www. echarger.co.uk - ( weekly blog updates on solar / renewable and the enviroment)

Government to slash subsidies for solar power

2011-03-19T12:33:00.001Z

The Government plans to slash subsidies for large-scale solar installations to divert money to smaller alternative energy projects, in a move that the industry has called a “horrendous strategic mistake”.

A review of the Feed-in Tariffs was announced in February, in response to concerns that large solar projects would soak up the available subsidy at the expense of other technologies. This followed a study that showed there could already be 169 megawatts of large-scale solar capacity in the planning system - equivalent to funding solar panels on the roofs of around 50,000 homes if tariffs were left unchanged.

Greg Barker, climate change minister, said: “I want to make sure that we capture the benefits of fast falling costs in solar technology to allow even more homes to benefit from Feed-in Tariffs, rather than see that money go in bumper profits to a small number of big investors.”

However, the Renewable Energy Association & Solar Trade Association said that the government was making a mistake. “There is disbelief within the industry that the Government has totally undermined the solar sector without having first properly understood its potential,” the trade body said.

The proposals, published on Friday, would reduce the tariff for roof-mounted schemes of more than 50 kilowatts by 39pc to 49pc and the tariff for stand-alone schemes may be reduced by more than 70pc.

Source - Telegraph

Blow to companies over solar power subsidies

2011-03-16T12:58:00.000Z

Solar companies have warned of "massive uncertainty" hanging over the market, after the Government said it would review subsidies for renewable electricity.

The subsidies, called feed-in tarrifs, were intended as a way to pay householders above market rates to generate electricity from solar panels and small wind turbines on their roofs. However, large-scale "photovoltaic farms" have been springing up all over the countryside to take advantage of the generous offer. It was revealed in The Telegraph that the Government was ready to act against "hot money and speculators" soaking up much of the £360m subsidies.

Announcing the review, Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, said: "Large-scale solar installations weren't anticipated under the scheme we inherited and I'm concerned this could mean that money meant for people who want to produce their own green electricity has the potential to be directed towards large-scale commercial solar projects."

However, companies are concerned that without government subsidies for large-scale farms, it will be difficult to move the industry beyond an early-stage technology into profitability.

Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said constraining the scheme "goes against the growth agenda".

"Non-domestic and community schemes have a vital role to play in the cost-effective and sensible development of the UK photovoltaic industry. Many investors stand to lose out. I fear this announcement reflects the generally poor levels of ambition for photovoltaic in the UK and will adversely affect our ability to attract much-needed future investment in other low-carbon technologies."

Source - Telegraph

Beverly Hills Goes Solar

2011-03-16T12:54:00.000Z

The solar dedication and ribbon-cutting event for the new solar installations serving the city of Beverly Hills was on held March 1 at Room 280A of the City Hall at 455 Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills.

Multiple public buildings in the City of Beverly Hills Civic Center Complex will soon be generating clean power via a solar system thanks to the expertise of installer Sun Light and Power. Particulate attention was given to analyzing the city's budget, energy loads and the newest programs offered by Southern California Edison in order to create the most savings from the available space.

The approximately 450 kW DC system design that was chosen is comprised of over 1,600 Suntech modules and will be mounted on three separate structures: the main library, police station and the Civic Center parking carport structure. The installation sites include retrofits for the library and police station arrays and a new steel structure for the Civic Center parking garage.

Beverly Hills chooses solar modules that will be recycled
Working with Sun Light and Power, the City of Beverly Hills chose Suntech modules for these buildings for good, green reasons. Suntech recently opened a manufacturing facility in Arizona, which provides for American jobs and significantly reduces the module transportation footprint.

Unlike some solar modules, Suntech modules are made without Cadmium. Perhaps even more significantly, Suntech is making a focused effort to insure that their modules do not become a toxic or hazardous waste burden at the end of their 25 + years productive life cycle.

Unlike some solar modules, Suntech modules do not contain any Cadmium. Rather than disposal into our overburdened landfills, Suntech has developed a Recycling Program with a 100% take back policy. At the end of the system's useful life Suntech will take back the modules at any of their U.S. warehouses.

Offsetting 453 metric tons of CO2 while reducing the Civic Center's operating costs
The system is expected to produce approximately 630,272 kWh of electricity every year. That is electricity the City will not have to buy, so those other funds can be used for other civic projects.

In addition it will offset approximately 453 metric tons of CO2 equal to the emissions of 87 cars or the electricity for 40 average homes.

Once completed this system will significantly reduce the City's Civic Center's operating costs and will be a visible example of civic fiscal and environmental responsibility. A Data Acquisition System will track and report production.

A monitor will be mounted in the library or in city hall to show what the system is producing at the moment, daily, weekly, yearly, and over its lifetime. The monitor will become a valuable educational tool for interested citizens.

Source - Solar Daily

Solar Powered Lights Selected For Popular City Bike Path

2011-03-16T12:50:00.000Z

Carmanah Technologies is pleased to announce that the City of Los Angeles has selected Carmanah EverGEN 1710 solar powered lights to light a popular bicycle path. The EverGEN 1710 was selected because of the customizable operating profiles the systems offers which allow the City to more closely deliver light on the path when people are actually using it.

The total project is valued at approximately $500,000 (USD).

The bike path was previously lit using traditional grid-powered AC HID fixtures. However due to a reoccurring issue of copper theft, the trail was often left in the dark. Officials at the City of Los Angeles were concerned with providing lighting for security and usability purposes, but did not want to continually have to replace stolen copper wire.

Working together with local lighting agent, David Silverman and Associates and Carmanah, The City discovered that solar powered lights were the ideal solution.

According to Kerney Marine, Los Angeles City Project Manager, "The Carmanah EverGEN lights offered us exactly what we needed. The systems put out light levels that meet the IES specified lighting requirements, and the integrated design with all the electronics, batteries, solar panels, and luminaire at the top of the pole makes the systems very theft resistant. We will be using a variety of different operating profiles along the entire stretch of the bike path to deliver the required light where and when needed, so people can continue to enjoy the space safely."

Ted Lattimore, CEO of Carmanah stated, "The City of Los Angeles is a leader in the deployment of energy efficient lighting technologies. They previously have demonstrated their commitment and leadership to energy efficiency by using hardwired LED lights from such companies as BETA Led. With the installation of the EverGEN 1710 systems along the bike path, they are expanding their "lead-by-example" behaviour into the solar lighting realm."

Source - Solar Daily

Auckland to trial solar power

2011-03-16T12:47:00.000Z

Auckland is looking to put in place the country's largest solar power incentive scheme to move the city away from dependence on the Huntly thermal power station.

The Auckland Council's Environment and Sustainability Forum looks set, this week, to approve a pilot scheme which will see the installation of 250 solar hot water heating systems in homes across the city, fitted with systems which will monitor usage.

As part of the pilot, there would be review of compliance, financing and best practice of installation of solar power in the city.

Any incentive scheme would be dependant on the outcome of the pilot.

Mayor Len Brown requested the investigation of opportunities for solar energy provision as part of his 100 projects in his first 100 days in office.

The project fits in with the Economic Development Ministry's updated 2010 Energy Outlook which projects that 83 percent of New Zealand's electricity generation will be from renewable sources by 2030.

According to an agenda for the forum, in the past decade there have only been 275 solar hot water systems installed on average per year in Auckland - less than 10 percent of the number of systems installed annually in New Zealand.

The pilot scheme follows the success of a similar project in Nelson which saw an increased investment in solar power businesses.

The Nelson scheme saw the households involved make an average saving of 75 percent saving on hot water bills and an average of $500 of annual electricity savings.

Source - Auckland News

Solar Power Systems Could Lighten The Load For British Soldiers

2011-03-16T12:46:00.000Z

A revolutionary type of personal power pack now in development could help our troops when they are engaged on the battlefield. With the aim of being up to fifty per cent lighter than conventional chemical battery packs used by British infantry, the solar and thermoelectric-powered system could make an important contribution to future military operations.

The project is being developed by the University of Glasgow with Loughborough, Strathclyde, Leeds, Reading and Brunel Universities, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It is also supported by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).

The system's innovative combination of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells*, thermoelectric devices** and leading-edge energy storage technology will provide a reliable power supply round-the-clock, just like a normal battery pack. The team is also investigating ways of managing, storing and utilising heat produced by the system.

Because it is much lighter, the system will improve soldiers' mobility. Moreover, by eliminating the need to return to base regularly to recharge batteries, it will increase the potential range and duration of infantry operations. It will also absorb energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, making infantry less liable to detection by night vision equipment that uses infra-red technology, for instance.

Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts said: "The armed forces often need to carry around a huge amount of kit and the means to power it. It's great that specialists from a range of science disciplines are coming together to develop lighter, more reliable technology that will help to make life easier for them in the field."

Although substantial research into solar power for soldiers has already been conducted worldwide, this new UK project differs in its use of thermoelectric devices to complement solar cells, delivering genuine 24/7 power generation capability. The project team is also investigating how both types of device could actually be woven into soldiers' battle dress, which has never been done before***.

During the day, the solar cells will produce electricity to power equipment. During the night, the thermoelectric devices will take over and perform the same function. The system will also incorporate advanced energy storage devices to ensure electricity is always available on a continuous basis.

"Infantry need electricity for weapons, radios, global positioning systems and many other vital pieces of equipment," says Professor Duncan Gregory of the University of Glasgow. "Batteries can account for over ten per cent of the 45-70kg of equipment that infantry currently carry. By aiding efficiency and comfort, the new system could play a valuable role in ensuring the effectiveness of army operations."

PV cells, thermoelectric devices and advanced energy storage devices are already widely used in a range of applications. A key aim of the project team, however, is to produce robust, hard-wearing designs specifically for military use in tough, hostile conditions.

Because it will harness clean, free energy sources, the new power system will also offer significant environmental advantages compared with the conventional battery packs currently used by the British army.

To tackle the many challenges that the project presents, the team includes specialists from a wide range of disciplines including chemistry, materials science, process engineering, electrical engineering and design. Feedback from serving soldiers will also play a crucial role in optimising the power system for front-line use.

"We aim to produce a prototype system within two years," says Professor Gregory. "We also anticipate that the technology that we develop could be adapted for other and very varied uses. One possibility is in niche space applications for powering satellites, another could be to provide means to transport medicines or supplies at cool temperatures in disaster areas or to supply fresh food in difficult economic or climatic conditions".

Source - Solardaily

Large Scale Solar Farm Given the Go Ahead in Cornwall

2011-01-10T14:32:00.001Z

It now appears that a large-scale solar farm has been granted planning permission by the Cornwall Council. This is a farm that will actually benefit from the government’s current feed in tariff. This tariff is one of the main reasons why so many companies are now looking into setting up such large scale “farms.”

Solar photovoltaic panels will be installed on land owned by the Lanhydrock Estate Company. All of the electricity generated by this renewable energy will be supplied to Restormel Water Treatment Works, which is owned by South West Water.

Julian German, the Cornwall Councillor, said that planning permission was granted because of the carbon reduction opportunity that it offered to the water treatment site. This new plan could help South West Water reduce its carbon footprint and enhance its energy security by consuming its total power output from the solar farm.

Of course, there are a number of community projects by renewable energy developer Cornwall Power that are also required as part of this planning permission. The council has also recently approved a ten-acre solar farm to be built near Bodmin, north Cornwall. It will generate up to 1.8 MW of energy, and construction will be finished by April of this year.

