http://www.ecn.nl/ News and press releases en TYPO3 - get.content.right http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Fri, 03 May 2013 14:58:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/05/03/ecn-organises-the-2nd-workshop-challenges-for-photovoltaic-silicon-materials-rome-7-8-october/ Rome, 7-8 October 2013 Fri, 03 May 2013 14:58:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/04/25/a-policy-brief-on-renewable-energy-from-marginal-to-mainstream/ Renewable energy is facing a new era, both globally and in the European context. Whilst renewable energy is foreseen to play a key role in all routes towards decarbonisation of our energy economy, fundamental questions of how to bring renewable energy from marginal to mainstream remain to be addressed. There is currently no European renewable energy policy framework beyond 2020. However, the European Commission recently launched a Green Paper on a 2030 Framework for climate and... Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:13:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/04/19/innovations-for-the-chemical-industry/ ECN presents its attractive, innovative technologies and services to the chemical industry at the European Congress of Chemical Engineering and Applied Biotechnology (ECCE9/ECAB2) from 21 until 25 April 2013 in the World Forum The Hague. Read more here. Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:27:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/04/10/uk-selects-ecn-technology-to-generate-energy-from-waste/ The British Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has selected Royal Dahlman as one of three companies to design the most cost-effective, economically viable and efficient waste to energy plant possible. Dahlman design is based on ECN technology. Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:13:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/03/25/hiflex-new-organic-photovoltaic-technology-promises-flexible-cheaper-on-the-go-charging-for-mo/ A light-weight, flexible organic photovoltaic (OPV) module, which can be used as a standalone charger or integrated with small electronic products such as mobile phones or electronic packaging and labels to give them their own solar energy supply, has been developed by the Hiflex research project. As the OPV module has been developed for mobile and remote applications, it is lightweight, pliable and performs well under different light conditions. Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:34:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/03/21/ecn-improves-wind-farm-design-and-operation/ ECN developed the code ECNS (Energy-Conserving Navier-Stokes solver), an incompressible code specifically suited for computing unsteady turbulent wakes in offshore wind farms. Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:15:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/02/21/silicon-pv-3rd-international-conference-on-silicon-photovoltaics/ 25-27 March 2013 in Hamelin, Germany Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:33:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/01/07/consortium-investigates-plug-socket-north-sea-wind-farms/ Over the next four years, a consortium of nine parties will be investigating how to reduce the cost price of wind energy by developing an innovative electricity infrastructure on the North Sea. Last month, the Dutch government awarded a 2 million euro grant to this innovative ‘plug socket’ project in the framework of the Top Teams Knowledge & Innovation. Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:44:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2013/01/02/ecn-presents-state-of-the-art-n-type-pv-cells-in-worlds-largest-market-china/ ECN is front runner in the field of solar energy technology and together with the Dutch businesses Tempress, Levitech, Eurotron and European partners, it promotes state-of-the-art technology and process equipment for high-efficiency solar cells and modules. The recently held CSPV solar energy conference in China offered the perfect platform for this. Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:45:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/12/03/mwt-on-the-eve-of-mass-production/ 4th MWT Workshop held in Amsterdam MWT (Metal Wrap Through) technology is ready for the move from lab to fab. That was the main message from the 4th MWT Workshop, held in Amsterdam on November 20-21. Over 170 participants from all over the world joined the 2-day workshop held last week in Nemo, Amsterdam. The workshop was hosted by ECN. Relevant equipment manufacturers, materials suppliers, and the world’s major PV producers including Canadian Solar, Yingli and Tianwei presented their latest... Mon, 03 Dec 2012 10:36:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/11/29/set-aside-can-have-substantial-budget-effects/ As of 2013, about half the carbon emission allowances for the energy companies and industry will be auctioned instead of being freely granted . The Netherlands can also auction a part of these allowances within the European emission cap. Because of the current recession there is a surplus in emission allowances and therefore the price of the allowances is very low at the moment. The European Commission has proposed to temporarily remove an amount of these emission allowances from the market, as... Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:41:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/11/01/dutch-16-renewable-energy-target-requires-additional-offshore-wind-farms-and-additional-deployment/ The additional 2.4 billion budgeted for renewable energy by the new Dutch Rutte II cabinet should be sufficient to realise 16% renewable energy in 2020. This calls for a balanced development of renewable heat, green gas and renewable electricity. The previous cabinet focused on renewable heat as a cost-effective technique. If the new cabinet is also able to create the right preconditions for deployment of additional wind energy and additional biomass co-firing in coal-fired plants, this would... Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:39:00 +0100 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/10/22/unprecedented-global-partnership-launched-to-champion-green-growth/ The Green Growth Best Practice Initiative (GGBP) was launched last week. Designed to help governments strengthen the quality of green growth planning and implementation through analysis and peer-to-peer learning, the initiative is set to drive progressive green policy-making around the globe. Within this initiative, ECN leads the activities on one of the three work streams: planning processes and stakeholder support. ECN provides outreach and assists with the preparation of companion products... Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:18:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/10/10/ecn-assists-vcs-in-technology-due-diligence/ ECN Technology Due Diligence is a new service by the renowned Netherlands based clean tech institute, tailored to international venture capitalists in the clean tech area. Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:39:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/10/04/worlds-major-pv-solar-industries-at-the-4th-international-mwt-workshop/ How to achieve materials innovations and cost reductions to move from laboratory to mass production in solar energy as soon as possible? This is the main topic at the international 4th MWT Workshop on 20 and 21 November 2012 in Amsterdam.The world’s major PV industries and leading R&D institutes will present the latest trends and achievements on metal-wrap-through (MWT) cells and modules. This year, other routes will also be put into the spotlights, in a session about back-junction... Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:08:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/10/03/european-maritime-spatial-planning-needed-to-facilitate-large-scale-deployment-of-offshore-renewable/ Delivering power from offshore renewable energy - wind, wave and tidal - in European sea basins will require more integrated and cross-border maritime spatial planning (MSP). This could be achieved through a new directive on MSP. Such a directive could require legislation in Member States without being prescriptive on form and content, and lay a foundation for increased cooperation on MSP through flexible, regional actions. This is one of the key recommendations of the EU-funded project... Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:02:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/09/24/how-silicon-purity-affects-the-performance-of-solar-cells/ Most solar cells are made from crystalline silicon. Crystalline silicon is expensive because it has to be very pure to make efficient solar cells. Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly how pure and that is why manufacturers play it safe. In other words: they generally use too pure and therefore too expensive silicon. New data on the relation between solar cell performance and impurity content are very important for cost saving. Until now, data from the 1970s have been used. In the meantime,... Mon, 24 Sep 2012 09:31:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/09/03/growing-share-of-renewable-energy-requires-great-investments-in-european-electricity-infrastructure/ A significant increase in the share of renewable energy to 40-55 percent of the European energy mix by 2050 will place great demands on the European electricity infrastructure. Meeting these demands will require considerable investments in new infrastructure to make more efficient use of existing infrastructure. Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:30:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/08/24/renewable-energy-current-dutch-policy-is-falling-short-of-2020-target-despite-strong-growth/ Under the current policy the share of renewable energy in the Netherlands is set to rise from 4% in 2010 to 7-10% in 2020. Although this is a strong increase, it is not enough to achieve the European target of 14% by 2020. Even with the measures proposed by the Rutte government and the agreements arrived at in the spring (Lenteakkoord), this 14% target is not going to be achieved. On the other hand, the Netherlands will probably be able to meet the targets for greenhouse emissions until 2020.... Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:29:00 +0200 http://www.ecn.nl/news/item/date/2012/07/26/turning-soya-bean-waste-into-energy-in-india/ ECN closes license agreement with Thermax. Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:40:00 +0200