Tootfinder

I love a good news story about agrivoltaics (farming under solar panels) - let's hope it does take off! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2en1yyp4d9o

Will farming under solar panels take off?
Farming under solar panels is still in the early stages in India, but will it catch on?

"Study finds new strategies to extend the life of used solar panels"
#SolarPower #Energy #Renewables

Old solar panels can power new future
Australia's rapid uptake of solar panels is creating a looming waste problem with most solar photovoltaic (PV) panels being directed to landfill at the end of their life.

I've got solar panels 5kWh battery installed!
The battery makes the largest impact. I can charge during low-CO2 off-peak time and avoid the grid during the peak hours.
The #solar output I get is underwhelming (bad roof orientation), but the battery is going to pay for the system. I could have gotten just the battery!

Copper rush pushes Vale to ramp up mining near Amazonian protected areas https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/copper-rush-pushes-vale-to-ramp-up-mining-near-amazonian-protected-areas/

Copper rush pushes Vale to ramp up mining near Amazonian protected areas
The metal needed in electric cars and solar panels comes with a high cost for Amazonian communities.

Acquiring solar panels at home can be an expensive hassle for people in the US.
But small, simple, plug-in solar panels for use on balconies are soon to become available for millions of Americans,
with advocates hoping the technology will quickly go mainstream.
Balcony solar panels are now widespread in countries such as Germany
– where more than 1m homes have them
– but have until now been stymied in the US by state regulations.
This is set to change, wit…

🌡️ Solar breakthrough—hotter panels mean better storage
#energy

Solar breakthrough—hotter panels mean better storage
Scientists have uncovered a surprising advantage in next-generation solar technology—the hotter it gets, the better it can store energy. Traditionally, heat has been seen as the enemy of solar power. Standard solar panels lose efficiency as temperatures rise.

DMEGC just solved a major solar installation problem: roofs too fragile for heavy panels.
Their new lightweight module weighs under 7.5 kg/m2—using thinner glass while still delivering 460W of power. This opens up thousands of square meters of older buildings and fragile structures that couldn't support traditional solar before.

DMEGC launches framed solar module weighing 7.5 kg/m2
In response to the growing demand for solutions for low load-bearing roofs, Chinese manufacturer DMEGC is presenting an IEC-certified lightweight 460 W module at France's largest PV trade show - EnerGaïa.

This Week: Football, Turkey, Solar Panels And Rain
A week filled with football frustration, unexpected solar panel repairs, and a Thanksgiving turkey smoked to perfection. Family crowded the house, memories piled up, and the holiday chaos somehow came together just right.
https://www.

This Week: Football, Turkey, Solar Panels And Rain – Bob Mueller
A look at rivalry-week football, solar panel troubles, and a Thanksgiving turkey that stole the show in a busy, family-filled holiday week.

Sometimes innovation is quite simple 🙂
""Our measurements show that wheat and grass-clover mixtures grow just as well between vertical solar panels as in open fields. At the same time, the panels produce electricity in a daily pattern that better matches energy demand. It's a win-win,"
#solarpanels

Double harvest: Vertical solar panels and crops thrive side by side
Imagine a field where solar panels and crops coexist—with no trade-off. It sounds like science fiction, but that's precisely what researchers from Aarhus University have now documented in a full-scale agrivoltaic pilot project in the Danish countryside.

I was just interrupted by a call with a caller ID/phone number of St. David’s hospital, but it turned out to be an AI trying to sell me solar panels. I guess this is the new normal.

"Brits still buying EVs, heat pumps and solar panels despite drop in polling support and political attacks, Sky News analysis finds"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #EV

Brits still buying EVs, heat pumps and solar panels despite drop in polling support and political attacks, Sky News analysis finds
Fresh polling by YouGov, carried out exclusively for Sky News, finds that belief in and concern about man-made global warming remains as high as in their heyday in 2021, when the UK hosted the COP26 climate summit.

Rooftop of St Mary Magdalene with solar panels, Newark-on-Trent, August 2025
#photography #ukphotographer #documentingbritain

a world you can fully understand and hold in your head and hand. being the snowman in his globe rather than on yours. where's the water come from? the rain, these tanks. where's the power generated? those solar panels and batteries. you know the limits and work with them. self-sufficient. a fantasy irl, but one of the most universal magic cores you can imbue a fantasy with. no man is an island, no man isn't offputtingly hard to grasp.