The more of these kinds of renewable energy projects that get started up, the better. In order for the UK to reach the carbon emissions goals that it has set for itself, it will need more companies taking an active role in reducing their CO2 output. The government will need consumers to play an active role in trying to reduce their carbon footprint as well.

Source - Electric News

Australian students smash solar vehicle speed record

2011-01-10T14:28:00.001Z

The top speed world record for a solar-powered vehicle has stood for a 22 years. But last week it was smashed by a group of students from the University of New South Wales.

The solar car they developed, called Subswift IVy, managed to reach speeds of 88km/h, that’s over 9km/h faster than the previous Guinness World Record set at 78.3km/h by the GM Sunyraycer. IVy uses silicon solar cells and usually charges a 25kg battery for power. As this was a top-speed record attempt, though, the battery was removed and the car was pushed as fast as it could go at the HMAS Albatross navy base airstrip.

In total some 40 students were involved in the creation of IVy. The final design is capable of producing 1,200 watts of power and has been known to travel as fast as 103km/h. But for the world record attempt 88km/h was enough, and it was done at 10:32am–long before the sun is at it’s highest around midday.

Project manager Daniel Friedman commented:

We were expecting to get our peak sun at noon, so the fact we broke the record so early was a great result. We hope the news will spur a lot more interest in solar energy and the debate about renewable energy technology.

Matthew’s Opinion

Although these solar-only vehicles are specially designed to be super-light and super-efficient, that doesn’t mean the technology cannot be applied to standard road cars.

Producing 1,200 watts of power could go a long way towards powering the devices we are all used to in our cars. Of course it depends on the weather where you live, but coating the roof of your car with solar panels could have an impact on your fuel use ultimately saving you money.

While to focus for road vehicles at the moment seems to be hybrid and electric vehicles, as solar panel become more efficient they will turn into viable power or recharge options for the batteries all cars will eventually carry.

Source - Geek

U.K. Solar Installations Hit Record on New Incentives

2011-01-10T14:22:00.000Z

The U.K., which had its 12th coldest year on record in 2010, installed more solar power than in any other year, data from the energy regulator Ofgem show.

Solar panels with the capacity to generate more than 42 megawatts of electricity were registered to receive above-market power prices last year, according to data e-mailed from the regulator Ofgem. The facilities were spurred by a government program starting in April that offered as much as 12 times the market rate for power from renewable sources.

The installations covered more than 16,000 homes and commercial properties. The new rules included in a “feed-in tariff” are aimed at expanding the clean energy industry and led to a 10-fold expansion in U.K. solar power.

“The feed-in tariffs sparked investment in an economic downturn,” Andrew Lee, head of Sharp Corp., the Osaka-based electronics maker’s U.K. solar unit, said in a telephone interview. “They’ve been a birth for the solar industry, and we’ve responded by creating jobs.”

A total of 4 megawatts of solar power facilities were installed in the U.K. in 2009 and 4.4 megawatts in 2008, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Sharp says it’s working to double production at its solar cell factory in Wales, the biggest in Britain, and Lee said the company has added about 300 new jobs at its expanded plant.

‘Game-Changer’

The impact on small-scale renewables has been “tremendous,” Dave Sowden, chief executive officer at the Micropower Council, an industry group, said in an interview. “They’ve been a complete game-changer in the market. We’ve seen more than a threefold increase in the number of companies registered as installers. It started 2010 at about 600, and ended at over 2000.”

Larger companies from the German utility E.ON AG to Tesco Plc, the biggest U.K. supermarket are tapping the market, offering homeowners help to buy and install panels, and tap the tariffs, which apply only to small-scale installations of renewable energy.

The Ofgem figures, which are dated Jan. 5, also showed 10.8 megawatts of wind power and 4.3 megawatts of hydro-power were registered to benefit from the tariffs from their introduction in April through December.

The guaranteed prices were introduced by the Labour government, which in May lost a general election, ceding power to a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The new government, in an October review of spending across all departments, said it would maintain the tariffs for now.

Investor Certainty

The tariffs are guaranteed for 25 years and vary according to capacity and whether panels are fitted to old buildings or new ones. They’re as high as 41.3 pence per kilowatt-hour, about eight times the current day-ahead U.K. power price, and 12 times the power price on April 1, when the system began.

The tariffs are “positive for investors in renewable technologies because it gives much more certainty on the price they can achieve,” Steve Jennings, who leads the utilities consulting practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, said in a telephone interview. “Investment decisions need certainty in order for developers to invest in these installations.”

The U.K. Met Office said yesterday that U.K. temperatures averaged 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) in 2010, making it the 12th-coldest year in a series dating back a century. Solar panels can still generate power in cold temperatures and overcast conditions.

Germany Leads

The U.K. registered 42.5 megawatts of solar power since April, including about 9.3 megawatts of panels installed before 2010 that were allowed to participate in the new subsidies. The 33 megawatts of new installations mark an annual record for Britain, more than doubling the total installed solar power base from 32 megawatts at the end of 2009.

Still, that’s a fraction of activity in world leader Germany, where BSW Solar, the German Solar Industry Association, estimates 2010 installations will range from 7 gigawatts to 8 gigawatts. A gigawatt is a thousand megawatts.

In the U.K. spending review, the government said changes to the tariffs will be studied in 2012, while announcing a 40 million-pound cut in funding for the 2014 to 2015 tax year. The energy department says it may review the tariffs earlier if installations exceed forecasts.

“We’re concerned the government might curtail growth by putting a cap on installations next year,” Sharp’s Lee said. “We hope to work with them to maximize the job and industry growth potential for U.K. Plc.”

Source - Bloomberg

Pentagon Must ‘Buy American,’ Barring Chinese Solar Panels

2011-01-10T14:18:00.002Z

HONG KONG — The military appropriations law signed by President Obama on Friday contains a little-noticed “Buy American” provision for the Defense Department purchases of solar panels — a provision that is likely to dismay Chinese officials as President Hu Jintao prepares to visit the United States next week.
Related.

A solar installation at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The military is increasingly eager for alternative energy because fossil fuels are dangerous and expensive to transport in war zones.

Although there are many big issues to discuss, including concerns about North Korea, trade and economic matters are certain to be high on the agenda. And while both sides are aiming to keep the discussion positive — the United States is the world’s largest importer and China the largest exporter of goods — simmering resentments over trade in green-energy technologies could be a distraction.

China has emerged as the world’s dominant producer of solar panels in the last two years. It accounted for at least half the world’s production last year, and its market share is rising rapidly. The United States accounts for $1.6 billion of the world’s $29 billion market for solar panels; market analyses typically have not broken out military sales separately.

The perception that Beijing unfairly subsidizes the Chinese solar industry to the detriment of American companies and other foreign competitors has drawn concern in Congress. The issue of clean-energy subsidies is also at the heart of a trade investigation under way by the Obama administration, which plans to bring a case against China before the World Trade Organization.

The new Buy American provision, created mainly by House and Senate conferees during a flurry of activity at the end of the lame-duck session of Congress, prevents the Defense Department from buying Chinese-made solar panels.

The American military is a rapidly growing consumer of renewable energy products, because it is extremely expensive and frequently dangerous to ship large quantities of fuel into remote areas of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The solar panel provision is carefully written to help it comply with the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization, which would make it hard for China to ask a W.T.O. tribunal to overturn the provision, trade lawyers said.

Chinese leaders have strongly criticized such provisions in the past, particularly one in President Obama’s economic stimulus package in early 2009 that applied to government procurement of steel and construction materials.

But China required in the late spring of 2009 that virtually all of its $600 billion economic stimulus be spent within China, not just for construction materials.

Chinese officials in Beijing and Washington did not respond on Saturday or Sunday to requests for comment on the solar panel provision.

While the United States and Europe have focused on subsidizing buyers of solar panels, China has emphasized subsidies for solar panel manufacturers. It then exports virtually all of its panels to the United States and Europe, often helped by the American and European consumer subsidies.

The solar panel provision in the defense appropriations law comes as President Obama has ordered a broad investigation into whether Chinese export subsidies, local content requirements and other rules have violated W.T.O. rules. As a result of the investigation, the United States started a W.T.O. case on Dec. 22 against what it said were Chinese wind turbine manufacturing subsidies.

American trade officials said then that they were still examining other Chinese clean-energy subsidy policies to decide whether to file additional W.T.O. cases.

The solar panel provision was part of the initial defense appropriations bill passed by the House. The House version had a simple requirement that the Defense Department buy solar panels made in the United States.

The Senate, which has been more leery of interfering with free trade, had no comparable provision, however, and many people in the solar panel industry did not expect the final law to have such a provision.

But the conference of House and Senate leaders ended up retaining the House provision and modifying it, by adding legal language to require that it also comply with previous American trade legislation.

Representative Maurice Hinchey, Democrat of New York, said he had fought for the provision to be included in the bill.

“We’ve had a lot of money taken out of this country and invested in other places around the world, particularly China, and particularly in alternative energies,” he said in an interview by phone. “For them to be producing alternative energy, that’s great, but we need to do it ourselves, and as much of it as possible.”

Mr. Hinchey said he did not think the provision would jeopardize relations with the Chinese ahead of Mr. Hu’s visit. “We have provided them with a lot of economic growth there,” he said. “A lot of money has gone out of this country and into China, and a lot of manufacturing operations, particularly alternative energy, has also gone into China.”

Mr. Hinchey had praised the Obama administration in November for starting a broad investigation into Chinese subsidies for solar and wind energy exports, saying then that these subsidies had put a company in his district, Prism Solar Technologies of Highland, N.Y., at a competitive disadvantage.

Two prominent trade lawyers said in e-mails over the weekend that the law’s language meant that in practice, the Defense Department must buy solar panels from any country that signs the W.T.O.’s side agreement on government procurement. Earlier American trade laws require compliance with that agreement.

Virtually all industrialized countries have signed the side agreement, which requires free trade in government purchases. China vowed to sign it as soon as possible when it joined the W.T.O. in November 2001, but still has not done so.

The two trade lawyers said that the United States was within its rights to discriminate against Chinese solar panels in military procurement.

“The W.T.O. Government Procurement Agreement allows signatory countries, including the United States in its Defense Department contracts, to favor goods from countries that have signed that agreement over countries that have not,” said Carolyn B. Gleason, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Washington who is one of the best-known litigators of W.T.O. cases.

Alan Wolff, a former senior American trade official who is now the chairman of the trade practice at the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf in Washington, said that it was hard to understand China’s resistance to signing the agreement. “There would be a clear benefit both for it and its trading partners,” he said.

Solar panels are technologically complex to manufacture, and are made almost entirely in industrialized countries that have signed the W.T.O. side agreement — or in China.

Inland Chinese provinces and cities have strongly lobbied Beijing not to sign the agreement because they want to retain the legal right to continue steering government contracts to local companies, said a trade policy adviser to the Chinese government who insisted on anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue.

The Buy American provision in the 2009 economic stimulus legislation also has a little-known clause allowing purchases from other countries that have signed the Government Procurement Agreement, and not just from American suppliers.

Ocean Yuan, the chief executive and president of Grape Solar, a company based in Eugene, Ore., that distributes mostly mainland Chinese solar panels but also American, Japanese and Taiwanese panels, said that imported panels typically cost 20 percent less than American-made panels.

Mr. Yuan predicted that the new legislation would have a big effect on the American solar panel market, by encouraging Chinese solar panel manufacturers to establish factories in the United States. “This policy will certainly have a negative impact on the imported solar panels from China, which have lower cost over all due to lower labor and overhead costs,” he said.

