Alternative Energy

Farnellboasts thousands of Alternative and Renewable Energy components ranging from solar panel installation tools to ultra low power microcontrollers. Browse our Renewable Energy site to find example solution block diagrams including energy harvesting and PV inverter, recommended products for your next design and application notes.

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Featured Alternative Energy Products

Solar fuses
Solar fuses

Voltage Rating V DC:1kV;
Fuse Current:1A; ...

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MC4 connectors
MC4 connectors

Series:MC4; Gender:
Receptacle;
Voltage Rating:1kV...

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SolarMagic ICs
SolarMagic ICs

Threshold Voltage:4.63V;
No. of Supervisors / Monitors:1...

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Solar inverter reference designs
Solar inverter reference designs

Silicon Manufacturer:ST Micro; Core Architecture:ARM...

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Solar inverter dev kits
Solar inverter dev kits

Silicon Manufacturer:Texas Instruments; Silicon Core Number:TMS320F28

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Product Training

Featured Alternative Energy Resources

Alternative Energy Solutions & Technologies on element14 community

Every day the renewable industry improves our ability to maximize energy generation from solar, wind and other sources. This site will stimulate discussions on key topics and demonstrate how you can harvest the power of the sun and wind.

Texas Instruments: Solar Development with C2000™ 32-bit real-time MCUs

Jumpstart solar application designs with two new platforms from TI, based on C2000 microprocessors.

NXP's Smart Energy Solutions

Learn how NXP is enabling smart energy all over the world.

TI and National Semiconductor TOGETHER, An Intelligent Solar Micro-Inverter Solution

Check out a solar micro-inverter solution that maximizes power output, provides real time control and performance data and delivers a safer, more reliable next generation system.

Alternative Energy Applications

There are many viable reasons for considering an alternative energy solution to power new designs, especially for those with ultra-low power requirements. Lower total cost of ownership, environmental benefits, and ease of implementation are just some of the many benefits that alternative energy sources can bring.

A solar-powered home is probably the most economical and practical use for an alternative energy at this point in time. The long term savings of not having to constantly depend on the energy grid easily outweighs the initial setup costs.

Small scale wind power generation schemes have been used for household electricity generation in conjunction with battery storage over many decades, especially in remote areas. Nowadays, equipments such as wireless Internet gateways are being powered by wind turbines, replacing the need for a connection to the power grid.

It is easy to think of all alternative energy as giant wind farms or hydro plants, but many alternative energy sources can be as simple as a single solar cell powering a remote sensor and wireless transmitter. As well as solar power, piezoelectric and thermoelectric generators can harvest vibration and thermal energy to generate enough electricity to power a simple circuit. Such energy harvesting schemes have now been widely employed in environmental and geological data sensing applications.

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