Top 10 technologies to grow renewable energy generation infrastructure
If you follow Luvioni for a while you might have already heard us talking about different technologies in the renewable energy generation spectrum. In this blog post, we are going to look at the newest, most innovative, efficient, cost-effective, cool-looking renewable energy generation technologies that will most likely affect how the world’s infrastructure will look.
Yes, we are going to talk about solar panels and wind turbines, we will mention the companies making the biggest impact but also mention innovating and emerging technologies from the methods you might already be familiar with.
1. Tesla solar & power storage tech
Of course, we have to mention Tesla in a Luvioni blog, Tesla has arguably pushed the renewable energy generation infrastructure to compete and innovate more. They have also helped old-school investors get interested in investing in sustainable companies, which in turn even attracts more people to be involved in the industry as a whole.
The Tesla solar roof is 3 times stronger than normal roof tiles and instead of just sitting there on your roof, it can potentially even make you money. This is mainly for people that plan to live for a very long time at their home or rent it at a premium. We are not sure about Tesla’s solar cell efficiency, however, their inverters work at a respectable 97.5% efficiency. You can combine this with Tesla’s various energy storage devices and (if you go crazy enough), you could power your house the whole year round without needing to get extra juice.
2. Geothermal technologies
When people hear geothermal, they imagine Iceland’s blue lagoon, American geysers or natural spa’s in general. What most people don’t know is that what they see are millions of euros or even billions of euros of untapped potential. There are even geothermal hotspots or cool spots that you can’t even see, and those may have even greater potential than those you can see.
To make this blog post short, we kept the explanations to a minimum, because this is a top 10 after all and we still have a lot of exciting stuff to share.
When we look at Geothermal renewable energy potential, we can think of 4 main methods of utilizing geothermal energy sources.
- Dry steam power plant
- Flash steam power plant
- Direct winter heating
- Direct summer cooling
Luvioni expects the Geothermal market to be at its minimum worth 100 billion US dollars. This is if governments and companies start taking geothermal businesses more seriously. The only thing people have to look out for is that try to design the external part of the geothermal plants to be aesthetically pleasing as most geothermal hotspots are incredibly beautiful nature places like Iceland’s blue lagoon.
3. Fusion Fuel & Iberdrola Green Hydrogen
We have said this before, but we’ll say it again. Green hydrogen is going to be HUGE because it is going to be cleaner, cheaper and make people way more money than they would otherwise be using traditional methods. Hydrogen is used for different things, which e discussed a lot in one of our latest blog posts, where talk about fusion fuel being the most valuable green hydrogen company in the world.
Iberdrola is another company focusing on green hydrogen among other things, but with this company, they are actually already very profitable. They have been around for so long and have been profitable for so long that they are even paying dividends to their shareholders. Natural gas and coal are mostly used at the moment to produce green hydrogen, however, by 2050 we might see these plants be completely replaced by green hydrogen plants from Iberdrola and Fusion Fuel.
Iberdrola is known to make various acquisitions and I think if they acquire Fusion Fuel, which is innovative and groundbreaking, they will be in a very happy working relationship.
4. Solar Edge solar-panels inverters
Solar Edge is a very innovative company making it more attractive, a lot of people (that don’t do a lot of research) talk about that solar energy-related companies are not able to make that much profit. Solar Edge is a company that has continued to prove that it can make a profit year after year and proves the renewable energy demand predictions right.
This company is especially valuable to the renewable energy infrastructure due to its highly efficient and innovative inverters, power optimizers, amazing management software, battery storage and services. This is the kind of company homeowners, large or small business, governments would hire to do large projects as cost-effective and as efficient as possible. People who want to live on the grid would certainly love their technology as well.
This is very similar to what Tesla has to offer, however when Tesla has to spread its energy between cars, robotics, factories, chips and groundbreaking software, Solar Edge only focuses on the solar industry which gives you a more clean final product with experienced experts. Not that you don’t have that at Tesla, but Tesla specializes in Cars, these guys specialize in solar technologies.
5. Gevo Bio Fuel production
You might have heard of Gevo as it was endorsed by Bill Gates (yes the Microsft and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation guy). Gevo basically means that they make biofuel, what is great about biofuels is, that the industry does have to change that much as biofuels can power already existing technologies. The downside of biofuels is that it is less efficient and less dense than fossil fuels.
A lot can be done to at least reduce the cost of creating biofuels and lower it so much so that it would be cheaper than fossil fuel. This is the very reason why companies are already investing billions in bio-fuels. People with money like an endless supply of something, that means the future can be more predictable and investors with money like predictability.
You are already seeing biofuel stations around the world like in the picture here below, and it is all thanks to companies like Gevo. Gevo is even saying that they have so much demand that other companies should consider joining, imaging having so much demand that you aren’t afraid of competitors taking your market share.