Grape Solar sold $500,000 worth of Chinese-made solar panels to the American military shortly before Christmas, Mr. Yuan said, adding that he expected future contracts to specify American-made panels.

The legislative provision was welcomed by SolarWorld, a German company that is one of the biggest manufacturers of solar panels in the United States and which has not followed the example of most manufacturers in moving production to China.

“As a long-standing and still-expanding American manufacturer of solar technology, SolarWorld is heartened that the U.S. government and military clearly grasp the critical role of domestically produced solar technology in the country’s national-security future,” said Bob Beisner, managing director of the company’s American subsidiary in Hillsboro, Ore., which is already installing American-made solar panels at United States military facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The defense appropriations bill has another provision related to China. It requires that the military conduct an immediate review of its needs for rare earth metals, which are mined elements increasingly crucial in sophisticated technologies. About 95 percent of the world’s supply comes from China.

The bill also requires the department to establish “an assured source of supply” for rare earth metals by 2015 and to consider setting up a stockpile.

Rare earths are essential for a wide range of military hardware, be it missiles or sonar. The Defense Department has been studying its contractors’ reliance on Chinese supplies for more than a year. A draft report shared with Congressional aides last fall had a preliminary conclusion that rare earths were very important but suggested that the department’s contractors continue to be allowed to buy them from any source.

Source - New York Times

Masdar plans wind turbine project, new solar plant

2011-01-10T14:16:00.001Z

Masdar, the Abu Dhabi government-backed renewable energy company, plans this year to start building a 20-to-30-megawatt wind turbine facility.

“We are evaluating bids from international companies who want to help us build the plant,” Frank Wouters, director of Masdar Power, said at an industry briefing in Abu Dhabi today.

Wind speeds in the UAE are “moderate but still sufficient” for such turbines, he said.

Abu Dhabi, which holds almost all of the UAE’s oil reserves, is expanding its use of solar and wind power in a effort to become a regional hub for renewable energy. The emirate is building Masdar City, a business and residential complex designed to emit minimal carbon emissions, and serves as headquarters for the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Masdar also plans to build a 100MW photovoltaic plant called Noor and wants to award construction contracts for the venture by the end of the year, Wouters said. Photovoltaic plants use solar panels, which convert sunlight directly to electricity. Masdar already operates a 10MW facility of this type in Abu Dhabi.

Wouters said in October that Masdar’s Shams 1 solar plant, a $600m, 100-MW concentrated solar thermal plant to be completed in 2012, will receive less energy than planned because dust particles in the area will block sunlight. Concentrated solar plants reflect sunlight, usually with mirrors, to heat liquids and create steam to turn turbines and generate power.

The Noor plant will cost less than Shams 1 because of improving efficiency and “the normal learning curve for the industry,” Wouters said.

Shams 1 is a venture between Masdar, Abengoa SA and Total SA.

Source - Arabian Business

Is The Hornet Our Key To Renewable Energy

2011-01-10T14:11:00.000Z

As every middle-school child knows, in the process of photosynthesis, plants take the sun's energy and convert it to electrical energy. Now a Tel Aviv University team has demonstrated how a member of the animal kingdom, the Oriental hornet, takes the sun's energy and converts it into electric power - in the brown and yellow parts of its body - as well.

"The interesting thing here is that a living biological creature does a thing like that," says physicist Prof. David Bergman of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy, who was part of the team that made discovery. "The hornet may have discovered things we do not yet know."

In partnership with the late Prof. Jacob Ishay of the university's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Bergman and his doctoral candidate Marian Plotkin engaged in a truly interdisciplinary research project to explain the biological processes that turn a hornet's abdomen into solar cells.

The research team made the discovery several years ago, and recently tried to mimic it. The results show that the hornet's body shell, or exoskeleton, is able to harvest solar energy. They were recently published in the German journal Naturwissenschaften.

Discovering a new system for renewable energy?
Previously, entomologists noted that Oriental wasps, unlike other wasps and bees, are active in the afternoon rather than the morning when the sun is just rising. They also noticed that the hornet digs more intensely as the sun's intensity increases.

Taking this information to the lab, the Tel Aviv University team studied weather conditions like temperature, humidity and solar radiation to determine if and how these factors also affected the hornet's behavior, but found that UVB radiation alone dictated the change.

In the course of their research, the Tel Aviv University team also found that the yellow and brown stripes on the hornet abdomen enable a photo-voltaic effect: the brown and yellow stripes on the hornet abdomen can absorb solar radiation, and the yellow pigment transforms that into electric power.

The team determined that the brown shell of the hornet was made from grooves that split light into diverging beams. The yellow stripe on the abdomen is made from pinhole depressions, and contains a pigment called xanthopterin. Together, the light diverging grooves, pinhole depressions and xanthopterin change light into electrical energy. The shell traps the light and the pigment does the conversion.

A biological heat pump
The researchers also found a number of energy processes unique to the insect. Like air conditioners and refrigerators, the hornet has a well-developed heat pump system in its body which keeps it cooler than the outside temperature while it forages in the sun. This is something that's not easy to do, says Prof. Bergman.

To see if the solar collecting prowess of the hornet could be duplicated, the team imitated the structure of the hornet's body but had poor results in achieving the same high efficiency rates of energy collection. In the future, they plan to refine the model to see if this "bio-mimicry" can give clues to novel renewable energy solutions.

The research team also discovered that hornets use finely honed acoustic signals to guide them so they can build their combs with extraordinary precision in total darkness. Bees can at least see what they are doing, explains Prof. Bergman, but hornets cannot - it's totally dark inside a hornet nest.

Source - Solar Daily

happy new year to all

2011-01-10T14:10:00.000Z

happy new year for 2011 save the planet

2010-12-31T21:51:00.001Z

To all our members, the green lovers out there, happy new year for 2011 save the planet!

Spain helps out neighbour France in green power surge

2010-12-31T10:19:00.000Z

Spain has bolstered its credentials as a world leader in renewable energy by exporting electricity to France for the first time. Heavy rain and strong winds during 2010 meant that renewables - principally hydro, wind and solar power - met 35% of Spanish demand.

Wind power rose by 18.5% in 2010 and now meets 16% of demand. Luis Atienza, managing director of Spain's electricity grid, predicted that "within three years wind power will overtake nuclear as an electricity source". At its peak, on November 9, wind power met 43% of demand.

Heavy rains saw hydro-electrical production rise by 59% on 2009. Solar power, meanwhile, lags behind at only 3%, although some of the big solar plants have yet to come on stream.

Oil and gas continue to generate about half of Spain's capacity, while nuclear power accounts for around 19%.

Javier Garcîa Breva, director of the solar energy programme, said that "even five years ago no one would have believed these figures were possible. No one expected renewables to grow so fast. They have unlimited potential."

Spain continues to import electricity from France but only as a staging post en route to Morocco, Portugal and Andorra. "France has not increased its capacity and so its ability to export has decreased," Atienza said. "This has fallen further due to industrial strife." During recent strikes dozens of French power stations were forced to close and Spanish production had to be imported to meet the shortfall.

This greening of the Spanish grid has not benefited the consumer, with prices likely to rise by 9% in 2011. The government sets electricity prices which have no direct correlation with production costs.

Source - Guardian

Energy hungry China embrace solar heating panels

2010-12-31T10:14:00.001Z

At least 30 million Chinese households now have one and last year the country accounted for around 80 percent of the world market, said Eric Martinot, visiting scholar at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. “We are at 15 to 20 percent annual growth and I don’t see that slowing down.”

Huang says his Dezhou-based firm, China Himin Solar Energy Group, is the largest in a fragmented and almost entirely Chinese market, with a share of around 14 percent.

And the mayor is using his heating success as the basis for a bid to follow British University town Oxford and Australia’s Adelaide as host of an international solar congress.

Cheap and effective enough to make economic sense to middle-class urbanites, Huang’s basic models start at around 1,500 yuan ($190), although for a luxury home this could rise to 18,000 yuan ($2,250).

With technology so efficient they can work at temperatures well below freezing and under cloudy or smog-choked skies, they soon pay for themselves, he says.

“Even in winter when the temperature is minus 20, and with this kind of pollution, they can produce hot water,” Huang says, gesturing to the city’s grey skies.

Demand from house-buyers is forcing many builders to include the heaters in new blocks, and a government pledge that all buildings in major cities will be revamped to make them more energy efficient by 2020 should mean further customers.

Wind power generation, or more familiar solar panels used to generate electricity, are expensive and usually need government subsidies to take off. The heaters have spread far faster.

HEAT IN COLDEST WEATHER

All have the same basic design, a row of sunlight-capturing glass pipes angled below an insulated water tank.

The key to the demand boom, even in the freezing northeast and chilly western deserts, is the vacuum separating the inner tube with its energy-trapping coating from an outer tube.

Sunlight travels freely through the glass tubes but the heat it generates is trapped inside the central one where it can be transmitted to water.

“The vacuum prevents molecules carrying heat away, as there is no direct contact between inner and outer tube,” Huang said.

The heaters are also easier to produce than better known electricity-generating panels. Himin’s workers making these wear white overalls and hair caps, in rooms sealed to visitors. But downstairs, water-heaters roll off a production line in open warehouses filled with the clanging of giant metal presses, the roar of painting machines and open flame of glass-handlers.

The relatively low-tech factory floor helps keep costs down to around $120 to $150 per square metre, well below the $700 to $800 charged for similar heaters in Europe.

The simplicity of the model has also encouraged a lot of small start-ups — some, though, of dubious quality.

“It’s a very fragmented industry, although they employ about 250,000 people, which is about an eighth of the total in all of China’s green energy industry,” said Martinot.

“We might start to see centralisation into a few bigger players,” he added, with stronger firms helping build up exports, which are currently negligible.

FROM OIL TO SOLAR

Himin will almost certainly be one of the new powerhouses. Huang says revenues will expand 80 to 100 percent this year, although he declined to give figures in yuan.

The trim 48-year-old, who is so committed to efficiency that an office rule bans workers from using the elevator to travel less than three floors, is also considering a listing on the Hong Kong stock market.

As a delegate to China’s parliament, he helped draft a new green energy law that found favour in Beijing as official worries grow about reliance on imported oil and polluting coal.

Huang started on the other side of the energy industry, training as a petroleum engineer. But he took worries about “peak oil” — the time when global production will peak, followed by a decline — seriously enough to nurture a second career.

One of my professors told me that petroleum resources would only be valid for 50 years, so I thought maybe this is a sunset field,” he said with a grin.

He got a job at a petroleum institute in Dezhou, but poured all his spare time and cash into researching solar technology, even after selling a patent for oilfield equipment.

He worked as designer, engineer, porter, plumber and salesman, and to the concern of his ever-poorer wife, gave his first heaters away as gifts to family and colleagues.

The first big break came when a factory manager at a family wedding ordered heaters for all his workers, forcing Huang to build the factory he’s been using ever since.

Source - Energy News

The green energy revolution begins

2010-12-31T10:12:00.001Z

Welcome to the low carbon economy – Climate and Energy secretary Chris Huhne says the new green energy plans will allow the UK to cut emissions and lead a pioneering shift towards a viable clean energy infrastructure. Low carbon technologies such as large-scale wind turbines, solar panels and heat pumps will be the dominant form of energy generation by 2030 under plans for the biggest shake up of the UK energy sector since privatisation in the 1980’s.

