A researcher at MIT, Andreas Mershin, has created solar panels from agricultural waste such as cut grass and dead leaves. In a few years, Mershin says it’ll be possible to stir some grass clippings into a bag of cheap chemicals, paint the mixture on your roof, and immediately start producing electricity.

If you remember high school biology classes, you will hopefully remember a process called photosynthesis, whereby plants turn sunlight into energy. Mershin has found a process which extracts the photosynthesizing molecules, called photosystem I, from plant matter. Photosystem I contains chlorophyll, the protein that actually converts photons into a flow of electrons.

These molecules are then stabilized and spread on a glass substrate that’s covered in a forest of zinc oxide nanowires and titanium dioxide “sponges.” When sunlight hits the panels, both the titanium dioxide and the new material absorb light and turn it into electricity, and the nanowires carry the electricity away. In essence, Mershin has replaced the layer of silicon in conventional photovoltaic cells with a slurry of photosynthesizing molecules. “It’s like an electric nanoforest,” he says.

So far so good — now time for the reality check. At the moment, even with the efficiency-boosting nanoforest, Mershin’s solar panel only has an efficiency of 0.1%. To be of any use — to power more than a single LED light from an entire house covered in these cheap solar panels — an efficiency of 1 or 2% is required. With such a low barrier to entry, though, Mershin hopes that scientists the world over can now work on boosting the efficiency.

Ultimately the goal is to create a cheap plastic bag that comes pre-filled with the necessary chemicals, and “one sheet of cartoon instructions, with no words.” The idea is that you’ll add agricultural waste to the bag, stir it around, and then just slosh it onto a sheet of glass. Suffice it to say, such an invention would revolutionize power generation in low-density areas that are off the grid and developing nations.

Source: ExtremeTech

The China National Renewable Energy Centre (CNREC) was established by the National Energy Administration (NEA) with the support of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top policy-making body.

CNREC will assist policymakers with drawing up development roadmaps and collecting and analysing data. Major focus areas include wind power – particularly offshore wind – biomass, solar power and grid-integration of renewable energy.

The centre will be led by Wang Zhongying, also deputy head of the Energy Research Institute under the NDRC. The advisory committee includes many of China’s key figures in renewable energy such as He Dexin, president of the China Wind Energy Association and Li Junfeng, president of the China Renewable Energy Industries Association.

It also includes many government officials such as Shi Dinghuan, president of China Renewable Energy Society, and a counsellor on China’s State Council.

It is located in the same building as ERI, which will be responsible for its daily management, Rechargeunderstands.

“In China, developing policies and strategies for renewable energy is a complex task because government leaders have to weigh all aspects to ensure that it will benefit the entire country. A strong think tank can provide solid research to support policymakers,” Wang told a press briefing last week.

The centre is getting financial and technology support from Denmark as part of a DKr100m ($18m) package to support capacity building and technology innovation in renewable energy in China from 2009-2013.

CNREC is also hoping to co-operate with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US and energy agencies in Spain, according to a report by China Daily.

China’s installed electricity generation capacity from renewable sources accounted for 27.5% of the nation’s total last year, increasing less than 1% on the previous year.

Hydropower accounted for almost 22% of the total. Nuclear made up 1.2%, while wind power contributed 4.3% or 45GW, according to the China Electricity Council.

Industry insiders say it is not clear to what extent the new research centre will add to what was already being done by ERI. However, they add that the close relationship with NEA means that any work done by the centre will be taken into account by the chief policymakers.

“We have to build up a system of policies and management that can serve the industry better,” Liu Qi, deputy head of NEA, said at the briefing.

“The successful experience of the European Union and the United States proves that to set up a national organisation to conduct research and manage the industry is necessary and beneficial for its long-term development.”

CNREC’s consultant committee includes experts from Denmark, the US and Spain. Kaare Sandholt, international advisor at the Sino-Danish Renewable Energy Development programme, has been closely involved in setting up the centre and is its Chief Expert.

Denmark’s Minister of Trade and Investment, Pia Olsen Dyhr, launched the CNREC in Beijing last week.

China’s renewable energy plan for the five years through 2015 was submitted to the State Council for approval early this month, leading financial daily China Securities Journal reported last week.

Renewable energy will account for more than 9.5% of total energy consumption by 2015, according to the report.

