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For Greg Glatzmaier, the road between innovation and implementation runs along a dusty stretch of highway about a dozen miles south of Boulder City, Nevada, where his patented idea could solve an industry problem. The destination for his idea is Nevada Solar One, an outpost in the desert where 186,000 parabolic shaped mirrors tilt to capture the sun’s rays.

Greg Glatzmaier tests the high-temperature thermal/mechanical stability of sealants that are being used in equipment installed at the Nevada Solar One power plant. The process reduces trace levels of hydrogen in the power plant and maintains its original design efficiency and power production. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

“When the plant first opened, there was nothing around it but open desert with mountains to the west and east,” said Glatzmaier, a senior engineer in the Thermal Energy Science and Technologies group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “The only other landscape feature is a dry lakebed north of the plant.”

Since Nevada Solar One began operations in the summer of 2007, other utility-scale solar power plants have opened in that lakebed. Nevada Solar One is the only concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in the region, however, and the technology faces a unique set of challenges.

The CSP facility uses concentrated beams of sunlight to heat a fluid flowing through 20,000 tubes to as high as 752 degrees Fahrenheit. The process creates steam to spin a turbine that powers a generator and produces electricity. Over time, however, the heat transfer fluid begins to break down and form hydrogen, which reduces the effectiveness of the process. Tiny metal pellets in the tubes absorb the hydrogen, but after about seven years they become saturated and cannot be removed and replaced. Glatzmaier developed a method to address the hydrogen problem.

“To try to go in individually and address the situation for each tube is not really practical,” Glatzmaier said. “So, the method that I’ve developed, and what’s in that patent, and what this project has been all about, is to reduce and control the level of hydrogen that’s in the heat transfer fluid.”

NREL applied for a patent on Glatzmaier’s invention in the fall of 2017. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last May granted patent protection to what is simply called “Hydrogen sensing and separation.”

Laboratory Filed 188 Patent Applications

Glatzmaier’s patent was merely one of the 40 U.S. patents issued to NREL during fiscal 2020, a bump from the 32 issued during the prior fiscal year. Of the 269 disclosures filed with the laboratory’s Technology Transfer Office as the first step toward either patent or copyright protection, 153 fell in the category of a record of invention and 116 in the area of software.

“We continue to see strong engagement from researchers who submit their ideas for evaluation, with especially strong growth in software,” said Anne Miller, director of NREL’s Technology Transfer Office. “It’s great to see such growth because it tells us that the outreach to the lab to get people to report their innovations and work with us in getting them protected and deployed means that it’s working, that people know who to contact. Hopefully, it means that they have some confidence in our ability to be helpful and steer them in the right direction.”

Anne Miller, director of NREL’s Technology Transfer Office, speaks to laboratory employees at a 2019 event. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL.

NREL filed 188 patent applications in FY20, up from 124 the year before.

Lance Wheeler, a research scientist at NREL, has about a dozen patent applications in the pipeline tied to the discovery several years ago of a way to turn windows into solar cells. The technology relies on perovskite solar cells that enable the glass to darken and generate electricity, and also switch back to a clear pane. The most recent patent approved, for “Energy-harvesting chromogenic devices,” was granted in November, or almost four years after the provisional application was filed.

“It’s much different than writing a paper because you can write a paper and get it published within months,” said Wheeler, who shares credit on the patent with colleagues Joey Luther, Jeffrey Christians, and Joe Berry. “You’ll never get a patent awarded in months. It’s usually at least a year, and three is not crazy.”

Buildings across the United States account for nearly two-thirds of energy used, so the notion of using these “smart windows” to take advantage of sunlight could bring that energy consumption down.

The patents issued so far for Wheeler’s dynamic photovoltaic windows cover foundational aspects of the technology and sprang from the initial research. A series of patent applications followed.

“When you write the first patent application, you don’t know everything,” Wheeler said. “As you learn more and especially for very particular market needs, or what a product might look like, you learn what’s important and you continue to protect the things that are working. Then you make more discoveries, and you patent more things, but they’re all aligned in the same area.”

Perovskite Composition Earns Patent Protection

Alignment, as it turns out, is a key part of making perovskites most effective in capturing the sun’s energy. Unlike widely used silicon, which is a naturally occurring mineral, perovskites used in solar cells are grown through chemistry. The crystalline structure of perovskites has proven exceptionally efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.