Mr Huhne says that more than £110bn of investment is needed in new power stations and grid upgrades over the next10 years, that’s double the investment over the last decade. Around a quarter of the UK’s generating capacity needs to be renewed by 2020, and that’s equivalent to 20 conventional power stations.

The biggest changes are a ‘minimum’ price for carbon and long term contracts that give investors a guaranteed price for green energy users, in addition to setting a carbon tax on fossil fuels. The government has not announced what the ‘minimum’ price is yet.

Once the reforms survive a two month consultation period, they will be implemented in a green energy bill by the end of 2011.

Mr Huhne adds: “We have a once in a generation chance to rebuild and restructure our electricity markets and power stations.

“Critics to the changes, argue that the cost of implementing the schemes will be passed on to consumers in the short term in the form of £500 rise in energy bills, but this is short term pain for long term gain, meaning by 2030, the price will be lower than it would be without any reform today with current energy market arrangements are highly unlikely to deliver the required investment in a low carbon future”, argues Mr Huhne.

Stuart Lovatt from Heat my Home, adds, “Living in the UK has significant advantages for installing domestic renewable such as solar panels to your home. Their is currently a feed in tariff scheme, when you install solar and heat pumps today. This 25 years government backed scheme operates tax free, is index linked and you will receive annual payments from your energy provider for the power your generate, whether you use it in your home or not. The Clean Energy Cash Back Scheme as it is known – is the result of the government’s plan for 30 percent of all energy to come from renewable sources by 2020.”

Source - Energy News

45 MW Solar PV Project Launched In Bulgaria

2010-12-31T10:10:00.001Z

The largest Solar PV project in Bulgaria and one of the largest in the EU was officially launched on December 13, 2010. The 45 MW project consisting of one 20 MW solar photovoltaic
installation and one 25 MW solar photovoltaic
installation in the villages of Samovodene and Zlataritsa is currently under construction with almost 5 MWs already completed.

The project was created by a partnership of California - based renewable energy company NEOptions, the Bulgarian Development Collaborative, and SDN Co., a South Korean producer of power generators, solar modules and marine propellers.

"Large scale renewable energy development projects - especially in new EU countries where there is no track record and experience in the construction and operation of such facilities is especially challenging, and it takes a great deal of work to put the right partnerships and structures together to ensure the success," said President of NEOptions, Angelina Galiteva.

NEOptions' contribution to the endeavor was a combination of in-depth knowledge of the proposed projects and strong working relationships built over time with the other partners.

NEOptions also participated in the preparation of the solicitation materials, project description and initial engineering in order to attract a viable investor for the 45 MW PV project.

After approximately three years of collaborating with SDN (previously known as Seoul Marine) and discussing project development for both the US and Bulgaria, NEOptions presented the Zlataritsa and Samovodene projects to SDN.

"We are pleased that the initial meeting between the Project parties in Seoul in 2009 and all the hard work involved in developing the project has resulted in a positive outcome for the 45 MW solar PV park in Bulgaria," Galiteva stated.

"SDN is an aggressive and thriving company and will certainly be a sizeable player in the solar PV market long term. We congratulate them on this successful launch," she added.

Mr. Borislav Sarandev lead the efforts of the Bulgarian Development Collaborative for the projects, which included site selection, land acquisition, and securing the myriad of necessary permits, licenses and interconnection documents needed to have a turn key project of this type.

"Professionalism and understanding of local policies, regulations and relationships is what guaranteed this development team's fast track permit approval and rapid start on construction of this solar park," said Galiteva.

"We are very fortunate to have a partner such as NEOptions on our side," stated Borislav Sarandev.

"Ms. Galiteva, who is a world renowned expert in the field of renewable energy, made certain that we had all the right parties from across the globe working together to reach the ultimate goal of building the projects. Without her participation this would have been almost impossible to achieve."

Mr. Gi Choi, CEO of SDN also praised the participants and expressed his appreciation for the opportunity to construct the 45 MW PV project.

NEOptions and their Bulgarian partners continue to develop projects in Bulgaria and the region. Ms. Galiteva and Mr. Sarandev are confident that the area will become a hot bed for renewable energy development and that as countries continue to introduce supportive legislation, this team will have a rich portfolio of projects for investment.

Helping fuel this optimism, Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov recently announced that the country's renewable energy legislation will be harmonized with EU laws, in order to attract major foreign investors.

Source - Solardaily

Southern Energy Management Installs 60 Residential Solar Water Heaters

2010-12-31T10:04:00.000Z

Seventy homes across South Carolina have been chosen to participate in a unique program that will bring solar energy to more families in the Palmetto State.

The project by Central Electric Power Cooperative, Inc. (CEPCI) will monitor the effectiveness of residential solar thermal water heating using a grant from the South Carolina Energy Office.

Southern Energy Management (SEM) was awarded a contract in September to install 60 of the systems out of its Greenville office. SEM partnered with VELUX, a leading global manufacturer of solar water heaters with its U.S. headquarters in Greenwood, to complete all 60 residential systems in 60 days.

"I was very thrilled when I found out we had been selected," Clover resident Ken Newell said. "In a tough economy, especially for people in the architecture and construction industry like I am, anything that can save money is a real godsend. I'm going to be very interested to see my power bill."

Solar water heating can provide about 75 percent of a typical family's hot water needs, and can eliminate the equivalent of 19,000 lbs of carbon emissions that would be created from heating that water through nonrenewable power sources.

More than 25 of the systems will be monitored for a year to track how much solar hot water is produced and how much electricity is saved as a result. The data will give CEPCI valuable information about potential savings for customers on a larger scale.

"We're looking forward to reviewing the data from the monitoring systems to see if solar power can play an even bigger role in meeting the expanding energy needs of our customers in the future," said Scott Hammond, Project Administrator Energy Programs for CEPCI.

The systems are being installed in homes served by four South Carolina cooperatives: York Electric Cooperative Inc., Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, Santee Electric Cooperative Inc. and Berkeley Electric Cooperative. Installation of the VELUX solar water heating systems began in late September and ended in November.

"Given that the average household spends 20-25% of their home energy costs on heating water, these systems will have a tangible positive impact on families. It's a win-win situation when you can help people save money on their energy bills, and spread the word about solar water heating at the same time," said Paul Johnson, Southeast District Sales Manager for VELUX.

"We're proud that this project is taking place in our home state of South Carolina."

SEM is well known as a leading solar integrator, having installed hundreds of residential and commercial-scale solar systems across the Southeast over the past decade. The company also has a team of building science experts who help builders, homeowners and businesses address energy efficiency, comfort and health issues.

"This is really an exciting project, and an important one for South Carolina," said SEM co-founder Bob Kingery.

"Over the past decade, we've been part of many milestone solar projects in North Carolina and other states, and it's always rewarding to see how pilot programs can lead to real change in the perception and adoption of renewable technologies. We're optimistic that the success of this project will give South Carolina the momentum it needs to propel solar into the mainstream."

Charleston, Florence, Georgetown and Rock Hill are just some of the cities where homeowners will benefit from the free solar systems.

Source - SolarDaily

U.K. solar plane record confirmed

2010-12-31T10:03:00.000Z

A British solar-powered aircraft has been confirmed as a record-breaker following its non-stop two-week endurance flight earlier this year, officials say.

The Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the world governing body for air records, has confirmed three records for the Zephyr aircraft, including longest time aloft, the BBC reported Friday.

Built by U.K. defense technology company Qinetiq, the Zephyr completed its two-week flight in the United States in July.

The FAI confirmed the Zephyr smashed the previous record for the absolute duration of an unmanned autonomous vehicle flight, set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk in 2001, by a factor of 11.

The organization confirmed the official duration at 336 hours, 22 minutes and eight seconds.

Qinetiq says it sees applications for Zephyr aircraft in surveillance and communications.

The military could use them as reconnaissance and communications platforms, the company said, while civilian and scientific programs can equip them with small payloads for Earth observation duties.

Source - Solardaily

In Greece's fallow fields, solar energy stirs

2010-12-10T09:19:00.000Z

The son and grandson of farmers, Spyros Papathanassiou spends most of the day overseeing his family olive press and winery in the outskirts of Asopia, a village northeast of Athens.

But his future is invested in a fenced-off contraption in the hills outside the village -- a 5,800-square-metre solar farm on which Papathanassiou sank nearly half a million euros (dollars) three years ago.

"Agricultural income has been severely restricted in recent years," says the 58-year-old former village mayor, shouting above the din of the olive press.

"Essentially, this job has never been very profitable."

Last year, this entrepreneur and civil servant completed the 450,000-euro (618,000-dollar) solar farm in a discarded family vineyard, some 90 kilometres (56 miles) from the capital.

Though barely enough to power the local water drill, it is already helping his family supplement their income by selling electricity to the national grid. Papathanassiou hopes to repay his bank loans and break even in 4-5 years.

With agriculture in Greece facing a bleak future from rising costs and falling produce prices, thousands of farmers now want to follow his example.

Some 6,000 applicants have so far rushed to join a government-backed, self-financed programme unveiled this summer to sow solar farms in the Greek countryside.

The programme offers both farmers and the state-owned electricity operator PPC, which controls most of the energy market, a way out of a looming impasse.

Accustomed to depend on European Union subsidies for their crops, Greek farmers have progressively driven themselves into a corner by growing produce that the bloc can get more cheaply elsewhere, such as cotton and tobacco.

The frequent sight of angry growers, dumping unwanted crops at ministries and blocking highways with their tractors is something the authorities would be glad to eliminate, particularly now, when the purse strings have tightened.

Greece is in the midst of a deep recession following the debt crisis that saw the country reach the brink of bankruptcy earlier this year.

Likewise, the PPC has for too long depended on its vast supplies of lignite, a form of brown coal, to fire up its power generators.

Lignite is a major pollutant, and the PPC -- nearly half of whose electricity production comes from coal-fired plants -- is Greece's single largest offender in carbon dioxide emissions.

So the investment in solar cells in Greece, a country that has abundant sunshine throughout the year, holds out promise both to the farmers and the power company.

For the PPC, it is a chance to expunge its dirty past while helping the country meet its renewable energy quota, set at 20 percent of national electricity production by the end of the decade.

The farmers meanwhile have a chance to boost their dwindling income with a steady source of funds that no longer requires back-breaking, round-the-clock labour.

"This is the last chance to have a serious investment in the Greek agricultural sector," says farmer's union activist Vassilis Kollias.

"Farm incomes have fallen by 40-50 percent in the last 15 years."

"Most full-time farmers are over 50 years old, many of them without someone to pass the torch to. They have nothing else to look out for."

Overall, the Greek environment ministry has said it will allow a capacity of 2.200 megawatts (MW) of solar energy-fueled power by 2020. Out of that threshold, farmers have been allotted a share of 750 megawatts.

Farmers have been told to aim for a maximum of 100 kilowatts of power from each solar farm, which means the state can grant them up to 7,500 production licences.

Not only does the interest from applicants far exceed this allowed capacity, but the farmers are having to contend with unforeseen difficulties.

One worrying sign is that the price of electricity, currently 40 cents per kilowatt hour in Greece, has fallen to 25 cents in neighbouring Spain where a similar programme is already up and running, says Kollias.

This can dampen enthusiasm at a time when the startup capital needed can be at least 25,000 euros, and as high as 80,000 euros, plus bank loans.

Another is that the PPC does not actually have power lines in all the rural areas that want to join the supply grid, he adds.

"It is a good idea, but it's been put together on the hoof," says Kollias.

