Store the season with Photoncycle

Solargraph Simulator – eagereyes

How a 6-month exposure shows the sun's path across the sky, from solstice to solstice

Data centres in future European energy systems—energy efficiency, integration and policy

End-use efficiency, demand response and coupling of different energy vectors are important aspects of future renewable energy systems. Growth in the number of data centres is leading to an increase in electricity demand and the emergence of a new electricity-intensive industry. Studies on data centres and energy use have so far focused mainly on energy efficiency. This paper contributes with an assessment of the potential for energy system integration of data centres via demand response and waste heat utilization, and with a review of EU policies relevant to this. Waste heat utilization is mainly an option for data centres that are close to district heating systems. Flexible electricity demand can be achieved through temporal and spatial scheduling of data centre operations. This could provide more than 10 GW of demand response in the European electricity system in 2030. Most data centres also have auxiliary power systems employing batteries and stand-by diesel generators, which could potentially be used in power system balancing. These potentials have received little attention so far and have not yet been considered in policies concerning energy or data centres. Policies are needed to capture the potential societal benefits of energy system integration of data centres. In the EU, such policies are in their nascent phase and mainly focused on energy efficiency through the voluntary Code of Conduct and criteria under the EU Ecodesign Directive. Some research and development in the field of energy efficiency and integration is also supported through the EU Horizon 2020 programme. Our analysis shows that there is considerable potential for demand response and energy system integration. This motivates greater efforts in developing future policies, policy coordination, and changes in regulation, taxation and electricity market design.

Seasons in Pentameter

This website displays the 72 pentads, each a five-day microseason in the Japanese calendar.

In the Year of a Tree

Snapshots throughout the seasons.

T1 Energy | Advanced American Solar & Battery Manufacturing

T1 Energy builds domestic solar and battery supply chains through advanced American manufacturing. Scalable, reliable, and low-cost energy for America.

Putting solar panels on land used for biofuels would produce enough electricity for all cars and trucks to go electric

The world dedicates a Poland-sized area of land to liquid biofuels. Is there a more efficient way to generate energy?

The ‘wicked trinity’ of late capitalism: Governing in an era of stagnation, surplus humanity, and environmental breakdown

Scholars within the fields of political ecology, environmental political theory, and international political economy tend to evaluate the prospects of state-led environmental transitions in general terms – enquiring as to the capitalist state’s inherent properties and their environmental implications. Less attention has been paid to how the state’s green capacities are conditioned by contemporary evolutions in the form and pace of capital accumulation. Capitalism’s directional pattern of historical development poses unique challenges for green state projects. Its drive to raise labour productivity metabolises nature on a growing scale, while generating conditions of overproduction and rendering a progressively larger portion of the population superfluous to the production process.Thus, the question is not simply whether the state can rise to the challenge of climate change, but rather how states are scrambling to govern the intersecting crises of climate catastrophe, economic stagnation, and surplus humanity. This ‘wicked trinity’ compounds the tensions at the heart of the capitalist state, resulting in an increasing inability to perform its role while sustaining its liberal form. This governance trilemma is illustrated by the case of the solar photovoltaic boom, where the spectacular increase in the productivity and scale of solar panel manufacturing have generated oversupply and falling profitability. States have reacted by indefinitely providing subsidies, financing automation technologies thatexacerbate labour superfluity, and relocating solar panel manufacturing to places with authoritarian labour regimes. The case of photovoltaics is a microcosm of the general predicament faced by states as they struggle to govern capitalism’s secular developmental tendencies.

Energy Production and Consumption

Explore data on how energy production and use varies across the world.

France Exports Surplus Solar Power as Electricity Prices Turn Negative

French solar power surged on Thursday as a stretch of sunny weather boosted generation allowing the country to export huge volumes of electricity to neighboring markets.

China’s Solar Industry Is in Upheaval—The Effects Will Be Global

Rather than opening space for rivals, China’s solar industry shakeout is forging a more resilient core — embedding deeper into global value chains, securing a technological lead, and reshaping the industry’s future trajectory to its own long-term advantage.

Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing | Quanta Magazine

Though they live only a few hours before dividing, bacteria can anticipate the approach of cold weather and prepare for it. The discovery suggests that seasonal tracking is fundamental to life.

Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing | Quanta Magazine

Though they live only a few hours before dividing, bacteria can anticipate the approach of cold weather and prepare for it. The discovery suggests that seasonal tracking is fundamental to life.

Switzerland bolted 5,000 solar panels onto a dam wall 8,000 feet up in the freezing Alps where everyone said solar made no sense, and the plant now makes three times more winter power than any farm down in the valleys

High in the Swiss Alps, on a concrete dam wall more than 8,000 feet above the sea, someone bolted thousands of solar panels to a place almost no one thought

PV_Live – Sheffield Solar

NESO see solar PV generation as a reduction in demand, this means that the metered 'Demand outturn' represents the 'True' electricity demand minus the generation from unmetered [by NESO] Solar and Wind. Similarly, the forecasted demand is a forecast of the demand outturn i.e. without unmetered solar and wind generation.

Time for the sun to rise | Paul Stephenson | Offprint

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