NREL researchers have explored possible combinations for perovskite formulas to find the best. That work resulted in a patent issued in April 2020 for “Oriented perovskite crystals and methods for making the same.” The process begins with a small crystal that’s attached to another crystal and then another and on and on. The crystals are also oriented in the same direction. Kai Zhu, a senior scientist and one of the inventors, uses bricklaying as an analogy.

“You lay one layer down, you put one next to another, you align them perfectly,” he said. “You have to do this in order to build a very large wall. But if you have some randomness in it, your wall will collapse.”

The patent, which covers the composition of the perovskite, was issued to Zhu, Berry, and Donghoe Kim of NREL and to a scientist in Japan. NREL filed the patent application in 2017. Compared to a perovskite solar cell made of crystals allowed to grow randomly instead of in a specific orientation, the NREL-developed composition has been proven to have fewer defects and able to move charge carriers quickly. The result is a perovskite solar cell capable of reaching the highest efficiency.

“This represents the current best performing perovskite composition for the single-junction solar cell,” Zhu said.

Software Filings Reach New Record

NREL’s Technology Transfer Office received 116 software record (SWR) disclosures in fiscal 2020, establishing a new record and marking a big increase from 72 the prior year. The growth in submittals is partly due to more software being developed and authorized for free open-source release. One software record approved for closed-source licensing last year and now available for commercial users is the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection tool, or EVI-Pro. A simplified, open-source version, known as EVI-Pro Lite, also has been released.

The core of EVI-Pro allows users to forecast the demand for electric vehicle charging infrastructure in a particular area. The predictive nature of the software also enables users to determine in advance how an influx of electric vehicles might affect the grid and energy demand. EVI-Pro relies on real-world information.

Eric Wood, the NREL researcher who oversaw the development of EVI-Pro, said it is not enough to simply consider how many charging stations were installed in an area previously and make an educated guess based on that information.

“That misses some key points,” he said. “The vehicle technology is evolving. The charging technology is evolving. And the behavior of individuals that own these vehicles is evolving.”

Early adopters of electric vehicles could charge them at home, in their garage. As the market expands, Wood said, people living in apartments or who have to park on the street need to have a place to plug in.

“The role of public charging infrastructure is going to continue to elevate as the market grows,” he said. “Continuing to develop the software with an eye on reflecting the latest situation in the market is one of the challenges that we face, so keeping EVI-Pro relevant and current is important.”

From the Laboratory to the Outside World

For Glatzmaier, the journey to see how well his invention could perform at isolating and removing hydrogen from the concentrating solar power plant was not a quick one. Grounded from flying because of the pandemic, last year he made four trips to the Nevada site by car. Each trip took about 13 hours one way.

Scientists typically keep close to their laboratory space, with companies able to license ideas that sprang from the inventive minds at NREL. Often, with license in hand, a company will conduct research using its own people. In Glatzmaier’s case, Nevada Solar One signed cooperative research and development agreements that have kept the scientist and company working closely together since 2015.

Glatzmaier initially planned to address the hydrogen buildup using two processes: one to measure the amount of the gas, and a second to extract it. Laboratory-scale tests showed his ideas would work, but he still expected some hesitation from company executives when it came time to trying out the devices on a much larger scale.

“I was thinking, they’re going to be very reluctant because companies tend to not want to make changes to their power plants once they are up and running,” he said. So he proposed installing the mechanism to only measure hydrogen buildup. Instead, the company wanted him to move ahead and tackle both problems at once. From the initial idea to installation has been a long road, but it does not end in Nevada.

Glatzmaier said 80 concentrating solar power plants exist around the world, and talks are in their final stages to license the technology for its use in these plants.

Learn more about licensing NREL-developed technologies.

—Wayne Hicks

Article courtesy of the NREL, The U.S. Department of Energy.

