SunPower new solar energy concept: photovoltaic + drone + robot + agriculture

Solar energy prices straight down, solar manufacturers to actively seek to increase the added value, and now the solar energy plan to use unmanned aerial vehicles, robots, but also combine with agriculture, the complete use of land, the United States crystalline silicon solar cell maker solar energy (SunPower) In September 2016 released the third generation of "Oasis" large-scale solar energy planning platform, revealing the future direction of large-scale solar power solutions.

Solar energy, said the current price of solar procurement contracts straight down, you must view every detail in the system, to find the best way from it. The Oasis platform integrates power generation planning and design tools, robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and agricultural integration, from the initial planning and design to operation and maintenance. At present, the equivalent of 700 megawatts (Megawatt) scale of the application of solar energy oasis platform, in 2017, all solar energy plans will use the third generation of oasis platform.

After the completion of the plan, the UAV can also be used to monitor the power generation status, such as the infrared to find there is no abnormal hot spots, there may be short-circuit on behalf of the phenomenon of sending UAVs can quickly survey a large number of power generation sites, View more time-saving and personnel costs.

Under the assistance of the US Department of Energy's Sun Shot Initiative, the third-generation Oasis platform for solar energy provides a software design tool for UAVs, called the global energy optimization (GEO) System, can fly over a large number of unmanned aerial over the site, quickly photographed photo survey site terrain, upload to the cloud platform, software automatically optimize the site design in this way to plan the power plant design faster than in the past 90 %, But also to adapt to the irregular shape of the site, the use of abnormal zero space, and each additional 10 acres of available land area, it is equivalent to an increase of 2-4 megawatts of generating capacity, the impact of large-scale programs should not be overlooked.

Solar panels need to regularly remove the dust, so as to avoid the accumulation of dust cover the sun's ability to generate electricity, in the past to human cleaning, not only time-consuming, personnel costs and more water. The Oasis platform automatically cleans the 10 million-watt solar panel in 10 hours, with a staff of three employees and a truck, which is 10 times faster than traditional methods and saves 75% of water, robotic technology From the 2013 merger of Greenbotics, coupled with the shooting on the plan to help continue to develop. 

In the past, the main cost of the solar project came from the solar panel itself. With the continuous reduction of the hardware cost, the cost of operation and maintenance is now higher and higher, accounting for 15% of the total planned cost, and the robot can save operation and maintenance costs. In the past, solar developers focused mainly on the panel itself, now more emphasis on other aspects of the system innovation, application of unmanned aerial vehicles, robots, cloud software to reduce costs, speed up and make solar energy more reliable.

Fuel cell trains will open in Germany next year

According to foreign media on October 10 news, much of the world's attention fuel cell trains will began commercial operation in Germany be the end of next year. The future, it is expected to replace the diesel-powered non-electrified intercity train.

Fuel cell trains rely on the fuel tank placed in the roof of hydrogen and oxygen in the air chemical reaction generated by electricity, will not emit greenhouse gases. In September this year, held in Berlin, the International Railway Technology Exhibition, 60 countries, about 3,000 exhibiting companies. One French electric giant Alstom manufacturing company's most eye-catching fuel cell train.

Reported that the fuel cell train in the full load of fuel can be continuous driving 600 to 800 km, the maximum speed of up to 140 km. Up to 300 people can be transported. At the exhibition, the Australian railway electrical equipment company staff, said the old railway laying along the cable there are technical difficulties, the cost is high. From this point of view, the use of fuel cell train is a very good idea. Moreover, compared with fuel cell vehicles, fuel cell train hydrogen can be stored in the vehicle base, without the former as in the hydrogen refueling station refueling.

However, it was pointed out that although the fuel cell car driving zero emissions, but the hydrogen production process will emit greenhouse gases. France Alstom said the use of hydrogen generated when the base as a fuel, will not burden the environment. The company is also studying how to use wind power to generate electricity to hydrogen, in order to eventually achieve the "zero load" target. 

Does fast-charge technology affect battery life?

This is probably the majority of users are most concerned about, no matter how developers hype, the user is still most concerned about the impact of their mobile phones, especially battery life.

First put the conclusion that the current fast-charging technology is an impact on battery life, but do not have to worry too much, because you may not use the battery life end and will replace for the phone.

And then to analyze why, now the vast majority of mobile phone batteries on the market is still a lithium battery. Today's fast charge technology, whether it is QC2.0, PEP or VOOC, the phenomenon of heating in the charge can not be completely avoided, the difference lies only slightly or serious.

For lithium batteries, high temperature work in addition to the normal charge and discharge, Inevitably accompanied by some side reactions, such as electrolyte decomposition, the electrode generated deposits and so on. These have a battery life on both the impact of large and small. The maximum capacity of the battery, battery power display will be the result of these side effects are affected. As for the size of the impact naturally with the degree of heat and different.