Source: RECHARGE

A farmer walks past a terrace of dang shen, a traditional medicine, in Gansu – a region being transformed by spending on renewables. Photograph: Sheng Li/Reuters

The remote, wind-blasted desert of northwestern Gansu could be the most unloved, environmentally abused corner of China. It is home to the country’s first oilfield and several of the coalmines and steel factories that have contributed to China’s notoriety as the planet’s biggest polluter and carbon dioxide emitter.

But in the past few years, the landscape has started to undergo a transformation as Gansu has moved to the frontline of government efforts to reinvent China’s economy with a massive investment in renewable energy.

The change is evident soon after driving across the plains from Jiuquan, an ancient garrison town on the Silk Road that is now a base for more than 50 energy companies.

Wind turbines, which were almost unknown five years ago, stretch into the distance, competing only with far mountains and new pylons for space on the horizon. Jiuquan alone now has the capacity to generate 6GW of wind energy – roughly equivalent to that of the whole UK. The plan is to more than triple that by 2015, when this area could become the biggest windfarm in the world.

This is the other side of China’s development. Although it is the world’s biggest CO2 emitter and notorious for building the equivalent of a 400MW coal-fired power station every three days, it is also erecting 36 wind turbines a day and building a robust new electricity grid to send this power thousands of miles across the country from the deserts of the west to the cities of the east.

It is part of a long-term plan to supply 15% of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2020. Most of that will come from nuclear and hydropower, but the government is also tapping the wind and solar potential of the deserts, mountain plateaus and coastlines.

The scale of investment has led to hopes that China may emerge as the world’s first green superpower. This is premature. Breakneck economic growth has left much of the country enshrouded in a murky grey smog. But the environmental crisis is so bad that it is a driver for change.

Carbon dioxide emissions have more than doubled in the past 10 years, taking China past the US as the world’s No 1 source of greenhouse gases. Dirty smokestacks and illegal discharge pipes contribute to the hundreds of thousands of annual premature deaths from pollution related diseases. Environment ministry statistics suggest that 40% of river water can make you sick.

Four in five major cities are unlikely to reach the government’s relatively low standards for air quality. Biodiversity is declining, while consumer demand is rising for ever more rare – and expensive – flora, fauna and minerals. More than two dozen areas have been declared “resource depleted”. Droughts are becoming more prolonged and more widespread.

If environmental damage were fully factored into the state’s account books, China’s economic growth rate would probably be halved, Wang Yuqing – the former deputy director of the state environmental protection ministry – warned this week. He estimated environmental damage last year at about 2.5tn yuan (£250bn), or 5-6% of China’s GDP.

Government plans to tackle these problems include increasingly ambitious pollution controls, afforestation targets and hydroengineering projects, But the focus of its efforts is the attempted switch from coal torenewable energy.

The campaign faces economic and technical obstacles. Coal and gas are far cheaper and abundant, which means it will be many years before China’s emissions start to fall.

But Jiuquan’s planners say their region is testimony to how quick change can come when staple fossil fuels run out. The output of the first local oilfields, which opened in Yumen county in 1939, has fallen by two-thirds since the 80s. New fields are being explored, but officials say the era of “peak oil” in Jiuquan has already passed.

“This was the cradle of the Chinese oil industry,” said Wu Shengxue, director of Jiuquan’s reform and development department. “But we realise that fossil fuel supplies are limited. They will run out one day. So we need to find other forms of energy. Jiuquan is leading the move to renewable energy in China.”

Investments in wind and solar are now more than 40bn yuan a year in the region, he said, compared to about 1bn yuan for oil and coal combined.

The flood of money is transforming this previously poor area. Average urban incomes – once among China’s lowest – have almost tripled since 2000 and are forecast to be higher than the national average by 2015.

Other regions are following. National planners have earmarked seven regions for huge wind projects, each at least 10GW in size. The state grid has struggled to keep up. Two years ago, almost a third of the turbines were wastefully unconnected.

This has prompted unflattering comparisons with the Great Leap Forward of the late 50s, when Mao Zedong urged China’s population to ramp up agricultural and steel production to unrealistic levels with disastrous consequences.

There are echoes of that era in a banner on the street in Yumen New Town, which reads: “Make an effort to develop the economy in a fast leap!”

Market forces are a secondary consideration. The state grid is legally obliged to pay 0.54 yuan per kilowatt hour (kWh) of wind energy, even though it could get the same amount of coal-fired power for 0.3 yuan.

The director of the town’s energy department said the fact that the government controls prices rather than the market was good for the development of wind power.

Yumen used to be known as Oil City but people are now being moved from the old oilfields to a new town in half-completed tower blocks closer to the windfarms.