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Bluetti camping-ready power stations get up to 56% exclusive savings from $209, Heybike Tyson uni-body e-bike at new $999 low, more

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1 hour ago

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October 29, 2025

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Bluetti camping-ready power stations get up to 56% exclusive savings from 9, Heybike Tyson uni-body e-bike at new 9 low, more


Leading our Green Deals today is Bluetti’s camping and outdoor-ready Halloween Sale offers with exclusive savings starting from $209. The extra discount for our readers is seeing plenty of new low prices, like the Elite 100 V2 Portable Power Station with a 200W solar panel at $626, among many others. We also have a clearance sale on Heybike’s Tyson Uni-Body Folding e-bike at a new $999 low, as well as Govee’s Matter Outdoor Garden lights 2-Pack at its $130 low for the second time ever, a one-day-only Greenworks snow blower kit, and more of our favorite ongoing deals that will be ending in the coming days. And don’t forget about the hangover deals from last week that are collected together at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s Anker SOLIX C2000 Gen 2 power station launch deals, the $1,116 early Black Friday Tenways e-bike savings, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Exclusively save up to 56% on Bluetti power stations for outdoor adventures starting from $209 for Halloween Sale

As part of Bluetti’s ongoing Halloween Sale, which gave us new and exclusive low prices on the Apex 300 Versatile Power Station and bundles, we wanted to shine a spotlight on the brand’s other camping-ready and appliance backup deals – all with exclusive savings! You’ll find options like the Elite 100 v2 Portable Power Station bundled with a 200W solar panel for $626.05 shipped, after using the exclusive code 9TO5TOYS5OFF at checkout for an extra 5% savings. Normally carrying a $1,299 full price tag here and going for as much as $1,399 at Amazon and other marketplaces, we’ve seen discounts since its release in June take the price as low as $659 in previous sales, including during Prime Day three weeks ago. With the exclusive code being used, you can now score it even lower at a total $673 markdown that gives you the best new price we have tracked. Head below to browse the full lineup of deals we’ve collected for you.

Mimicking much of the same upgrades we’ve seen from the Elite 200 V2 model, Bluetti’s newer Elite 100 V2 power station comes as a smaller option with a 1,024Wh LiFePO4 battery for your campsite and traveling power needs. Your devices and small appliances can receive up to 1,800W of steady power (surging as high as 2,700W) when connected to any of its 11 output ports. Those include four ACs, two USB-Cs, two USB-As, two DCs, and a car port – plus, everything is rated for up to 4,000+ charging cycles, which should last you for years and years to come.

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Plugging the station into an AC outlet can get it back to an 80% battery in 45 minutes or you can wait a little longer for 70 minutes to reach full. The bundle here gives you 200W of its max 1,000W solar input for charging in the sunlight, with options to plug into your car’s auxiliary port, a generator, and even utilizing an AC outlet and solar panels together.

***Note: None of the prices below have had the exclusive savings factored in, so be sure to use the code 9TO5TOYS5OFF at checkout to score the best prices during Bluetti’s Halloween Sale!

Bluetti’s Outdoor adventuring Halloween Sale deals:

Bluetti’s campsite/tailgate Halloween Sale deals:

As I previously mentioned, we also have exclusive savings on Bluetti’s Apex 300 versatile power station and its bundles that hit new lows starting from $1,349 during this Halloween Sale. And don’t forget about the brand’s latest release, with the new Pioneer Na(Sodium) power station and bundles having launched two weeks ago with exclusive savings starting from $735.

man riding heybike tyson e-bike down beach near water

Heybike is clearing stock of its Tyson uni-body folding e-bike with an $800 price cut to a new $999 low

Running alongside its ongoing Halloween e-bike Sale, Heybike is now offering a special clearance sale on its Tyson Uni-Body Folding e-bike for $999 shipped. This model has normally gone for $1,799 at full price, with discounts regularly dropping the costs between $1,399 and $1,599 over the year, with occasional falls to the $1,299 low. This model has been left out of many of the most recent sales, though, and now we’re seeing the brand clearing out its stock by dropping it lower than ever with the $800 markdown here, landing it at a new all-time low price.

If you want to learn more about this uni-body e-bike, be sure to check out our original coverage of this clearance sale here.

flower beds illuminated with govee outdoor garden lights

Govee’s Matter Outdoor Garden Lights 2-pack drops $70 back to its $130 low for the second time

Through the official Govee Amazon storefront, we’re getting a return to the best pricing on the brand’s Outdoor Garden Light 2-Pack at $129.99 shipped. This new lighting device has been on the market since June and carries a full $200 price tag outside of discounts, which we saw keeping above $140 until three weeks ago when Prime Day gave us the first drop to the $130 low. Things have kept above $150 in the weeks since, with that low price returning here today. You’ll be getting a $70 markdown while the deal lasts, landing it back at the lowest price we have tracked.