Most of the interest has come from the western Greek region of Agrinio, where many growers are struggling after the withdrawal of EU subsidies for tobacco, which had been their staple crop.

"We have a lot of tobacco producers who have lost their income, so they are doubly interested," says Penelope Sidira, solar project supervisor at the Agrinio farmers' co-operative, which has received over 500 applications.

"Besides, there's little else left for them here," she notes.

Source - Solar Daily

Solar-Powered Recharging Stations For Electric Bicycles

2010-12-10T09:16:00.000Z

Kyocera, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Kyocera
Communication Systems, have announced the development of its new "Solar Cycle Station" - an environmentally friendly solar-powered recharging station for electric-assisted bicycles that uses the company's high performance solar modules. The system, which was codeveloped by the two companies, is sold in Japan by KCCS starting this month.

The stations utilize solar modules to generate clean energy for recharging the battery of electric bicycles, but are also connected to the regular power grid, via a DC-AC converter, ensuring stable service during cloudy weather and for recharging during the night. Furthermore, the stations are equipped with conventional outlets so that they can be used as a power source in the event of a power outage or emergency.

In recent years the popularity of electric bicycles has grown immensely due to a growing awareness of environmental issues which has led more and more people to seek ways to use alternative means of transportation, as well as the expanded use of electric bicycles at rental shops as fun and relaxing recreation in tourist areas. However, with the expanded use comes a growing need to construct more recharging stations. By using solar modules to generate the power for these bicycles Kyocera aims to provide an economical and ecological solution.

Kyocera is continually searching for new and interesting applications for solar energy, and has been providing solar modules for cars, boats, parking lot "Solar Grove" shading structures, as well as more conventional residential and large-scale solar power generation.

Source - Solardaily

Solar Boat Sails into Cancun Port During U.N. Climate Talks

2010-12-10T09:08:00.001Z

What better time than now — when delegates from around the world are gathering in Cancun for a second week of United Nations climate talks — to show the world what we can do with solar power?

So goes the thought of Germany’s Immo Stroeher, who today docked his solar-powered boat at the Caribbean vacation spot. The boat — dubbed PlanetSolar — is the largest solar-powered boat in the world. At over 60 feet long, it can sail the seas at an average speed of 7 or 8 knots — and has been doing so since last Fall when the ship set sail in Monaco for a voyage around the world. After a short stay in Mexico, PlanetSolar will head off to Cartegena, Colombia, and is expected to complete its 31,000 mile mission in the Spring of 2012. If the crew really puts the pedal to the metal, Turanor PlanetSolar can cruise as high as 15 knots.

PlantSolar was introduced earlier this year in Kiel, Germany, covered with over 5,780 photovoltaic (PV) solar panels. It’s capable of holding a 50-member crew, but they all have to be inside the boat as any potential lounging space on the deck is covered in solar cells.

Stroeher isn’t making the voyage just for fun. He wants his boat to serve as an example for other inventors. The message? You don’t have to choose between clean energy and innovation in transportation; you can have the proverbial pie and eat it too:

The aim is to offer future-proof solutions for sustainable living in major cities and environmentally responsible mobility concepts. Solar mobility can make a significant contribution to this endeavor.”

Docking alongside the U.N. meeting definitely gave leaders something to consider. But they shouldn’t need a giant boat to be placed in front them to realize the benefits of solar energy. Everywhere you look, new solar-powered inventions are popping up, from solar airplanes and pilotless drones, to solar cars and even solar surfboards (and don’t forget the home solar installations!).

Source - GetSolar

Farmers set to cash in on solar boom

2010-12-10T09:06:00.000Z

SOLAR energy could be the next major UK cash crop after a survey revealed eight out of ten farmers would consider installing solar photovoltaics on their roofs within the next three years.

The technology has become an enticing prospect for farmers attempting to guard against rising electricity prices and take advantage of Government incentives.

Farmers can earn up to £16,000 a year from solar energy and save over £1,800 in electricity bills, according to solar energy specialist Solarcentury, thanks to the Government’s green agenda which offers a feed-in tariff (FIT) of 31.4 pence per unit of solar electricity generated.

Even though capital costs can be as high as £200,000 for a medium-sized farm solar roof, Derry Newman, Solarcentury CEO, said the economic returns were becoming hard to resist for UK farmers hoping to get ‘a maximum return from their property’.

“Sustainable farming is at the core of a healthy future for the UK, and it’s great to see farmers recognising the opportunity they now have with solar,” he said.

Dr Jonathan Scurlock, NFU renewable energy advisor, agreed more farmers should follow in the footsteps of Michael Eavis, the host of Glastonbury Festival, who installed photovoltaics on his cow shed earlier this year.

“Agricultural and horticultural buildings present ideal platforms for solar PV, and small-to-medium sized roof-mounted systems are likely to be an attractive investment,” he said.

Solarcentury conducted the survey of 130 farmers with Farming Futures, a pan-industry body that tackles climate change.

Source - Farmersguardian

Many UK farmers 'keen on idea of solar PV technology

2010-12-10T09:05:00.001Z

Many UK farmers are keen on the idea of using solar photovoltaic technology in the years ahead, new survey results have suggested.

As many as 80 per cent of those queried as part of a poll from Farming Futures and Solarcentury would like their roofs to be fitted with these devices in the coming three-year period, the organisations have revealed.

Nevertheless, just 55.2 per cent of the farmers who responded to the study had a firm grasp of the full earnings they could make by signing up to the government's feed-in tariff scheme.

Farming Futures' Madeleine Lewis feels that, in recent months, a strong appetite for this kind of technology has been seen among farmers.

She stated: "It's great to see so many farmers recognising this opportunity to create an income and diversify - as well as contribute to developing a low carbon economy in the UK."

A sizeable solar power system was introduced to a building at the Glastonbury Festival farm site earlier in the winter.

Source - Taylorvinters

Iberdrola takes a shine to the U.S. solar power plant मार्केट

2010-12-10T08:59:00.001Z

Iberdrola Renewables, the Spanish green energy giant, has jumped into the United States solar power plant market, announcing a deal Thursday with Silicon Valley’s SunPower for a 20-megawatt photovoltaic farm to be built in Arizona.

Altogether, SunPower, based in San Jose, Calif., will construct 50 megawatts’ worth of solar power plants for Iberdrola, including a 30-megawatt project to be built in Colorado.

“We are excited to enter the U.S. solar business by building our first 50 megawatts with SunPower,” Martin Mugica, Iberdrola’s executive vice president, said in a statement Thursday.

The U.S. solar ambitions of Iberdrola, the world’s largest wind developer, had been something of a mystery.

In 2008, Iberdrola quietly acquired Pacific Solar Investments, a year-old Henderson, Nev., startup – and its lease claims on about 180,000 acres of federal land in Arizona, California and Nevada. Pacific Solar was among a score of companies – from Goldman Sachs to no-name speculators – filing claims on United States Bureau of Management Land during the great solar land rush of 2007-2008.

(BLM records show that Pacific Solar began filing solar lease claims while its founder, David Saul, was still serving as chief operating officer of Solel, an Israeli solar power plant builder subsequently acquired by Siemens for $418 million last year.)

Iberdrola still has lease claims on 165,600 acres of BLM land in Arizona, California and Nevada for both photovoltaic and solar thermal projects, according to federal filings.

The company has maintained radio silence about its plans, if any, for that desert real estate. But on Thursday, Iberdrola said it will own and operate the Copper Crossing solar farm to be built by SunPower, one of the U.S.’s largest solar module makers and developers, on 144 acres of agricultural land in Pinal County, Ariz. Iberdrola will the electricity to utility Salt River Project.

Source - Reuters

Can free radios put US on Afghan people's wavelength?

2010-11-12T09:13:00.001Z

A US-funded radio station is trying to win the Taliban propaganda war by distributing thousands of free, solar-powered radios in remote parts of Afghanistan.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary joined the military as they handed out the hand-cranked receivers, and found them a hit with Afghans - but can they persuade the people to switch off the militants' message?

Our flight was due to take off early from the capital, Kabul. But neither I nor the handful of other journalists waiting at the airbase had any idea of our destination.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and the air force had kept it a secret for security reasons.

As we soared away on an Mi-17 helicopter, its Afghan Air Force pilot informed us we were bound for the city of Jalalabad in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

We were to join the military as they helped distribute hundreds of free radios.

Some 15,000 of the receivers have already been given away in cities, villages, districts and mountainous border areas of Afghanistan, with several thousand more still to be handed out.
Hell breaks lose

The sets come with a torch, which is especially useful for people in rural areas.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

I like Radio Free Europe and their music programme, but I also listen to other channels and news”

End Quote Mohammad Osman Nangarhar resident

The authorities hope the devices can help counter the message of Mullah Radio, as the Taliban-sponsored broadcasts are dubbed.

The US-funded AM and FM receivers can pick up a range of other broadcasters, including the BBC, Voice of America, commercial stations and even occasionally Mullah Radio - in areas where attempts to jam the militants' signal have not succeeded.

Akbar Ayazi, of Radio Free Europe, denies they are simply trying to beat Taliban propaganda with an American equivalent.

"These [Mullah Radio] stations incite hatred, intolerance and ethnic violence," he said.

"By handing out these radios, we're enabling people to find out what's happening and enjoy entertainment in some of the remotest areas in the country, where there's no internet, newspapers or television.

"Our radio station is one of the most listened to in Afghanistan. No, it is not propaganda.''
News and tunes

Radio Free Europe's Afghan service broadcasts across the country in Pashto and Dari, on-air 12 hours a day, five days a week, combining news with Afghan traditional and pop music.
Map

Shortly after arriving in Jalalabad, we were taken to the city's main bus station, where dozens of Afghans had gathered.

The crowd seemed orderly - until the distribution began. All hell broke loose: everyone wanted a radio.

Afghan policemen tried to restore order, pounding the crowd with rifle butts to keep them at bay.

Within seven minutes, 60 of the radios had been snapped up; the military left more than 400 other receivers with the police to distribute.

Akbar Mohammad, 28, a Jalalabad shopkeeper, told the BBC he listened to Radio Free Europe as well as the other stations picked up by the sets.
Radio heads

"I just use the radio to listen to news and music," he said. "Sometimes I listen to Radio Free Europe, sometimes to Voice of America, sometimes to the BBC and sometimes to other local radio stations.''
One of the hand-cranked radios Crank up the volume: Can this little box help the US drown out the Taliban talk?

Mohammad Osman, 42, from Nangarhar's Kama district, said: "I took the radio to listen to music. The fact that it is hand-cranked will save me a lot of money not buying batteries for it.

"I like Radio Free Europe and their music programme. But I will also listen to other channels and news.''

The Afghan conflict has experienced its bloodiest year, with record casualties among civilians, all too often caught in the crossfire.

With the Taliban gaining ground, the US-led coalition knows it must work harder than ever to cut through the crackle and interference of the militants' message.

It remains to be seen whether free radios will help resolve the US-led coalition's reception problems with the Afghan people.

Source - BBC

Warning over Lincolnshire solar panel salesmen

2010-11-12T09:08:00.000Z

Residents in part of Lincolnshire have been warned to be vigilant when being approached by solar panel salesmen.

It follows an increase in companies offering North Kesteven residents solar PV panels for their homes.

The government's clean energy cashback incentive scheme has led to many salesmen cold calling, the district council said.

It added that some residents have been given misleading advice and not always offered the best deal.

The leader of the council, Councillor Marion Brighton, said: "With the introduction of the clean energy cashback scheme, there are some great benefits to installing solar PV, and some really good financial incentives, there hasn't been a better time to invest.

