Published

2 years ago

April 11, 2024

Alice Rush

After testing at CFV Labs and the Renewable Energy Test Center, Origami Solar has released data it says demonstrates that modules incorporating the company’s steel module frames passed frame-related industry-standard tests required to support module maker certifications.

Certifications included those of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), specifically IEC 61215 static mechanical load testing and IEC 61701 salt-mist corrosion testing and continuity testing of equipotential bonding.

CFV ran both required static load testing and optional test-to-failure tests.

RETC’s salt mist corrosion and continuity testing on modules using Origami’s steel solar frames demonstrated similarly successful results, says the company, confirming corrosion protection performance of its zinc-aluminum-magnesium coatings.

“As our modeling predicted, Origami steel module frames demonstrated excellent performance across the full range of certification tests,” says Origami Solar’s Lauren Ahsler.

“The tests prove to the industry that there is minimal risk to module makers’ ability to get modules certified when they switch to steel solar frames. These rigorous, third-party tests also show that switching to steel module frames has the potential to address the decrease in allowable loading specifications for large format modules and to improve overall PV plant reliability. The steel frames’ excellent performance in the salt-spray test sequence should resolve any concerns about corrosion protection. This independent testing demonstrates that Origami’s steel solar frames represent a big step forward for the solar industry.”

The post Origami Solar Releases Third-Party Testing Results of Steel Solar Module Frames appeared first on Solar Industry.

Origami Solar Releases Third-Party Testing Results of Module Frames

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy Concepts Can’t Violate the Laws of Physics

Published

10 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

In the early days of 2GreenEnergy, my people and I were vigorously engaged in finding solid ideas in cleantech that needed funding in order to move forward.

I vividly remember a conversation with a guy in Maryland who was trying to explain the (ostensible) breakthrough that he and his team had made in hydrokinetics. When I was having trouble visualizing what we was talking about, he asked me to “think of it as a river in a box.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “You mean you take a box full of standing water, add energy to it get it moving, then extract that energy, leaving you with more energy that you added to it.”

“Exactly.”

I politely explained that the laws of physics, specifically the first and second laws of thermodynamics, make this impossible.

He wasn’t through, however, and insisted that, in his office, his people had constructed a “working model.”

Here’s where my tone descended into something less than 100% polite. I told him that he may think he has a working model, but he’s wrong; if he believes this, he’s ignorant; if he doesn’t, but is conducting this conversation anyway, he’s a fraud.

“But don’t you want to come see it?” he implored.

“No. Not only would not fly across the country to see whatever it is you claim to have built, I wouldn’t walk across the street to a “working model” of something that is theoretically impossible.”

—

I tell this story because the claim made at the upper left is essentially identical. You’re pumping water up out of a stream, and then claiming to extract more energy when the water flows back into the stream.

Of course, social media today is rife with complete crap like this. We’ve devolved to a point where defrauding money out of idiots is rapidly replacing baseball as our national pastime.