“Most people left because business was bad. The environment is much better here,” said Dong Suqin, 66, who relocated three years ago.

Business is also more promising. By 2020 Jiuquan plans to increase wind power generation sixfold to 40GW. Wu predicts even faster growth between 2020 and 2030, when solar power starts to take off: “That’s when the technology will have matured and the generating costs will be lower. By 2030, I think China will get half its energy from renewable resources and Jiuquan will be famous around the world. People here are going to be rich.”

His optimism is shared in Dunhuang, a city of ancient Buddhist grottoes and ultramodern solar farms where China’s first 10MW demonstration photovoltaic plant waits to be connected to the state grid.

“We showed it can be done – this is very significant,” said Song Rongwu, assistant manager at the state development and investment corporation (SDIC) facility. “Ten years from now, I believe every home in Dunhuang will be powered by clean energy. The Gobi desert will be filled with blue photovoltaic panels. It will be a beautiful sight.”

That is by no mean certain. King Coal’s rule looks stronger than ever. This year, China will – for the first time – account for half the coal burned globally, according to Yang Fuqiang of the World Resources Institute. Last year, this dirtiest of fuels increased its share of national energy supply to above 72%. Meanwhile hydropower declined because ofdrought, and the wind industry had a year of consolidation.

Yang says incentives to boost the supply of clean energy are no longer enough. He wants the government to curb demand for fossil fuels by making them more expensive: “We need a cap on coal to send a strong signal to investors – ‘Don’t put your money in coal. Move to cleaner energy.’ ”

Environmentalists see glimmers of hope in places such as Jiuquan that this might one day change. But the pace is still too slow and there is too much focus on engineering projects in the desert and not enough on consumption habits in cities.

“We cannot yet say China has finished industrialisation and the dirty phase is finished. This will last quite some time,” said Li Bo of Friends of Nature, China’s first green NGO. “We cannot rely solely on new technology to clean up our environment. We need to talk more about social responsibility and eco-civilisation.”

Source: The Guardian

Wrexham, in the UK (North Wales, to be precise), has apparently had one of Europe’s largest solar panel factories since 2005 (a Sharp solar panel factory), and employs approximately 1,000 people there. Now, the town is stepping up its solar installation game — it’s just installed 30,000 town-produced solar panels on 3,000 of its homes, and it’s installed solar systems on six schools and several public buildings. In total, one out of three properties in Wrexham now have solar panels.

“Scaffolding was bought in from all over Cheshire and north Wales to complete Europe’s biggest social housing solar scheme by 4 March, the cut-off date which allowed installations to earn the higher government solar incentive (assuming a government appeal in the courts fails),” the UK’s Guardian reports.

“‘They have been going up like mushrooms. Everyone got them, even my auntie,’ said Jackie Downward, a resident of Hullah Lane, Wrexham who had eight panels installed on the roof of her pebble-dashed 1960s semi.”

Notably, this solar rush isn’t only because people in the town are green-minded. Solar isn’t just about helping the environment any more —  it’s about saving money and creating jobs.

“I’ve never taken an interest in green things before. Some people say they look ugly but most say they wouldn’t mind them. I only heard of one couple who said they wouldn’t have them on their roof. In the end, it’s money off your bills and jobs so it has to be worth it,” Downward said.

More from John Vidal at he Guardian:

In what council chiefs say was a “sensible” investment, Wrexham last year borrowed nearly £28m for the 5MW scheme to equip one in three of its properties with panels made by Japanese company Sharp, which has a solar module factory on the edge of the town. Tenants, who pay on average around £70 a week to rent their homes, can expect £200-300 a year off their bills from the electricity they generate and the council will make over £1m a year profit from feed-in tariffs, the government’s solar incentive scheme. The money will increase Wrexham’s housing budget by nearly 10%, and will be invested back in public housing.

In a riposte to critics who dismissed solar as a technology only for the wealthy, the town – which has some of Britain’s most deprived estates – expects its investment to lift people out of fuel poverty, benefit its schools and old people, and reduce carbon emissions by 3,000 tonnes a year. Sharp says it has invested £43m in its Wrexham solar plant and that 132 people worked nearly six months to install the panels on council homes.

The UK now has over 1 GW of solar power installed, 40 times more than just 22 months ago when its solar feed-in tariff scheme started. However, it’s clear that Wrexham has gone above and beyond. By 2020 it expects to have cut its carbon dioxide emissions 70% compared on 2005 figures, much more than UK targets and “possibly the most by any British borough.”

