Utility Companies Wants to Force Customers to Pay Up to a $92 Month Minimum Fixed Charge

PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, the three major California utilities whose services include electricity, have filed a joint proposal so that customers will be force to pay up to $92 every month fixed charge even if no energy is used. Here’s how the fixed charges would work in the PG&E …

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Blue Origin Making Solar Cells from Lunar Regolith

Since 2021, Blue Origin has been making solar cells and transmission wire from regolith simulants. Using regolith simulants, their reactor produces iron, silicon, and aluminum through molten regolith electrolysis, in which an electrical current separates those elements from the oxygen to which they are bound. Oxygen for propulsion and life support is a byproduct. Above …

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Caltech Space Solar Power Demo Launched to Orbit January 3rd

The Transporter-6 mission successfully launched at 6:55 a.m. PT on January 3 placed the Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) prototype, the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD) in orbit. It will test several key components of an ambitious plan to harvest solar power in space and beam the energy back to Earth. Space solar power …

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Beamed Space Based Solar Power Demonstration Progress

The Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP) at Caltech is working to deploy a constellation of modular spacecraft that collect sunlight, transform it into electricity, then wirelessly transmit that electricity wherever it is needed—including to places that currently have no access to reliable power. Over a period of two years, they have built and demonstrated two …

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Progress to Higher Efficiency Thin Film Solar Cells

Record conversion efficiencies have been reached with thin film photovoltaic cells by the AMOLF Group. AMOLF group leader Esther Alarcon Llado says: “based on the strong light trapping performance of our patterns, we estimate that PV efficiencies above 20% could be achieved for a 1 μm-thick c-Si cell, which would represent an absolute breakthrough toward …

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