Did you know that you can now tailor your own lamp shade and light online? 

 

Using 3D printing techniques, it will be made using recyclable material and delivered to your door within two weeks. 

 

With a few clicks you can have your own bespoke LED table lamp made from 24 recycled CDs. 

 

This new service has been launched across Europe following a successful pilot project in Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. 

Here’s a clever idea… Siemens has introduced a virtual power plant (VPP). 

 

It’s a software solution that balances electrical loads from buildings connected in a ‘microgrid’ that has both renewable energy and energy storage. 

 

The new VPP service allows electrical loads of commercial buildings or industrial sites to be combined, helping to reduce the need for reserve power by balancing consumption. Building operators can then sell surplus energy back to the electricity market. Siemens believes this approach will increase the flexibility of the whole market. 

To make a difference to our use of the national power grid, we need to store the energy generated through the wind and sun until we need it. 

Many of us have WiFi routers in our home so we can access the internet from any room in the house. 

 

Using similar technology, soon it might be possible to light your home and run all of your appliances without wires. 

 

A wire coil can be used to generate a magnetic field. Bring another device with a coil tuned to the same frequency close and an electrical charge can be induced. It’s known as magnetic resonance technology.