"We do however want to make sure that our residents are getting the best deal possible and for that reason we urge our residents to contact the Energy Saving Trust for free, impartial advice."

The scheme, also known as "feed-in tariffs", was introduced in April and offers incentives for those who install small-scale energy renewables on their homes.

Source - BBC

Danish firms embrace green economy with innovations

2010-11-12T09:01:00.002Z

COPENHAGEN, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- With a distinct smell of fermentation in the air, and large twisted tubes sending processed grain into big silos all over the plant, one may pass it as an ordinary brewery.

Brewery it is, but no ordinary. In fact, the Inbicon biomass refinery in Kalundborg, Denmark, produces fuel for cars instead of anything for human consumption.

To be more specific, the plant uses wheat straw to produce bioethanol which is a replacement for traditional gasoline, and lignin pellets which could replace coal.

Turning wheat straw into energy is no feat because the material can be burnt. But producing car fuel from straw is more complicated.

You can directly burn wheat straw into energy, but that is costly. The material needs large storage space and risks rotting if improperly kept. Usually wheat straw is used as fuel for power plants, rather than cars.

Inbicon, a subsidiary of Denmark's largest energy producer DONG Energy, worked out a cost-efficient way of turning wheat straw into energy after decades of efforts.

"We have collected wheat straw for the last 15 years, setting up logistics and storage facilities," Inbicon Vice President of Corporate Affairs Michael Persson, told Xinhua.

Using core chemical knowledge, the Danish company then treats the wheat straw with special enzymes, which break straw into the basic components of ethanol, lignin pellets and C5 molasses. These components can then be used for gasoline, power plant fuel and animal feed.

HARNESSING SUN POWER AT HOME

Inbicon is not the only Danish environmental-friendly company that has come up with innovative green technologies in the past decade.

Danfoss, traditionally a Danish producer of refrigeration, heating and motion control components, has ventured into the market of solar power.

In Nordic countries, there is the so-called smart grid, which means that house owners can sell power directly on the electricity grid. Whether the house owner has solar panels, wind turbines or other power generation units, one can connect them to the central energy grid and sell power.

However, there are a number of appliances that need to be in place, before every home can be a power plant.

One is solar power inverter. Solar panels deliver power in direct current. In order to be used on the grid, the power has to be alternating current. Danfoss has heavily invested in this area with its Danfoss Solar Inverters division.

In the Danish city of Graasten, Danfoss has established the largest electronics factory in Denmark. One of its products is customized control boards for solar power inverters.

The main advantage of having a smart solar power inverter at home is to save money. Basically solar power is free, once you have solar panels and a power inverter.

According to Danfoss, a complete household solar solution in Denmark is around 8,000 euros. Each year, a house owner can typically expect free power for 700 euros.

In Germany, solar power is much more common. Today, Germany is one of the largest markets for not only Danfoss' solar inverters but also for Danfoss' many competitors in this field.

EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS

While the technology behind these businesses might not be as complex as rocket science, the application of these ideas into a viable business plan is rather unique.

The two green, innovative ways are just showing the Danish companies' commitment to the green growth agenda.

Niels B. Christiansen, CEO of the Danfoss Group, stressed the importance of finding out cheap and fast ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

"Energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce CO2 emissions. However, there is still a huge untapped potential. To exploit this potential, more involvement of decision-makers is needed to secure an adequate framework for energy-efficient technologies," Christiansen has said.

"Based on our solid experiences with energy efficiency at Danfoss, we have also started to invest in new technologies for renewable energy such as solar inverters and heat pumps. In particular, our solar inverter business is growing very rapidly -- stimulated by political framing and legislation."

Big players on the energy market realize that they have to transform to more green companies. DONG Energy has set a goal to get 50 percent of its power fuel from green sources, such as biomass and wind power, by 2020.

"It is not easy to turn such a big company around, but it is necessary. The way we do it is through very rapidly going away from the usage of coal and turning to biomass," DONG Energy CEO Anders Eldrup told Xinhua.

"In our alternative energy department, we are investing heavily in offshore wind power generation," Eldrup said.

Source - Xinhuanet

GCL solar gets funding to build solar plants in U.S

2010-11-12T08:57:00.000Z

Wells Fargo Bank announced plans earlier this week to invest $100 million in China-based GCL solar to install new solar electric power plants in the United States.

A press release from Wells Fargo said the company has entered into the agreement in an effort to push the solar industry forward and support renewable energy, while creating new solar plants and opportunities for Americans to buy clean energy at rates equal to or lower than traditional energy generated at fossil-fuel burning plants.

“While the GCL agreement is new, Wells Fargo has been investing in and funding renewable energy projects for the last five years,” wrote Katie Ellis, with Wells Fargo corporate communications, in an e-mail.

She said the banking giant’s dedication to clean energy is not new, but a continuing effort to support growth in the green economy.

Wells Fargo has invested more than $2 billion in renewable energy since 2006, Ellis wrote. The company’s investment in green business is an indication of its interest in environmental concerns, she added.

Wells Fargo has funded more than 30 wind projects, 190 commercial-scale solar projects and one utility-scale solar thermal project over the last five years, Ellis wrote.

The bank’s press release also states that it hopes the investment of $100 million will help to stimulate the economy and create new green jobs.

Barry Neal, director of the Wells Fargo environmental finance group, said in the press release that he hopes the new investment will help the U.S. solar market grow and help businesses and public entities better control costs.

Neal also indicated that the bank is happy to be contracting with such a big name in the solar industry.

Ellis said her office is not allowed to discuss the particulars of its agreements with specific companies, so she could not say why the bank decided to allot such a large sum to one specific company rather than spreading the money out to different, smaller corporations.

But she wrote that GCL is a well-respected member of the solar industry with a bright future, and Wells Fargo expects its investment will help GCL’s customers save on their energy bills.

Source - Clean Energy Authority

Solar farm could be a bright idea

2010-11-12T08:53:00.000Z

PROPOSALS to build a solar farm near Swindon, capable of generating electricity for 1,000 households a year, will go on display next week.

A public exhibition has been put together by farmer Adam Twine, Low Carbon Solar Partners and Energy4All and will include information on the proposal to build a solar photovoltaic farm on land next to Westmill wind farm.

The £14 million farm is likely to be a first for the country as it is being designed to allow local people to be able to invest in it and own part of the farm.

Adam, who owns the land where the farm is intended to cover between 10 and 30 acres, is confident the plans will be well received by members of the public.

“Because it is such a big area, people will be concerned about what the visual impact is going to be and whether or not there will be a reflective glare from the panels,” he said.

“But I am very relaxed about the visual impact because the panels will only be about two-and-a-half metres tall, yes you will be able to see them from the Ridgeway, but it is 7km away and they don’t stand up like the wind turbines so you won’t be able to notice them.

“The panels will have a matt finish and will be angled as such so there isn’t any glare.

“Because it is all very new, I wanted to make sure people knew about it but I am very excited.”

The exhibition will cover all the technical aspects of the proposal, including photomontages of what the site would look like from near and far way as well as demonstration solar panels.

It will also have information about the intended community ownership and a chance to register an interest in the share offer.

Adam added: “I have a concern about climate change, I think it is something we all need to be taking seriously about how we get our energy.

“This is the way forward, we have to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels.”

The exhibition will run from 3pm to 7pm on November 16 at Watchfield Village Hall, with Adam Twine and representatives from Energy4All and Low Carbon Solar Partners on hand to answer questions.

Source - Swindon Advertiser

Largest solar power station in UK is on cowshed roof

2010-11-12T08:50:00.000Z

The Glastonbury festival founder has created the UK's largest private solar power station – on top of his cowsheds.
Already famous for providing the popular music event, Worthy Farm in Somerset will now be known for 1,000 solar panels fitted over a cowshed, costing £600,000.

Michael Eavis, the man behind the world-famous festival and now the country's largest solar power station, says that the panels could produce 200kw of power, enough to power up to 40 homes.

"With the energy crisis we had to do something seriously major as we see ourselves as green campaigners," he said.

"This has brought us one big step closer to our goal of operating the farm as ecologically as possible."

Mr Eavis was also encouraged by the government feed-in tariff scheme, launched in April which rewards people for generating their own power.

Made up of individual solar cells, solar panels work by collecting radiation from the sun and generating this into electricity. They can be added to businesses or homes to not only save money but also add value to the property.

Source - Uswitch

Wrexham council plans solar power for housing stock

2010-11-12T08:49:00.000Z

Wrexham council is hoping to win approval for a £25m project to fit a third of its housing stock with solar panels.

The council's executive board will meet next week to decide whether to progress with plans to fit photovoltaic (PV) panels to about 3,000 properties.

The council estimates the panels will generate a net income of £25.7m over 25 years, thanks to a government scheme.

It is estimated to reduce CO2 levels, and reduce tenants' bills by up to 40%.

Wrexham believes it will be the first authority in Wales to run such a scheme.

The council would borrow the money to pay for the scheme, but hopes to take advantage of the UK government's Feed in Tariff, a 25-year scheme which allows surplus energy to be sold.

Under that scheme, the council believes the panels would make enough money to repay the loan, and generate about £1m per year in extra income.

A report to be discussed says about 36% of the county's council houses could be suitable for PV installation.

It adds: "This is expected to equate to approximately 3,000 properties following site surveys, for which installation of PV systems would cost approximately £24.9m.

"It is estimated that the project is likely to generate a net income of just over £25.7m through the Feed in tariff for the council over 25 years.

"Furthermore it is estimated that the project will save approximately one tonne of CO2 per property each year, reducing the carbon footprint of the HRA housing by at least five per cent.

"The added benefits for tenants is that using the energy generated by the panels could reduce their energy bills by up to 40 per cent."

There are also plans to install the panels on 13 non-domestic buildings, including schools and leisure centres, at a cost of £3.4m.

The council estimates these buildings could generate a net income of more than £3m over 25 years.

Source - BBC

Russia To Build Its First Industrial Solar Power Station

2010-11-12T08:41:00.000Z

Russia's high-tech companies Rusnano and Renova have announced plans to build the country's first industrial solar power station near the Black Sea.

The 12.3 megawatt station will be built in the spa resort of Kislovodsk by the companies' joint venture Khevel.

"This is a breakthrough into a different dimension," Rusnano CEO Anatoly Chubais told an innovation forum in Moscow.

The $97 million deal was sealed by Khevel CEO Yevgeny Zagorodny and Stavropol region Governor Valery Gayevsky.

Swiss-made thin-film solar panels will be used in the construction. The station may start operating as soon as 2012, Zagorodny said.

Source - Solardaily

iSuppli Boosts 2010 Solar Installation Forecast

2010-11-12T08:39:00.000Z

Stronger than expected growth in Germany has prompted iSuppli Corp. to boost its 2010 forecast for global installations of Photovoltaic (PV) solar systems.

Worldwide installations in 2010 will amount to 15.8 Gigawatts (GW), up from iSuppli's previous outlook of 14.2GW. This will represent 118.7 percent growth from 7.2GW in 2009. iSuppli now forecasts that installations in 2011 will amount to 19.3GW, down slightly from its previous forecast of 20.2GW.

"Germany's solar business
-the world's largest market-grew at an extraordinary rate in the second quarter of 2010, causing PV installations to exceed expectations during the first half of the year," said Stefan de Haan, senior analyst, for iSuppli.