If you want to learn more about these outdoor lighting options, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

man clearing snow with Greenworks 80V 20-inch cordless snow blower

This 80V Greenworks 20-inch cordless snow blower kit drops to its $250 low (Today only)

As part of its Deals of the Day, Best Buy is offering the best rate on the Greenworks 80V 20-inch Cordless Snow Blower with 4.0Ah battery and rapid charger at $249.99 shipped. Normally, this handy winter machine fetches $450 at full price here, with the closest match we could find on Amazon being the kit that gives you a 2.0Ah battery and standard charger sitting at a full rate of $499. This is only the second time this year we’ve spotted this particular package getting a discount, with February having offered this same rate and 2024 having seen the price taken as low as $300 before that. For the rest of the day, you can pick it up with a $200 markdown that lands it back at an all-time low price.

If you want to learn more about this snow-blowing kit, be sure to check out our original coverage of this one-day-only deal here.

man and woman riding rad power radster trail e-bikes through forest
jackery power stations with spooky pumpkin and bats
woman carries Anker powercore reserve power station towards car near lake

Best Fall EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.


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More Trump auto job losses as GM blames 3,300 layoffs on regulatory changes

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2 hours ago

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October 29, 2025

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More Trump auto job losses as GM blames 3,300 layoffs on regulatory changes

Toyota-GM-EV-battery-plant

Ultium Cells Warren, OH (Source: Ultium Cells)

GM is laying off a total of 3,300 workers at three separate manufacturing sites in Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, and it directly cites government actions as the reason.

The republican party has claimed that one of its primary goals in the current political environment is to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. However, as is the case with many of its claimed goals, the policy it implements acts directly against those goals.

In this case, republicans have been in the process of an all-out assault on American manufacturing – working to reduce investment in America, slow development of new manufacturing projects, make enemies out of countries and companies that had been our former allies, and directly stop efforts to boost America’s manufacturing base and prepare the country for the future.

And today, the effects of the republican party’s recent $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites are being felt by one of America’s largest historical manufacturing employers: General Motors.

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GM cites “evolving regulatory environment” as it fires thousands

GM announced that it would lay off 1,200 workers in in “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit and 550 in Ohio at its Ultium battery plant, along with 850 additional temporary layoffs in Ohio and another 700 temporary layoffs at its Ultium plant in Tennessee. That’s a total of 3,300 jobs lost in today’s announcement.

Both Ultium plants will be temporarily idled at the start of 2026, resuming sometime in the middle of the year, with upgrades occurring during the pause.

GM made a statement directly tying the layoffs to “an evolving regulatory environment” which has caused “slower near-term EV adoption.”

Companies have falsely claimed for around two years now that EV demand is down, despite that it has increased for that entire time. However, there was a spike in EV demand last month as the US EV tax credit ended, causing a pull-forward of demand that is likely to result in a period of lower EV sales in the US in the coming months, even as EV sales will continue to rise globally.

While GM is one of the better-selling EV brands in the US, and has quite an extensive stable of options, it has also recently unwisely pulled back on its EV ambitions, offering an opening for its domestic and foreign rivals to fill the gap created by its intransigence. And these are not the only policy-related layoffs GM has announced – it already fired thousands of workers last month.

GM recently said it will lose $1.6 billion this quarter alone as a result of these changes in policy, including rollbacks in clean air regulation from the EPA and DoT, which GM lobbied for through its membership in the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. That’s a lot of money to lose (especially after literally asking for it), so firings were basically inevitable.

Biden brought auto jobs to the US; republicans send them to China instead

The EV tax credit was implemented in 2022 by President Biden and Congressional Democrats, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, a collection of manufacturing and climate-related reforms intended to boost America’s domestic manufacturing competitiveness. Part of the bill included domestic sourcing provisions for EVs and battery materials, which led to hundreds of billions of dollars in investment and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The bill also led to trade deals that would help to wrest control of raw materials from China, the country that currently has most of the world’s supply and refining capacity, such as a US-Japan free-trade deal for battery minerals.