Australian household energy bills will⭐️ halve by 2050 ⭐️as solar panels, batteries and electric cars and appliances become the norm,
reducing pressure on the federal government over living costs and creating room for more climate action, a thinktank study suggests.
Modelling by the Grattan Institute finds that cutting greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in line with the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050
will cut average household energy costs fro…

An interesting episode of the Anglofuturism podcast: "The British Company Putting Solar Panels in Space" https://www.anglofuturism.co/p/the-british-company-putting-solar
They are using a phased array of microwave transmitters to beam power to the ground …

For all those people who say “we can’t be using agricultural land for solar panels, we need to grow crops”, go shove it up your arse.
https://youtube.com/shorts/_C16IdSTDG4?si=2Mt_FNjZPySLaECV

Smoked turkey, football heartbreak, and a surprise solar panel fiasco made for a memorable Thanksgiving week. Family packed the house, the grill ran hot, and the stories will last a while. Hope your holiday was just as full!
https://www.bobmuellerwriter.com/this-week

This Week: Football, Turkey, Solar Panels And Rain – Bob Mueller
A look at rivalry-week football, solar panel troubles, and a Thanksgiving turkey that stole the show in a busy, family-filled holiday week.

Blacker than black? Of course!
After very dark surface covering, there is now a new dark fabric available, that is the darkest documented black fabric.
The fabric based on black bird plumage absorbs 799/800 of the light falling into it, making it deep dark. Fascinating!
https://

"The woman, who did not want her name published for safety reasons, added: 'This is not about us. We were beaten for 15 minutes. Palestinians here endure this violence every day, every hour, a thousand-fold.' ...
Activists say that violent incidents have become an almost daily occurrence. Attacks have included settler mobs breaking into homes and beating villagers, stealing 200 sheep, two cars and destroying solar panels"

Solar breakthrough alert: Fraunhofer ISE just hit 30.6% efficiency with a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell.
What makes this special? They used an industry-standard TOPCon bottom cell—meaning this tech could actually scale to mass production, not just stay in the lab.
This could be a game-changer for making solar panels significantly more powerful.

Fraunhofer ISE achieves 30.6% efficiency for perovskite-silicon tandem based on industry-standard bottom TOPCon cell
Researchers at Fraunhofer ISE have developed a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell using a TOPCon bottom cell with standard textured front surfaces. Their results show that TOPCon bottom cells can perform comparably to heterojunction cells in tandem devices in terms of shunt resistivity, supporting scalable, cost-effective industrial production.

TIL about pasture pigs.
I've known for some time that sheep and solar panels are a great pairing, but America doesn't love wool, mutton, or lamb. America loves pigs.
I've always associated pigs with mud and North Carolina sewage ponds.
There are so many videos. #pasturepigs

Finite element models for Self-Deployable Miura-folded origami
Suraj Singh Gehlot, Siddhanth Gautam, Sanhita Das
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08029 https://a…

Finite element models for Self-Deployable Miura-folded origami
Origami-inspired self-deployable structures offer lightweight, compact, and autonomous deployment capabilities, making them highly attractive for aerospace and defence applications, such as solar panels, antennas, and reflector systems. This paper presents finite element frameworks for simulating Miura-origami units in ABAQUS, focusing on two deployment mechanisms: elastic strain energy release and thermally activated shape-memory polymers (SMPs). Validation against experimental data for elasti…

Neighbors with solar panels can now trade energy directly with each other, thanks to a breakthrough cloud-based system from Washington State University.
The platform lets communities share power locally, cutting energy costs by up to 12% in testing. It's a glimpse of how neighborhoods could become mini power grids, keeping solar energy local instead of sending it back to utilities.

Community-based energy trading system for home solar-plus-storage
A research team led by Washington State University has developed a cloud-based system for trading and sharing energy from solar panels and batteries within a neighbourhood. The concept displayed potential energy cost savings of around 12% over a five-day test period.

🪏 Copper rush pushes Vale to ramp up mining near Amazonian protected areas
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/copper-rush-pushes-vale-to-ramp-up-mining-near-amazonian-protected-areas/

Copper rush pushes Vale to ramp up mining near Amazonian protected areas
The metal needed in electric cars and solar panels comes with a high cost for Amazonian communities.