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/16Bw6)

Like Hawai’i, the USVI — at great and increasing costs — depends on oil imports to produce most of its electricity, nearly 100% of it in the case of the USVI. As a result, the Caribbean island territory’s 110,000 residents pay some $0.47 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for electricity — some 4-5x more than consumers in the continental US. USVI residents also depend on foreign oil to produce freshwater via seawater desalination.

USVI Governor John P. de Jongh Jr. and his administration are trying to change all that. Working with the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Interior Dept., de Jongh has crafted a planning framework, the goal of which is to reduce fossil fuel use on the islands by 60% in the next 15 years.

Meeting a Long-term Challenge: The Rewards of Reducing Fossil Fuel Use

The USVI depends on tourism for some 80% of its economic activity. Tourists from other climates tend to really like their a/c. That makes reducing fossil fuel usage even more of a challenge, one that requires active support and participation all along the electricity production and consumption value chain — from consumers to power producers. Not the least among them is efficiently integrating a mix of intermittent, renewable energy resources into the grid and assuring a ready supply of high-quality electrical power. Another key aspect of achieving the program’s aims is winning lasting support from the islands’ residents and businesses.

The rewards are numerous, substantial, and lasting, however. Success in the USVI would not only yield multiple, long-term benefits economically, socially, and environmentally, but it would also lead to replicating the means and methods in the continental US.

“What we’re attempting to do is integrate every large portion of renewable energy into our system,” said Karl Knight, director of USVI’s Energy Office and a board member of the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority, in an NREL press release. “Think of it as a pilot for how to integrate renewables as a large proportion of the grid.”

NREL has worked with USVI government, utilities, and public and private groups to map the island territory’s renewable energy potential in order to craft a workable plan that would result in renewable energy resources meeting its electricity needs by 2025. The plan calls for building out a mix of six different technologies. By far, the single largest source of potential fossil fuel reduction will come from another source, however — energy efficiency improvements.

The high cost of using oil to produce electricity and freshwater has put increasing strain on residents’ pocketbooks, low-income residents, and retirees, in particular. Their reduced personal income and spending has also constrained economic development.

“If the rate is going to be 40 cents a kilowatt hour or more, it shapes the type of business that’s willing to locate in the Virgin Islands,” Knight elaborated. “Our total dependence on oil for power generation in an era of expensive crude oil is having a huge impact.”

USVI’s Fossil Fuel Reduction Plan: Energy Efficiency and a Mix of Renewable Energy Resources

The USVI burns 2.6 million barrels of oil every year to generate electricity and desalinate seawater. Reducing this 60% by 2025 can be achieved by the following mix of renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements, according to the USVI-NREL plan:

• 2 percent biomass

• 3 percent landfill gas

• 3 percent solar

• 6 percent wind

• 8 percent waste-to-energy

• 38 percent energy efficiency

“We think 60 percent is very realistic,” Knight said. “The government established that goal in collaboration with NREL and the Island Nations global partnership. They challenged Gov. de Jongh to be aggressive in his goal-setting and he took them up on it. We established the aggressive goal because we spend so much on energy. The only thing that people in the Virgin Islands talk about is the size of their electric bills.”

Improving the energy efficiency of the USVI electric utility is the most cost-effective, “low-hanging fruit” that should be taken advantage of, explained NREL’s Karen Petersen. Other measures that “will help immensely” are as simple as turning off lights in buildings and lowering the air conditioning in tourist hotels. “We’re working to create a whole cultural shift,” Petersen said. “They’re very conservative in their use of energy because of need, but it doesn’t necessarily revolve around an environmental ethic.”

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/15KYN)

While the EU already has about 20% of its energy coming from renewable energy, the small island nation of Malta has lagged a lot with only 1-2% of its electricity coming from renewable sources.

“As an EU member Malta is required to produce at least 10% of its energy from renewables by 2020,” Susan Kraemer writes on Green Prophet (one of the other sites she contributes to). The new floating wind farm is apparently a key to the nation’s plans to quickly achieving that target.

Hexicon has now submitted a project description statement (PDS) with Maltese authorities, and the location of the wind farm has been identified. The farm would include 36 turbines sitting on a hexagon-shaped, 460-meter-wide platform (see the images above) and would have a power capacity of 54 MW. The platform would be anchored to the sea floor with cables but would be able to turn a full 360 degrees in 30 minutes.