But as soon as this unquestionably good thing happened for America, republicans had to stop it. Their huge giveaway to the rich also included provisions to reverse most of the positive reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act, with the goal of stopping the boom in American manufacturing that happened under President Biden (because, of course, it threatens their oil masters).

In total, the republicans’ efforts to harm US manufacturing and make your air dirtier will likely result in 2 million job losses for America. GM’s 3,300 today are just one small story among many others – a wider retreat in American auto and clean energy manufacturing that is a direct result of the republican party’s actions.

Already, $24 billion in clean energy investments have been lost. These investments would have driven manufacturing growth and created not just those manufacturing jobs, but associated supply and service jobs to fund American communities.

Many of these lost investments are simply a result of making the US less attractive, but some are due to direct government intervention in a specific project. Take, for example, the high-profile ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in construction in Georgia, which saw South Korean businessmen with visas detained and resulted in delayed construction on the plant and a swift popular pushback against US products in Korea.

And the imposition of unwise tariffs is reversing the potential positive impacts of President Biden’s battery trade deals, making the US an island and pushing other countries into the arms of China. Mr. Trump’s tariffs led to immediate job losses in the US and Canada and resulted in Canada, our closest ally with which we share the longest border on Earth, considering a deeper relationship with China (nevermind that the US president can’t impose tariffs on his own… or that Trump himself is barred from holding any office in the US).

And finally, the country that is most likely to benefit from this retreat in US manufacturing is China. China is currently experiencing a boom in EV manufacturing, and recently became the largest auto exporting country in the world due to Western refusal to take high-tech manufacturing seriously. The more the US retreats from manufacturing the vehicles that the whole world wants, the more China will be happy to pick up the slack. And if we stick to this unwise direction, today’s firings will only be a fraction of the misery brought upon America by republican actions.

The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.


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Honda’s adorable electric hot hatch may be small, but it promises to pack a punch

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3 hours ago

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October 29, 2025

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Honda's adorable electric hot hatch may be small, but it promises to pack a punch

Honda's-electric-hot-hatch

The Super-ONE may be Honda’s smallest and most affordable EV, but with new features like Boost Mode, this electric hot hatch punches well above its weight.

Meet Honda’s new electric hot hatch, the Super-ONE

Honda revealed the Super-ONE prototype at the Japan Mobility Show on Wednesday, claiming it will offer a new type of driving experience.

I know, I know. We’ve heard it so many times from different brands that their latest concept will be a game-changer, but this one is real. And it will begin rolling out next year.

Honda said the electric hot hatch has already undergone “extensive testing” under various conditions in Japan, the UK, and other parts of Asia.

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We actually caught a glimpse of it in July at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The Super EV Concept, as it was called at the time, took part in the hill climb event, debuting a funky new look.

The EV hot hatch is based on the N-One, Honda’s retro-looking electric kei car. Honda gave the compact EV a bold new look, adding a body kit that makes it look much bigger than it actually is. The Super-ONE offers much more than that the company promises.

Honda's-electric-hot-hatch-front
The Honda Super-ONE (Source: Honda)

Honda said the name Super-ONE represents its aspirations to create an EV that “transcends conventional norms and standards (“super”) and delivers customer value unique only to Honda (“one and only”).

One of the coolest features is the new Boost Mode, which Honda exclusively designed for the electric hot hatch. When activated, it simulates the jerking and sounds of a gas engine with a simulated 7-speed transmission and an added Active Sound Control system.

Honda's-electric-hot-hatch
The Honda Super-ONE (Source: Honda)

Similar to Hyundai’s N Grin Boost on the IONIQ 5 N, Honda said the Boost Mode feature unlocks the vehicle’s full power output. To top it off, Honda included dedicated features, such as a triple-gauge cluster and unique lighting, that activate during Boost Mode.

Honda's-electric-hot-hatch-interior
The interior of the Honda Super-ONE (Source: Honda)

Inside, the Super-ONE features sports seats exclusively designed for the model and a new horizontal instrument panel.

Starting in 2026, Honda will launch the production model in Japan, followed by other regions where demand for compact EVs is on the rise, such as the UK and Asia.

Honda has yet to reveal specific details, but given the N-One is 3,395 mm (133.7″) long, you can expect the new model to arrive roughly the same size.


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