"Oxford United to Build UK’s First All-Electric Football Stadium"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #Football

Oxford United to Build UK’s First All-Electric Football Stadium | Happy Eco News
Oxford United will build the UK’s first all-electric football stadium, a 16,000-seat venue powered entirely by renewable energy. Featuring solar panels, heat pumps, and timber construction, the £150 million project will slash emissions by 80%. Alongside football, it will host events, a hotel, and community facilities—redefining sustainable stadium design.

Today was one of those 100-watt days (as in: that's all the solar panels are putting out from their 4kW theoretical peak, but it also sounds about right for how much effort I'm able to muster).
Don't take an Illinois boy and put him in miserable, dim, drippy north-western Europe and expect peak performance from October through March!

Nigeria is advancing its renewable energy goals by investing in local solar panel production, aiming to generate 30% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/11/17/african-nations-promote-locally-produced-solar-pan…

African Nations Promote Locally Produced Solar Panels - CleanTechnica
Solar manufacturing is beginning to take place in many parts of Africa as local companies leverage the transfer of technology.

China’s modern influence is primarily built on a formidable economy, dramatic advancements in renewable energy, and a willingness to engage globally with the greatest crisis facing humanity: climate breakdown.
In that sense, the tanks, cannon and missiles that filed past Tiananmen Square may well prove less important in reshaping the world order than the wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars that are churning out of Chinese factories
China has already won the battle for t…

Longi just hit a major breakthrough in flexible solar tech: 33.35% efficiency for a perovskite-silicon tandem cell.
That's certified by NREL and represents a huge leap forward. The cell uses a clever dual-buffer layer design for better durability—it kept over 97% efficiency after bending and heat stress tests.
This could unlock solar panels that bend and flex for new applications.

Longi achieves 33.35% efficiency for flexible perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell
The Chinese manufacturer said the tandem device was developed through a dual-buffer layer strategy that improves interfacial adhesion while preserving efficient charge extraction. The efficiency result was certified by the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

The back side of the 50 Shillings note in #kenya features renewable energies and I love it!
#solar #wind #geothermal

What happens when you pair solar panels with mini nuclear reactors? Chinese researchers just cracked the code.
Their new microgrid framework combines photovoltaics with small modular reactors, using AI to balance both in real time. The results are striking: 18.7% lower costs, 37.1% fewer emissions, and 98% reliability.
The secret? Smart coordination between battery storage and hydrogen production that adapts on the fly.

When solar meets next-gen nuclear
Scientists in China have proposed a novel scheduling framework for microgrids based on hybrid PV and a small modular nuclear reactors. The framework uses multi-objective distributionally robust optimization with a real-time reinforcement learning mechanism and is reportedly able to reduce operational costs by 18.7%.

"Philippines commissions 6.5 MW solar project for social housing"
#Philippines #SolarPower #Energy #Renewables

Philippines commissions 6.5 MW solar project for social housing
The 6.55 MW project, hailed as the world’s first grid-connected, solar rooftop project within a social housing community, equipped almost 2,000 houses with solar panels.

Discover the truth about America's energy grid vulnerabilities and how solar panels with battery storage can provide a reliable solution. #climatechange #climatesolutions #climate

Energy grid researchers make startling discovery after studying blackouts across America: 'The magnitude ... was shocking'
Research out of Texas A&M discovered that the country is shockingly vulnerable to grid outages — and some states are more at risk than others.

"Pakistanis adopting solar power, drawn by low solar panel prices"
#Pakistan #SolarPower #Energy #Renewables

Pakistan is sold on solar. It’s not about going green.
Conventionally generated electricity in Pakistan has become very expensive, but consumers don’t have to buy it. They are adopting solar panels.

"TotalEnergies turns closed US landfill into 7 MW solar plant"
#US #USA #America #Energy

TotalEnergies turns closed US landfill into 7 MW solar plant
TotalEnergies has completed a 7 MW solar project on a closed landfill in Baltimore, Maryland, using specialized ballasted racking to install more than 15,000 panels expected to meet 11% of the local government’s electricity use.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@clim8_solutions/115451315510203032
super cool!! balcony solar panels!

"How NFL stadiums are tackling climate change, one solar panel and compost bin at a time"
#US #USA #America #NFL …

How NFL stadiums are tackling climate change, one solar panel and compost bin at a time | The Optimist Daily
NFL stadiums are going greener with solar panels, recycling, composting, and more—and fans are noticing. Here’s how sports venues are making an impact.