“Hexicon’s technology for large-scale, floating platforms for wind and wave power was analysed and reviewed by the Swedish Energy Agency, the Malta Resources Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment of the Republic of Cyprus,” Malta Todaywrites.

The hexagon shaped platform will be constructed on the basis of offshore oil rig platform technology.

The patented “fagerdala hull system” provides the Hexicon platform with a composite outer protective layer. The hull system thus reduces the need for maintenance and extends the lifespan of both the platform itself and all equipment installed. This would result in less expensive energy the company claims.

The company claims that its platform has an expected lifespan of 50 years while the turbines have a life expectancy of 25 years.

“If its application succeeds, along with the funding for it through the EU cap & trade scheme (via Ner300), the plant could start operations in June 2014,” Susan notes. Adding this on to Malta’s existing 1-2% from renewable energy, the country would meet its 2020 target several years early despite a late start.

It’s also projected that this project would create electricity at a more competitive rate than currently dominant oil-based power generation on Malta.

Sources: Green Prophet & Malta Today

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/15Mrf)

The third annual list of the world’s most innovative technology companies has been released and LanzaTech is proudly flying the Kiwi flag on there.

Another company on the list with a Kiwi connection is California-based Alta Devices, pursuing a new horizon in solar energy with New Zealand scientist Brendan Kayes leading the charge.

Technology Review today announced the 2012 TR50 as chosen by the MIT-owned magazine’s editors, who look for public and private companies that over the last year have demonstrated original and valuable technology, are bringing technology to market at a significant scale, and are clearly influencing their competitors.

Spanning energy, transportation, computing, web and digital media, materials, and biomedicine, the 50 companies are “setting the agenda in their markets and prompting other companies to follow them”, as editor-in-chief Jason Pontin puts it.

LanzaTech is hard at work turning carbon monoxide emissions into fuel while Alta Devices is focusing on commercialising solar cells.

As a group, the TR50 companies represent the magazine’s best judgment of the commercial innovations most likely to change lives around the world.

A fair share of heavyweights also feature, including Apple, Samsung, Google, IBM, Dreamworks, Shell, General Electric and Alcatel-Lucent.

Several newcomers to the web and digital media category are private companies with big ideas. For example, Dropbox has made its mark in the previously sleepy world of online storage and Spotify’s digital music subscription service has succeeded where others have failed.

In the social space, Facebook, Twitter and Zynga also made this year’s top 50.

Eighteen of the companies on the 2011 TR50 returned this year (seven are making their third appearance).

Sometimes companies fall off the list because of a decline in the prospects of an entire sector, the magazine says – despite being strongly represented in 2010 and 2011, advanced-biofuels companies are absent as the sector has generally failed to scale up production to a level that can begin to make serious inroads into the use of conventional oil.

“In other cases, individual companies lose the vision that made them worthy of the TR50. One such example is Netflix, which we selected last year for piggybacking a video-on-demand service onto its existing DVD-by-mail subscriptions. Netflix had already disrupted the business model of brick-and-mortar video rental stores and cleverly maneuvered to prevent itself from being disrupted in turn by streaming video technology.

“But later in 2011, the company tried to split the streaming side of its operations from its DVD service, an ill-fated decision that provoked public ridicule and the loss of hundreds of thousands of subscribers before the company reversed course. Suddenly, Netflix wasn’t able to clearly dictate its own agenda, let alone that of the entertainment industry.”

Inside the doors of the new Ford Escape, oil-based materials have been replaced with those made from a common plant found in southern Asia.

Ford is using the kenaf plant to create the interior bolster on each door of the Escape, a move that’s expected to offset 300,000 pounds of oil-based resin annually. The material also means a slight decrease in vehicle weight, as the bolsters will be 25 percent lighter, though of course they make up a small percentage of the vehicle’s overall weight.

Kenaf is most commonly used to create paper, though traditionally it has also been cultivated for its fibres, which are used to make everything from rope to cloth. The kenaf inside the Escape will be mixed 50/50 with polypropylene, a commonly used thermoplastic polymer.

The Escape has become something of a test bed for new, more sustainable materials. Last year Ford announced that the truck would seeinterior mats made from recycled plastic bottles.

Now, imagine if the guy who designed them had decided to devote his energies to creating a tool to help reduce your energy consumption? That’d be pretty great, huh?

Well, that’s just what’s happened.