6. Various wind turbines
Wind turbines have been for a pretty long time, and companies like Enel Green Power and Vesta have been making billions of dollars with wind turbines. Wind turbines are one of the oldest and simplest ways to generate renewable energy (electricity). It is basically something that spins due to the wind pressure and it spins a turbine that generates electricity, so instead of 10 men spinning a wheel, the wind spins it for us.
For over 100 years, the wind turbines has remained looking to same (or very similair). Companies like Icewind and Vortex has been changing the came, Ice Wind rotates differently than the traditional wind turbines and requires far less materials to create. Vortex works with the vibrations that the pole produces and like Ice WInd, needs far less materials to produce and weighs a lot less.
7. Smart flower solar panels
I mean the title speaks for itself, it’s a smart flower solar panel, this is one of the things we don’t really understand but we accept it.
It’s a pretty cool solar panel that can be seen as an art piece statement but also as way to save yourself money. It’s a solar panel that opens and moves by itself and directs itself towards sunlight so it can get the optimal sunlight all day around. The one thing we don’t really understand is why it has to open and close as it takes energy to open and close, but I would gues for safety reasons like on a really snowy, haley or windy day, it would be nice to have it closed. It also cleans itself, so all that open and closing does really have purpose we assume. (we also double checked their website lol)
It comes with all the great tech that companies like Solaredge and Tesla has where you can track your power usage and generation. It is also one of the best looking solar panels to date, say you want an art piece at your home that makes you money, this would be a great option. This could also be put along side highways as it is small and doesn’t pose such a great risk for drivers if the reflection is properly redirected.
8. Various hydro technologies
Hydropower could be considered as old as wind turbines, they both generate a serious amount of power, but like wind turbines, water turbines have also developed and innovated quite a bit.
We decided to choose 3 very different hydro technology to show you guys, when we say different, in the end, it still remains a turbine that is turned by water pressure/current.
The one on the left is one of the coolest technologies we’ve seen and we have a whole dedicated blog post talking about this. This thing can be used in water and outside of the water as a portable wind/water turbine. It does work its best in water. It has a power bank attached to it so you can take power with you when you don’t have a water current close by. Say you are in desperate need of energy, you can even crank it for power by hand. It also has a light attached to it and multiple ports so you can attach various devices to charge.
The middle one is just a dam, with ”just a”, we mean these things are so AWESOME but it has existed for so long it is not that exciting more but seeing them in person is absolutely crazy. Not to mention they produce a crazy amount of energy.
The last picture we have here looks like something straight out of star wars, but t is a water turbine that works underwater in the middle of the ocean, but instead of being asked to the ground, it just floats, which makes it easier and cheaper to repair. And this thing looks absolutely awesome. The significance of these devices is absolutely revolutionary, fun and super effective. The only downside is the long cables needed to be made as it has to have a dynamic cable connection. If we could make a cable long enough, we could put a bunch of these in the ocean where no one can even spot them.
9. Nuclear fission (possibly also nuclear fusion)
Everybody (people like us) know what nuclear fission is, that’s how all nuclear plants currently work, by splitting atoms. It uses the heat from the rapid reaction to heat up water and produce steam that turns turbines in the power plant which in turn produces electricity.
But for this demonstration, we are going to show you nuclear fusion, which is when atoms combine and stick together to generate heat, almost like our sun or a small star. The catchy part of this is that you need ALLOT OF ENERGY to be able to do fusion at the moment, but when that is figured out and safely figured out, humans will be enjoying some very cheap power.
This fusion technology is still so new and complicated, please just have a look at the pictures below, there are two types of nuclear fusion.
- Magnetic confinement fusion
- Internal confinement fusion
Magnetic confinement fusion
Internal confinement fusion
10. Pressure plate energy
The name gives it away, this creates kinetic energy by stepping….well on a pressured plate. One could imagine that this does not produce near as much energy as the technologies mentioned above. They claim to get ” 3 joules of energy per footstep or up to 5 watts of power while someone is walking”, however as they mentioned on their website this is more as a long term investment and hopefully as the cost decrease, dance studios, concert locations (hardcore dancing concerts) can utilize this to generate enough energy to store or energize the events themselves.
Bonus: Rawmelon solar devices
As a bonus, we present this orb that is a next-level futuristic ”solar panel”. It looks cool and uses a lot fewer materials to produce the same amount of energy. The guy and company that invented this are not widely known on the internet, and so far only small versions of this have come on the market that also gives light. We are still waiting for the big versions to go on sale, if you would like to receive updates or invest in this project click on one of the pictures below and it will take you to their IndieGoGo page.
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If you liked this blog post you might also like one of our recent blog posts, digging deeper into some of these companies we mentioned.
