by Shane Henson — January 24, 2014—Energy Business Review (EBR) recently announced New Energy Technologies’ SolarWindow as the winner of its Energy Innovation Award 2013 from among four finalists.
In November 2013, EBR nominated four innovations for the award, including New Energy Technologies’ SolarWindow, Quarry Battery’s pumped storage batteries, Honeywell’s Wi-Fi smart thermostat, and WAVALUE’s high added value ecofertilizers from anaerobic digestion effluent wastes project.
New Energy Technologies’ SolarWindow
The winning product, SolarWindow, is reportedly the world’s first-of-its-kind see-through technology capable of generating electricity on glass windows and flexible plastics, and is planned to be developed as a “building integrated photovoltaic” (BIPV) technology for commercial buildings. The product allows electricity generation from see-through windows or glass surfaces that are sprayed with the company’s coatings, even on aircraft windows, fuselage and pilot flight suits. These patented coatings generate electricity from both natural sunlight and artificial light sources, including fluorescent and LED lighting, thereby reportedly outperforming the current commercial solar and thin-film technologies.
Quarry Battery Company’s pumped storage batteries in abandoned quarries
Finalist Quarry Battery Company is developing a 50-megawatt energy storage facility in North Wales, U.K., that is based on its pumped storage batteries concept. The concept enables energy to be stored in abandoned quarries during off-peak times and used during peak times. It requires two quarries, one located at a higher altitude than the other. The battery charges by pumping water to the upper quarry when the grid has spare electricity. At peak times the water is released through a hydro generator turbine. The watertight quarries and pumped storage batteries, powered by electricity, can reportedly work indefinitely.
Honeywell’s Wi-Fi smart thermostat
Finalist Honeywell’s Wi-Fi smart thermostat, a first-of-its-kind cloud-based voice control technology, enables users to control room temperatures with voice commands. The thermostat utilizes advanced far-field voice-control technology that enables the voice command to be recognized even in a noisy environment. Users can adjust the thermostat by using the Total Connect Comfort smartphone app on Google Play or iTunes.
WAVALUE high added value eco-fertilizers from anaerobic digestion effluent wastes project
Lastly, a plant is being established in Vitoria, Spain, to develop fertilizers using digestate under the finalist WAVALUE (high added value eco-fertilizers from anaerobic digestion effluent wastes) project. The plant will produce commercial organomineral fertilizers with digestate. Viability studies and business models will be conducted in order to combine the agrobiogas production with the production of those fertilizers. The aim of the project is to popularize and encourage agrobiogas plants by removing the impediment of digestate management as well as create economic value for the biogas plant manager.
