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Solar

Like A Diamond In The Rough, This Abrasive Material Finds Its Place In The Sun

September 27, 2016
In 1891, Edward Acheson was working at Thomas Edison’s famed Menlo Park laboratory, trying to make artificial diamonds by heating clay and powdered coke in an iron bowl with a carbon arc light. The result wasn’t pretty. Instead of diamonds, he created silicon carbide—a hard and rough compound used for decades mostly as an abrasive in industrial sandpaper, grinding wheels and cutting tools, and later a grip tape for skateboard decks.
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Solar Power

Something New Under the Sun: GE’s Industrial Grade Inverter Takes Solar Power to a New High

Tomas Kellner
September 10, 2015
Try as he might, Vlatko Vlatkovic won’t make the sun shine brighter. So when he wanted to make a more efficient solar farm, he and his team had to go for the next best thing: a gray plastic box the size of a small hut called the inverter. “It takes direct current from the PV panels and turns it into alternating current that you can use,” says Vlatkovic, chief engineering officer at GE Power Conversion. “Since the inverter system also represents as much as 20 percent of the capital costs of the farm, you could make a huge impact if you made it more efficient.”
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Rise and Shine: This Diamond-like Material is Helping Solar Power Cast a Bigger Shadow

July 28, 2015
The energy usage curves of most industrial countries – or load curves - have long resembled a crumpled fedora hat. They rise sharply at daybreak as people start brewing coffee and companies switch on machines, then peak twice – in the morning and the late afternoon, before dropping off after dinner. Utilities usually crank up their turbines and bring extra power plants online to cover the “peak” demand.
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