Second quarter 2006
ECN jubilee year comes to an end
Following a grand jubilee year the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) is focusing all its energy on the next fifty years. With the implementation of the Wijffels recommendations it occupies a key position in Dutch energy research. This is not only a challenge for ECN but also a substantial additional responsibility. [more...]
First Dutch hydrogen car; made by ECN
The Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) in Petten has built the first car to be powered by a Dutch fuel cell system. The key component, the PEM fuel cell stack, has been developed entirely in Petten. The car itself is a modified version of an existing electric service vehicle, the DaimlerChrysler GEM. [more...]
Tempress Systems involved in major R&D project with ECN
ECN has signed an R&D partnership agreement with Tempress Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of the NASDAQ-quoted company Amtech Systems, Inc. The central aim of the venture is to develop a new production process for solar cells and to improve the efficiency of cells produced using the diffusion furnace systems sold by Tempress. [more...]
Power plants: ninety percent less CO2 emissions
The Energy research Centre of the Netherlands will play a major role in the international consortium CACHET. CACHET is a three-year, integrated research project, funded by the European Commission that aims to develop technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power stations by 90 percent. [more...]
Cold from residual heat: the test at Fiat Research
The first residual heat-driven cooling system is up and working at Fiat in Turin. This is a breakthrough in small-scale cooling systems that do not use harmful coolants (HCFCs) and do not have a compressor, making them noise-free. In brief, environment-friendly and energy-efficient. [more...]
Eighty percent energy saving from membranes
More and more industries are becoming aware of the opportunities for saving energy and sparing the environment by using advanced separation techniques. The membrane technology with the most potential here is pervaporation. Pervaporation -allowing a particular substance to pass through a membrane- enables the chemical process industry to save up to 80 percent on energy, compared with distillation. [more...]
Alternative interconnection for solar cells
In the race towards lower costs photovoltaics, silicon wafers are increasingly getting larger and thinner. However, any attempt to handle this fragile and costly solar-cell material with a thickness of a mere 0.15 millimetres, is enough to break it. In particular the process in which several solar cells are interconnected and mounted in a solar panel, is critical. As part of the European project CrystalClear, ECN is responsible for solving this problem. [more...]
Scientific publications
The research results at the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands are published as reports or as articles in scientific journals like Nature and Science. Presentations, given at international conferences and symposia, are freely available and downloadable from our website. [more...]