Tony Fadell led the teams that created the first 18 generations of the iPod, from the original chunky model right through to the sleek iPod Nano. He also led the design of the first three generations of the iPhone (you know, the ones that didn’t shatter if you dropped them). Sir Jony Ive may get all the attention, but to those in the know, Tony Fadell is a big part of the reason for Apple’s stellar success in recent years.

So, when it emerged last year that he was working on a thermostat, folks were a little surprised. How sexy is a thermostat, really? How much potential is there for design innovation?

Turns out, a whole lot — and the resulting product should be of interest to planet-savers as well as gadget nerds. Because Nest – the company’s new ‘learning thermostat’ — has the potential to seriously reduce household energy use.

As you might expect, given Fadell’s heritage, the Nest is a lot better-looking than the average thermostat. And it’s easy to use — you just turn the dial left and right to set your desired temperature. But it’s what’s going on inside that’s interesting. The Nest contains some fairly smart silicon, and that enables it to ‘learn’ your schedule and adjust the heating or cooling of your home around it.

It sounds easy: for the first few days, you turn the thermostat down a bit at night, up again in the morning, and down again when you leave the house, much like you probably do now. But after a week, Nest will start understanding when you do these things and start doing them automatically — for example, heating the house in time for your usual waking-up time, or turning off when you’re at work.

How the Nest Learning Thermostat learns

This might sound more like a labour-saving device — preventing you having to adjust your thermostat manually — than an energy-saving one. But Nest point out that an awful lot of people don’t adjust their thermostats regularly enough and, subsequently, a lot of energy is wasted heating or cooling empty homes. The EPA say that a properly programmed thermostat can cut 20% off your heating and cooling bill. But, apparently, 90% of programmable thermostats are never programmed, and many of those using manual thermostats rarely remember to adjust them.

And if you do go out at an unusual time and forget to turn it down, you can access and control Nest from a smartphone application or over the web.

Nest certainly sounds like it has the potential to seriously improve energy efficiency in homes — but we’ll reserve judgment until people start using it. The company says its initial run of thermostats is sold out, but is yet to ship. If you’ve got $249 to spare — which the company says you’ll make back in savings in less than two years — you can reserve one here.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/15cAo)

What do you get when you cross a Nissan Leaf with a small commercial van? Well, you get more or less the bastard child of the NV200 and the Leaf, unimaginatively named the “eNV200,” on display at Detroit this week. Questions of naming aside, it actually ended up looking pretty neat.

Nissan’s decision to convert the commercial van to electric isn’t entirely without precedent; a number of commercial electric vehicles have hit the streets all over the world, and it was really only a matter of time. The eNV200 is, however, the cutest of the lot, and if you’ve read anything else I’ve ever written, you know that I place a high value on cute.

It Works Pretty Well, Too

Aside from the aesthetics, the 80kW AC synchronous motor and its 207 lb-ft (280 N-m/rpm) of torque should make the van perfectly drivable, and the 24kWh battery pack composed of 48 compact modules is supposed to give it a range comparable to that of the Leaf (although the van is larger and heavier, so I’m not sure how well that will work).  Of course, the lack of emissions is also a plus.

Like the Leaf, the van will charge from the front end, and it’s got Leaf-y headlights to complete its outside look. The interior is fitted with EV-specific gauges (hey, knowing how much range you’ve got left is super important) and other advanced telematics. The center display has a touch-screen input that’s supposed to work like a tablet.

Testing Phase, Starting Now

The e-NV200 isn’t slated for mass production yet, but Nissan does believe it would reduce operating costs when compared to combustion engine vehicles – less maintenance, lower fuel costs, and so on. According to Automobile Mag, Nissan’s already started testing the concept by sending prototypes to the Japan Post and FedEx’s London operations.

Hideto Murakami, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.’s corporate vice president did not mention cuteness inNissan’s press release; instead, he had this to say:

“With its ‘no gas, no tailpipe, no emissions’ powertrain, the Nissan e-NV200 Concept combines a quiet, comfortable driving experience with a large, highly versatile, functional interior space within a compact overall body length. A potential game changing vehicle in its segment, the battery capacity will support a driving range similar to the Nissan LEAF, while payload and cargo space will offer the same level as the current NV200. The production version would be targeted mainly at businesses, but also at private users or families in major regions.

“A vehicle like the Nissan e-NV200 Concept would energize the current compact van market in more ways than one – helping improve the quality of urban life and providing a smart financial investment for large and small businesses alike.”

Like it? More information is available at www.eNV200.com – or chime in in the comments below.