged. Labeling is part of an clever nightclub's DMX lighting operation and something just about every DJ ought to be ready to do in order to make their job and the total nightclub run much more smoothly.

Solar Flare Super Storm Could Put Middle East in Darkness

The sun, our most important source of natural energy, light, and even nutrition could one day also become our worst enemy if intense solar magnetic 'super storms' cause massive power blackouts. Whether these storms, which appear to come in 11-year cycles, could melt down nuclear reactors  as  might have happened earlier this year, is still a matter of speculation. These intense solar storms have in the past been so severe that they are said to have been responsible for severe damage to power grids and communications networks.The recent massive power blackout in India, caused mainly by too much demand on an aging, overloaded power grid network
is only an example of what can happen when a mega power grid blackout occurs in an area where hundreds of millions of China Motion Sensor Lights Offers are sweltering in summer temperatures often soaring past 45 degrees Celsius or 133 degrees Fahrenheit.Although India's massive power blackout has not been attributed to a solar super storm, it does give a sobering example of what could happen if even a percentage of world power grids would become disabled by an intense solar storm, over which we on earth have virtually little protection from.Solar flareups and even mega storms, caused by intense nuclear fusions at the sun's core, often come with little warning. Providing protection of power grids, communications networks and many other networks we humans depend on, has still not been perfected as yet. In a report, Solar Storms: Protecting Your Operations Against the Sun's 'Dark Side',prepared by two Swiss risk engineering experts, A.V. Riswadkar and Buddy Dobkins, the conclusion was that a better assessment of the implications of such storms on our entire energy and communications networks:
"Better understanding of the technical aspects of this threat and interconnected vulnerabilities in various industry segments, such as electric utilities, power distribution, oil and gas pipelines in the energy sector and technology exposures should be a top risk China Remote Controlled LED Offers priority. This must be followed by an assessment of their awareness of this threat, readiness, prioritization of their mitigation strategies and action plans."This will require opening a high-level dialog with a variety of stakeholders and participation in workshops and other forums," they advise.Brinser also expressed gratitude for support from U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley for the company's effort on behalf of the U.S. solar manufacturing industry to pursue trade cases to hold the Chinese industry accountable to international and U.S. trade laws.

Directional LED lights help transform San Francisco's Bay Bridge

The Bay Bridge in San Francisco has been outfitted with $18 million worth of LED lights, but it's not necessarily the type of bulbs that makes it such an interesting project. Wired has delved into the creation of the new lighting set-up, and found that it's how the lights can be used that's so impressive, making it possible to direct light exactly where you need it without having it reach areas you don't.Every LED is pointing to a different place, it has a differently directed visor, and a different lens," says CalTrans engineer Bill Shedd. The project was built by sports lighting company Musco — who also built the lighting set-up for Yankee Stadium in New York — and not only looks great and is functional, but is also designed to last a long time, with a projected 20 year lifespan. Be sure to check out the source link below to learn more about its creation."If an astronaut is wakened up out of sleep and there has to be a spacewalk for emergency purposes, you want that astronaut at their peak alertness," explained Brainard in the interview.
A pretty significant flaw in the work initially was that astronauts cannot work in an environment with colored lights, as they need to distinguish colors when working on the space station — cutting the white wire instead of the blue could prove disastrous when repairing the electrics. The compromise is that the all the lights fall under the white spectrum, with different subtle tones — when the astronauts wake, the light will turn brighter with cool blue tones and in the evening, warmer with heavier red tones.The lamps need to undergo further testing to ensure they are robust enough to withstand space travel, but otherwise the team at NASA and the collaborators at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and Boeing are ready to move forward with the plan.
LED spot light can be placed on the upper part of the furniture or around the ceiling, and it can also be arranged in the inner wall, dado or skirting line. Light is directly irradiated on the object which needs to emphasize, so as to highlight the subjective aesthetic effect, to give an emphasis, to build a unique environment with the rich hierarchies and colorful atmosphere and to present the colorful artistic effect. With the soft and elegant lights, LED spot light can not only play a leading role on the overall lighting but also can select light locally and foil atmosphere.