"In the first half, Germany installed 3.9GW worth of solar systems. Germany's surprising performance was driven by excellent investment conditions and demand pull-forward prior to a cut of the country's Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) incentive program in July."

While iSuppli has trimmed its 2011 forecast, next year still is expected to be very strong for the PV market. Ironically, the strong performance for the entire year will be driven by a seasonal slowdown in installations during the first six months of 2011. This deceleration will drive down pricing for solar modules and stimulate demand in the second half of the year.

"The solar market frequently suffers a slowdown in the first quarter of a year, and 2011 will be no exception," de Haan said. "This deceleration will cause inventories of PV solar modules to rise-and pricing for solar modules to drop, boosting sales for the entire year."

Average worldwide pricing for crystalline solar modules will decline by 9 percent in the first quarter and by 6 percent in the second quarter.

These price declines will be sufficient to enable system prices of 1.9 euros to 2.7 euros per watt in Germany-depending on the system size. Once this level is reached, demand will pick up again. iSuppli is reiterating its expectation of a strong market in Germany next year with 9.4GW worth of new installations.

The attached figure presents iSuppli's forecast of global average pricing for crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar modules.

iSuppli's slight reduction in the 2011 forecast was due to shifts in solar incentive policies in important European markets, mainly France and Spain, the world's seventh and 10th largest solar installation markets in 2009. In Spain, significant FIT cuts are looming for 2011; a-a 45 percent decrease for ground installations is being discussed.

In France, political support for PV seems to be crumbling in general and is limit the annual market to less than 1GW until 2014. Furthermore, Belgium-the sixth largest country for solar installations, is expected to develop a bit slower than previously anticipated, which is in part due to a new legislation that has tightened the requirements for rooftop installations.

Finally. a drastic decline of the Czech market in 2011 is now clearly shaping up on the horizon and has already been included in iSuppli's forecasts since February 2010.

Source - Solardaily

RICOH USA Goes Solar

2010-11-12T08:38:00.000Z

Ricoh Americas has announced that the Ricoh Electronics, Inc. headquarters in Tustin, Calif. is in the process of installing a rooftop solar energy system, which when completed in 2011, will supply 10 percent (approximately 350,000 kWH) of the headquarters building's electricity.

The system will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 98.1 metric tons/year and will provide Ricoh Electronics, Inc. with annual electricity cost savings of more than $56,000.

Ricoh has been steadfastly committed to the environment for over 30 years. In 1976, Ricoh established the Environmental Protection Group responsible for keeping Ricoh's environmental goals and strategies as key considerations when planning, developing, designing and promoting new products and services.

In 2003, Ricoh introduced its first "Eco-Board" in Osaka, Japan, a billboard powered solely by renewable energy. A billboard powered 100% by the sun debuted in New York City's Times Square early 2010. Ricoh also set medium and long-term targets in 2009, to reduce the total CO2 emissions to 30% by fiscal year 2020 and 87.5% by fiscal year 2050, as compared to fiscal year 2000.

Ricoh Electronics, Inc.'s solar-powered facility is another example of Ricoh's continued dedication to the environment
. Ricoh's Atsugi and Numazu facilities in Japan currently have solar power systems installed, but the Tustin facility will be the first outside of Japan.

"Installation of this system is a natural extension of Ricoh's continued focus on developing and implementing environmental protection activities that lead to prevention of pollution and more efficient use of resources," said Yoshinori Yamashita, President, Ricoh Electronics, Inc.

Ricoh Electronics, Inc. engaged SPG Solar Inc., a leader in the development, design and installation of high-performance solar energy systems, to manage the project. SPG Solar will be installing nearly 1,000 cutting-edge, silicone crystal solar panels to create the solar energy system on Ricoh Electronics, Inc.'s existing headquarters building.

The system takes advantage of Ricoh Electronics, Inc.'s location in sunny Southern California. Ricoh Electronics, Inc. offset approximately 60 percent of the solar system's cost by incentives offered by the federal and state government, and expects to recoup its costs for the project in 5.5 years.

"It is commendable that Ricoh Electronics, Inc. has continued their commitment to building such a sizable system," said Tom Rooney, CEO and President of SPG Solar.

"At SPG Solar, we rarely come across a client that is willing to take so many steps to show such a serious commitment to sustainability. That Ricoh Electronics, Inc. has done so is very impressive."

Ricoh Electronics, Inc. achieved zero waste to landfill status in 2001, and all its operations have maintained certification to ISO 14001 since 1999. In addition, Ricoh Electronics, Inc. employees
are actively engaged in sustainability initiatives, including submitting 1,360 improvement suggestions in FY 2009, which resulted in over $2 million in savings.

Ricoh Electronics, Inc. will host a grand opening ceremony upon completion of the solar system installation in early 2011. The ceremony will include the unveiling of a display in the headquarters building's lobby which streams real-time solar energy performance and production data.

Source - Solardaily

Clampdown pulls plug on march of solar farm speculators

2010-11-12T08:36:00.001Z

A loophole that could result in a rash of industrial-scale solar panel farms across the countryside is to be closed by the Government.

Energy minister Greg Barker said subsidies for renewable power should not be exploited by companies planning massive ‘sun farms’ in rural areas.

The Feed In Tariff scheme was launched in April to help meet EU targets for renewable energy.
Energy minister Greg Barker said subsidies for renewable power should not be exploited by companies planning massive 'sun farms' in rural areas

Energy minister Greg Barker said subsidies for renewable power should not be exploited by companies planning massive 'sun farms' in rural areas

It guarantees owners of solar panels, domestic wind turbines and hydroelectric turbines a minimum tax-free return for 25 years.

FIT was intended to encourage households and small firms to go green and sell the power they do not use to the National Grid.

But it has attracted interest from international investors who are offering farmers up to £50,000 to fill fields with solar panels.

Work on a 30-acre sun farm in Wiltshire is due to start soon.

Yesterday Mr Barker said: ‘We inherited a system that simply failed to anticipate industrial-scale, stand-alone, green field solar. While we will not act retrospectively, large green field-based solar farms should not be allowed to distort the available funding for domestic solar technologies.’

A departmental source said: ‘We’ll be looking closely at this to avoid a small number of solar speculators cashing in on this loophole.’

Source - DailyMail

The solar panel gold rush that threatens to ruin our countryside...and make millions for the Germans and Chinese

2010-11-07T08:16:00.001Z

Farmers are being offered up to £50,000 a year to fill fields with solar panels under a Government-backed green initiative that threatens to change the face of the British countryside.

More than 100 planning applications have been submitted and work on a large-scale installation in Wiltshire is due to begin later this month.

But with a 30-acre farm able to accommodate up to 18,000 of the 2ft-high
panels, campaigners fear some rural areas could be submerged by a sea of black silicon slabs.
A place in the sun: Farmers are being offered up to £50,000 a year to fill fields with solar panels

A place in the sun: Farmers are being offered up to £50,000 a year to fill fields with solar panels

The ‘Feed-in Tariff’ scheme was launched in April as part of an attempt to meet European Union targets on renewable energy. But the financial incentives are so generous that farmers are being cold-called by developers keen to sign contracts before the payment structure is reviewed in 2012.

The influx is led by German and Chinese companies, but there is also interest from speculators who have seen profits slump since similar schemes were scaled down or abandoned in Spain, Italy and Germany to cut costs.

Dustin Benton, senior policy officer at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: ‘There is a real push now by developers to make the most of the short time-window. Solar panels are a useful form of renewable energy but there are many places where they should not go.’

Farmers can deal directly with their power supplier or go into partnership with a renewable energy developer or a private investor who will set up a company to run the business.

The company is paid by the power supplier for the electricity it generates and the farmer gets rent for the use of his land.

The average rental price for land in Cornwall, where the weather is judged to be most suitable for renewable energy, is £1,500 an acre, which means a farmer with 35 acres to spare could receive £52,500 a year.

At the other end of the spectrum, the owner of a one-acre field might be in line for £2,000 a year. But industry experts said this smaller area would be less attractive to developers because of the proportionately higher cost of installing the panels and cables.

A minimum tax-free return is guaranteed for 25 years. The farmer also receives a payment for any power transmitted from his land to the National Grid.
Bright idea: Anthony Hibbard, director of Sunstroom a renewable energies company has installed 24 solar panels

Bright idea: Anthony Hibbard, director of Sunstroom a renewable energies company has installed 24 solar panels

Energy regulator Ofgem, which runs the scheme on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, says it will promote small-scale, low-carbon power generation.

But experts have estimated the cost to consumers, via higher energy bills, at £8.6 billion. They also claim the initiative will bring relatively few environmental benefits compared with those in hotter climates.

Dr Jonathan Scurlock, the chief adviser on renewable energy for the National Farmers’ Union, said the scheme could help struggling parts of the agricultural sector. But he admitted opposition was inevitable due to the ‘industrial’ look of the panels. ‘

Lansdowne RE, a property agent in Mayfair, Central London, has been asked to find sites in England suited to solar developments by an Austrian company.

Rupert Hoffen, of the Mayfair firm, said: ‘The 25-year tariffs are very appealing to overseas investors.’

Russell Hayman, who runs a farm near Honiton, Devon, was cold-called by a land agent who offered an annual £500 an acre in return for installing hundreds of solar panels in his fields.

Mr Hayman, who turned down the proposal, said: ‘If the subsidy was abolished, that would leave me with no income and a load of wires lying across my land.’

South West England is at the centre of what has been called the ‘sun rush’ with up to 70 planning applications submitted to local authorities.

Lucy Hunt of the Cornwall Development Company, which promotes investment in the county, said: ‘We are seeing the start of a solar gold rush.’ One of the world’s biggest makers of solar panels is Yingli Green Energy of China, which is now turning its attention from continental Europe to Britain.

Another leading manufacturer, SolarWorld of Germany, claims solar power will enable farmers ‘to expand their business’.

Work on Britain’s first full-scale solar farm is due to start this month near Malmesbury in Wiltshire. Anthony Hibbard, who owns the site and is a director of solar-energy company Sunstroom, said: ‘This is a relatively small development which will produce enough electricity for 20 homes.’

Conservative MP and former Cabinet Minister Peter Lilley said: ‘It is bizarre, in these
cost-cutting times, to have a scheme which will cost 20 times as much as the benefits it will produce in terms of reduced CO2 emissions. Far from creating green jobs in Britain, it will create jobs in China.’

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: ‘Our Feed-in Tariff is designed to encourage people to generate their own energy and contribute to the security of our energy supplies.

‘Thanks to these incentives, farmers have an opportunity to embrace renewable energy.’

Source - Daily Mail

Landlords forced to make homes green

2010-11-05T08:36:00.001Z

Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, will set out radical plans to upgrade all 26 million homes in the country over the next decade.

Under the ‘New Green Deal’, households will be able to take out ‘pay-as-you-save loans’ from the local council , supermarket or chain store like B&Q. The loans of up to £10,000 will pay for double glazing, solar panels or other energy efficiency measures and will be paid pack over time through savings on fuel bills.

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Mr Huhne said the initiative will create more than 100,000 jobs over the next five years as home owners demand ‘green makeovers’.

However there is little incentive for private landlords to take advantage of the scheme because they are not paying the bills.

As a consequence many privately rented homes are badly insulated. At the moment about 670,000 homes, more than a fifth of the total 3.2 million in the private rented sector, are rated G or F, meaning they have some of the worst efficiency ratings in the country.

To force landlords to act the new legislation will “create powers allowing any tenant asking for reasonable energy efficiency improvements to receive them from 2015 onwards”.