However, the safety of fast charge technology can be guaranteed, first, as mentioned at the beginning of the 

current size relative to the technology is not very high, the second is the developer in the development of fast 

charge technology will also charge the internal, mobile phone internal even within the battery to adjust accordingly to adapt to a larger current, but also set different protection measures to ensure safety, so this can be assured. Of course, the premise is the user's normal use of the original charger and battery. 

What is fast charge?

Recently to see such a question: "From 2014 onwards, fast charging technology after another, the most representative of the technology Qualcomm Quick Charge2.0, MediaTek's Pump Express, there OPPO VOOC, representative models have millet note , Meizu MX5, OPPO Find7. What are the above characteristics of these technologies, and also among the early years of rumors, high-current fast charge will cause the battery overheating, damage battery life, then the fast charge technology will affect the battery life?

Now the rapid development of mobile phone technology, in addition to the hardware itself is constantly updated mobile phone, charging this step is also increasingly subject to the developer's attention, as mentioned in the above question, fast charge technology from 2014 began to unveil the market , The major mobile phone brands have to fast charge as a major highlight of publicity.

Fast charge in short is fast charging, generally can reduce the charging time by half or more, but currently can only be used in the field of mobile phones.

First of all, briefly describe the three stages of mobile phone lithium battery charging, namely: constant current pre-charge, high current constant current charging and constant voltage charging. The standard for three-stage conversion is the battery voltage.

Constant current precharge can be seen as a protective measure, in order to allow over-discharge of the lithium battery slowly restored for the next stage to do a large current charge buffer. When the battery voltage is higher than 3.0V when it entered a large current constant current charge, the appropriate increase in the charge current, different battery current size from 0.1C to several C floating.

This stage, the state recommended standard is 0.1C current charge (C is the battery capacity), the benefits of the standard charge is naturally safe and stable. But the drawback is that for too long, as in the past, mobile phone charging usually takes five or six hours or seven or eight hours. The fast charge is at this stage with more than 0.1C of current.

General fast charge current is 0.2C ~ 0.8C, in fact this figure is not high for today's technology, so fast charge or safe. When the voltage rises to 4.2V when the charge to enter the final stage - constant voltage charging, when the voltage is constant, the current is getting smaller and smaller until full.

Fourth: Some tricks to help rechargeable battery life extension of several years

6. Long-term preservation is not fully charged

If you want to keep your device for long periods of time, it's often the case that the device is fully charged, but I find that only about 50 percent of the power is consumed. Saving a battery in an uncharged state means that it does not need to be charged, and full power may shorten battery life. Long-term preservation of the battery is best close to room temperature environment, it should avoid to place the battery in a too low or too hot place. So the same as to preserve lifepo4 batteries, it's better at a room temperature.

7. Eventually difficult to escape death

In fact, no matter how hard you try to protect the battery, it is ultimately difficult to escape the fate of death. But do not worry about it, because most devices are cheap and simple to replace the battery.

Third: Some tricks to help rechargeable battery life extension of several years

Ensure proper temperature

In the room temperature (20 degrees Celsius) environment to save the best charging equipment. However, we can not always live in a controlled temperature of the room, we experience the temperature from 5 degrees Celsius to 45 degrees Celsius, which has a great impact on the battery, for example we always take solar powered portable generator outside to travel.

Charging the battery below 0 degrees Celsius is particularly harmful and may damage the battery. The use of lithium-ion batteries at extreme temperatures may damage the battery, causing deformation or cracking, and damage the equipment. If you want to ensure that the laptop battery temperature, there are many useful applications can help.

Avoid physical stress

Drop to the ground may damage the battery, leading to corrosive chemical leakage, these things are equally harmful to electronic equipment, not to mention to your skin!

Second: Some tricks to help rechargeable battery life extension of several years

2.Full discharge vs. partial discharge

Some people think that you should not let the lithium-ion battery(lifepo4 batteries) fully depleted after the charge, the other people think that it does not matter. But in fact, modern lithium-ion battery will not be much affected, because their discharge process by the car-circuit tight control.

For nickel-cadmium batteries, this maybe a big problem, because they can discharge to the limit state, eventually leading to the battery can not even re-charge. Lead-acid batteries also have a similar situation, the discharge is too thorough will lead them into a "deep cycle" state.

3. Use the appropriate charger

I strongly believe that you should use the correct charger to charge the device. For travel convenience, you may be free to wear a charger and data cable to charge the device, such as take a portable solar power generator on the way.

But in the long run, you'd better use the most suitable charger for the device, because it can provide the most appropriate battery current. Frequent use of inappropriate chargers will eventually damage the battery life.

If you insist on using third-party chargers, you must make sure they come from a trusted brand. $ 500 worth of Tablet PC can be configured with cheap charger? I think it's best not to do this, because the built-in battery protection circuit in the device can turn off any power, which could damage the battery. While poor quality chargers can cause damage, resulting in voltage spikes and overheating.