As countries race to expand renewable energy infrastructure, balancing clean electricity production with land use for food remains a pressing challenge—especially in Japan, where mountainous terrain limits space. A recent study led by researchers from the University of Tokyo explores a promising solution: integrating solar panels with traditional rice farming in a practice known as agrivoltaics. As reported in the Journal of Photonics for Energy, the research team installed a dual-axis sun-tracking photovoltaic (PV) system over a rice paddy in Miyada-mura, Nagano Pr...

SPIE, the independent European leader in multi-technical services in the areas of energy and communications, is upgrading the Heckenstaller and Luise-Kiesselbach tunnels on Munich’s Mittlerer Ring South-West with modern LED lighting. The low-maintenance, long-life LEDs offer annual energy savings of around 50% compared to the previous fluorescent tubes and ensure even safer 24-hour continuous operation of the multi-lane tunnels. A software system automatically adjusts the luminaires based on changing lighting conditions. The work is scheduled to begin in October ...

Now that we’ve flipped the calendar page to January, it’s a chance to celebrate that 2015 has been declared the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL 2015) by the United Nations. We don’t take this opportunity – pardon the pun – lightly.  This is for several reasons. First, our jobs revolve around light.  We work for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is a telescope in space that observes X-rays from the Universe. X-rays are a kind of light. In fact, there are many different kinds of light, but only one that the human eye can detect naturally (called optical, or “visible,” light).