This article is about using robots in the energy field. We will consider several modern solutions that not only make it easier for a person to work and free his time, but also serve as cost-saving services for servicing industrial energy facilities. Today, we can already confidently say that such tasks as: diagnostics of power lines, their cleaning from ice, inspection of wind turbines, maintenance of solar panels, diagnostics and maintenance of nuclear reactors - in the near future it will be possible to solve exactly mobile fully autonomous robots , or robots with remote control.

The use of robots is especially appropriate where human life may be at risk. For example, for the diagnosis of failed nuclear reactors or for the prevention of high voltage power lines located at a height of tens of meters above the ground ...

A substance known to scientists for more than a hundred years, only today, at the beginning of the XXI century, it turned out to be very promising material for the production of cheap and effective solar cells. Perovskite, or calcium titanate, first found in the form of a mineral by the German geologist Gustav Rosa in the Ural Mountains back in 1839, and named after Count Lev Alekseevich Perovsky, a glorious statesman and collector of minerals, the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, turned out to be the most suitable contender for the role of the alternative to silicon in the production of solar cells.

As a substance, until recently, calcium titanate was widely used only as a dielectric for multilayer ceramic capacitors. And now they are trying to apply it to build highly efficient solar panels, since it turned out that this material perfectly absorbs light ...

The British company Pavegen Systems Ltd., whose director is Lawrence Kemball-Cook, the author of the technology, successfully produces and sells unique paving tiles around the world that generate electricity thanks to pedestrians walking along it. The idea was realized by Lawrence Kemboll-Cook in 2009, when he studied at the University of Loughborough kinetic solutions for energy networks. Cambell-Cook came up with this idea for tiles while working for one very large energy company.

Since the founding of Pavegen, Lawrence began his move into the market leaders in the energy-harvesting pedestrian sector, generating interest in technology globally. A number of commercial objects at the implementation stage picked up Lawrence's idea, transforming his concept and design into real products ...

An alternative device for converting the energy of solar radiation into electric current is often called a nanoantenna today, however, other applications are possible, and this will also be discussed here. This device works, like many antennas, on the principle of rectification, but unlike traditional antennas, it works in the optical wavelength range.

The electromagnetic waves of the optical range are extremely short, but back in 1972 this idea was proposed by Robert Bailey and James Fletcher, who even then saw the prospect of collecting solar energy in the same way as with radio waves. Due to the short wavelength of the optical range, the nanoantenna has dimensions not exceeding hundreds of microns in length (proportional to the wavelength), and in width - not more, or even less, 100 nanometers ...

On October 2, 2015, Google finally became part of the Alphabet holding, in connection with which the management of some projects was reorganized. This has affected all projects that are part of Google X, which is engaged in almost secret laboratory developments in the field of advanced technologies.

One of the most ambitious projects that Google X has been pursuing for several years is the development of technologies that make clean energy sources more accessible. So, in 2013, the technology giant acquired Makani Power, a wind turbine manufacturer, so that Google X’s efforts to develop one of its key areas become even more productive.

But Makani Power is not ordinary wind turbines, not the kind used everywhere in windmills. Developed by Alameda (California, USA), the devices are on-board units ...

Lighting accounts for a large share of energy consumption worldwide, for example, it is estimated that about 12 percent of total electricity consumption is accounted for by lighting. The reason is that the traditional incandescent bulbs that are very common today (Ilyich’s bulb here, or Edison’s bulb in the USA) consume a lot of energy, 90 percent of the energy is simply lost in them in the form of heat.

The main alternative to this day were only compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs, which, consuming significantly less electricity, can produce as much light as incandescent lamps. However, the fourth lighting option is approaching, and the technology called FIPEL is rightfully considered the first in the last 30 years, claiming the title of a new technology of energy-saving lighting. FIPEL from Field-induced polymer electroluminescent (field-induced polymer electroluminescence) ...

In 2004, Russian scientists Konstantin Novoselov and Andrei Geim working at the University of Manchester (Manchester, UK) were able to obtain graphene on a silicon oxide substrate. It was a stable two-dimensional film due to its bonding with a thin layer of oxide (dielectric). The parameters of carbon films one atom thick (a million times thinner than a sheet of paper), such as electrical conductivity, the Shubnikov-de Haas effect, and the Hall effect were then measured by scientists. Novoselov and Game received the Nobel Prize for these advanced works in 2010.

Today graphene can rightfully be called revolutionary material of the 21st century. This carbon compound is the thinnest, strongest and has the highest electrical conductivity. Today, several billion dollars has been allocated for the study of graphene, and according to scientists, this material can replace silicon ...

Since 2011, Harald Haas, a specialist in optical wireless data transmission, a professor at the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, UK), has been seriously promoting a fundamentally new technology for wireless data transmission through flashing LED lights. Then most university professors decided that the idea, of course, is interesting, but hardly realizable. And so, four years later, Haas nevertheless created the first router that works according to his concept.

The technology is called Li-Fi (light - light, fidelity - accuracy). The new router showed such amazing characteristics that it was 100 times faster than Wi-Fi, reaching in laboratory conditions a record data transfer rate of 224 Gb / s. Laboratory tests were conducted by the Estonian company Velmenni. Haas even supplied his first router with a solar battery to make access to the network autonomous ...