It will also allow local authorities to insist that landlords improve the worst performing homes by installing insulation.

Let Insurance Services, a specialist insurance provider to the private rented sector, said it could cause problems for landlords and tenants.

“Anything that uses less energy and improves running costs for tenants is to be welcomed but the danger is that unneccessary costs of installations can be passed onto tenants and end up costing them more,” said a spokesman.

“It should also be remembered that there are many properties where it is next to impossible to improve energy efficiency without running foul of conservation regulations.”

Colin Butfield, Head of Campaigns at WWF-UK, welcomed the new measures.

“The Government is absolutely right to be including the private rented sector in its Green Deal energy efficiency plans. Without efforts to improve the millions of homes in the rented sector, the UK would be unable to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently or tackle fuel poverty,” he said.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change pointed out that landlords will only be forced to carry out ‘reasonable measures’ and the powers are under review.

Source - Telegraph

Writer Foretold World's Solar Future More Than a Decade Ago

2010-11-05T08:32:00.001Z

Hermann Scheer, perhaps the most influential person in modern times whom Americans have never heard of, died last month in Germany, just as the global energy transformation he foretold began to take root in this country.

Mr. Scheer explained in the early 1990s with his book “A Solar Manifesto” (in Germany, “Sonnenstrategie”) that large-scale solar energy development was blocked by political and not technical obstacles. In 1999, with the publication of “Solare Weltwirtschaft,” not published in English until 2002 as “The Solar Economy,” he examined the economic influences that in his view would drive a gradual but eventually unstoppable and revolutionary move to a solar global economy.

So far it appears that Mr. Scheer, whose academic training was in economics, social sciences and law, was right.

Countries such as his native Germany, along with Spain, Japan, China, India, Portugal, Israel, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Canada, Australia and others have been increasing solar electricity generation even in the midst of the worst global economic climate since the Depression. The Russian Federation is the latest to announce plans for solar development.

The United States, while slow in catching on, has in the past two months been making up for lost time. The federal and California governments in a matter of weeks have approved the construction of massive solar power plants in Southern California that together will generate thousands of megawatts of electricity, putting solar squarely in the mainstream as an energy source for the first time in the United States.

And this first wave of large U.S. solar installations is but a fraction of what is planned. For those wondering how and why this historic shift is occurring, Mr. Scheer’s decade-old book is an excellent place to begin.

In English, the full title of Mr. Scheer’s “Solare Weltwirtschaft” work is “The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future.”

A decade ago, with Mr. Scheer serving as a member of parliament, Germany erased one of the political barriers to solar development by adopting a law that pays people to produce solar electricity through a mechanism called a feed-in tariff.

“

The old dispute
of capitalism
versus socialism
pales into
insignificance
before the
life-or-death
choice of
renewable versus
non-renewable
sources.

”

Hermann Scheer
"The Solar Economy"

Nations compensate pioneering energy developers for their efforts because, as Mr. Scheer pointed out, “Energy and raw materials are the fundament of our economies,” and “Today, almost all human activity is critically dependent on energy produced from fossil fuels.”

“The resource base is far more fundamental to economic development than questions of political and social order,” he said in “The Solar Economy.” “The old dispute of capitalism versus socialism pales into insignificance before the life-or-death choice of renewable versus non-renewable sources.”

The idea in Germany was that the price paid for solar electricity through feed-in tariffs would decline over time as the industry developed and costs were reduced through economies of scale. In mid-2010, when Germany’s feed-in tariff was trimmed, widespread media reports predicted a crash of the country’s solar industry. Instead, solar installations this year have soared.

Mr. Scheer said in his book that many technological revolutions have reshaped societies throughout history, but none have taken effect without encountering massive resistance.

“The widespread resistance to renewable energy is motivated by fear of the changes this revolution would bring,” he said in his prescient 1999 book, just as California’s energy crisis was setting the stage for the gradual development of a robust solar photovoltaic marketplace in that state.

Mr. Scheer said at the time, when the use of solar power was negligible, that its future emergence as a global economic force stemmed in part from the fact that the sunlight resource is available everywhere to varying degrees. Fossil fuels, accessible only in a limited number of places, have long supply chains from extraction to end use that continue to grow longer.

“Conventional energy sources are assumed to have an economic advantage, whereas renewable energy sources are denounced as a burden that can be borne only in small doses,” Mr. Scheer said in “The Solar Economy.” However, “an examination of the entire supply chain for fossil fuel energy demonstrates that its claim to be more economical is a myth,” he added.

Pentagon officials, while emphasizing the national security benefits of solar energy development, have recently pointed out that it can cost $400 to deliver a gallon of gasoline to a unit in Afghanistan. The toll in lives lost from attacks on fuel convoys is incalculably higher.

A transition to a solar global economy will not be seamless, Mr. Scheer said, but will be like a “roller coaster ride” that eventually affects almost everything. However, like the Industrial Revolution, he predicted that it would unfold gradually, with countries and continents moving at different paces.

Although a dramatic shift to renewable energy will engender fear and resistance, it’s necessary for societies to advance and prosper, the author said.

“Making the groundbreaking transition to an economy based on solar energy and solar resources will do more to safeguard our common future than any other economic development since the Industrial Revolution,” he said.

Source - Solarhbj

Logitech Introduces Solar-Powered Keyboard

2010-11-05T08:31:00.001Z

Logitech has introduced the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 - the company's first light-powered keyboard. The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard powers itself whenever there's light, even indoors, making battery hassles a thing of the past.

"The keyboard is still the best input device for typing emails and IMs, updating your Facebook page or posting responses to your favorite blogs - and the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 is the next big innovation in keyboard technology," said Denis Pavillard, vice president of product marketing for Logitech's keyboards and desktops.

"The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard is powered by light but can work in total darkness for up to three months. Plus, with its PVC-free construction and fully recyclable packaging, it's designed to minimize its footprint."

Powered by Light - Even Indoors
To give you hassle-free convenience, the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard powers itself through its integrated solar panel - no power bricks or charging cables needed.

The included solar power app (available for download beginning Nov. 15, 2010 at www.logitech.com/k750.solarapp) features a lux meter to help you get the necessary light, makes it easy to get at-a-glance information about battery levels, and even alerts you when you need more power.

Logitech's first solar keyboard can be powered by indoor light and stays charged for at least three months in total darkness. Plus an integrated power-indicator light eliminates surprises.

Only 1/3-Inch Thick
But Logitech did much more than bring solar power to the keyboard.

At only 1/3-inch thick, the sleek Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard looks good. With its rounded edges and thin profile, this stylish, streamlined keyboard is a joy to hold and behold.

Feel-Good Typing
The low-profile keyboard features Logitech Incurve keys. Using a concave design, Incurve keys support the shape of your fingertips, while helping guide your fingers to the right keys. In addition, the soft, rounded edges make it easy for your fingers to glide from key to key.

Powerful, Reliable Wireless Connection with Logitech Unifying Technology

The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 offers Logitech Advanced 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity, keeping you connected with virtually no delays or dropouts, so you get all the benefits of a cord, with the convenience of wireless. Logitech Advanced 2.4 wireless also includes 128-bit AES encryption with the keyboard - one of the highest levels of security available.

Plus, the tiny Logitech Unifying receiver is small enough to stay in your laptop, so there's no need to unplug it when you move around. And you can easily add up to six Logitech Unifying and Unifying-ready mice and keyboards - without the hassle of multiple USB receivers.

Source - Solar daily

Sunny Future For Australia's Solar Industry

2010-11-05T08:27:00.000Z

CSIRO has begun installing 450 large mirrors, called heliostats, for Australia's largest solar-thermal tower system at the CSIRO National Solar Energy
Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales
.

The heliostats are part of an advanced new solar technology developed by CSIRO and manufactured by Central Coast company, Performance Engineering Group.

By developing such technology CSIRO aims to make solar generated electricity at the same cost or cheaper than fossil fuel generated electricity when the cost of carbon is taken into account.

Creating 2.4 x 1.8m panels of glass mirrors for a solar field is no easy feat. The glass needs to be a specific concave shape to achieve a highly accurate reflection point and strong enough to withstand extreme weather events.

Once installed, the heliostats will concentrate the sun's rays to create temperatures of up to 1000 degrees C.

The heliostats have a lightweight steel frame with a unique, simple design, specially created for mass production for the commercial market. The units are smaller than many heliostats currently being used around the world, but just as efficient, more cost effective and much easier to install.

CSIRO's Energy Transformed Flagship Director, Dr Alex Wonhas, says the economical design of the heliostats will also make solar fields more cost effective to build and operate.

"It's a local idea generated by CSIRO and manufactured by a local company, which will have global impact," Dr Wonhas said.

"We hope that one day we will see these economical heliostats used in solar fields all over Australia and the world."

Performance Engineering's Managing Director, Jon Priddle, says high quality heliostats will one day be mass-produced in Australia.

"We have a unique capability at Performance," Mr Priddle said. "We are using our expertise in automotive manufacturing - an industry geared for mass production - to create the most efficient manufacturing process.

"In addition, we are using a laser tracker developed for the aerospace industry to measure the accuracy of the heliostats. Accuracy and efficiency are the key outcomes for our production line."

The heliostat field is part of CSIRO's new solar Brayton Cycle project - a solar tower and field that generates electricity from just the air and sun.

Source - Solardaily

South Africa unveils plans for 'world's biggest' solar power प्लांट

2010-11-05T08:25:00.001Z

South Africa is to unveil plans this week for what it claims will be the world's biggest solar power plant – a radical step in a coal-dependent country where one in six people still lacks electricity.

The project, expected to cost up to 200bn rand (£18.42bn), would aim by the end of its first decade to achieve an annual output of five gigawatts (GW) of electricity - currently one-tenth of South Africa's energy needs.

Giant mirrors and solar panels would be spread across the Northern Cape province, which the government says is among the sunniest 3% of regions in the world with minimal cloud or rain.

The government hopes the solar park will help reduce carbon emissions from Africa's biggest economy, which is still more than 90% dependent on coal-fired power stations. In April, the World Bank came in for sharp criticism from environmentalists for approving a $3.75bn (£2.37bn) loan to build one of the world's largest coal-fired power plants in the country.

Energy is already a high priority in South Africa where, at the end of racial apartheid, less than 40% of households had electricity. Over 16 years the governing African National Congress has undertaken a huge national expansion, with a recent survey showing that 83% are now connected, but power outages are still not uncommon in both townships and middle-class suburbs.

An estimated 200 foreign and domestic investors will meet this week in Upington, Northern Cape, with a view to funding the hugely ambitious solar project. A master plan will be set out by the US engineering and construction group Fluor. This follows a viability study by the Clinton Climate Initiative, which described South Africa's "solar resource" as among the best in the world.

Jonathan de Vries, the project manager, said today: "I'd hate to make a large claim but yes, this would be the biggest solar park in the world."

De Vries said the park, costing 150-200bn rand, would aim to be contributing to the national grid by the end of 2012. In the initial phase it would produce 1,000 megawatts, or 1GW, using a mix of the latest solar technologies.

An initial 9,000 hectares of state-owned land have been earmarked for the park, with further sites in the "solar corridor" being explored.

De Vries, a special adviser to the energy minister, said the Northern Cape had been chosen for insolation readings (a measure of solar energy) that rank among the highest in the world. "It hardly ever rains, it hardly has clouds. It's even better than the Sahara desert because it doesn't have sandstorms."

The Orange River would provide water for the facilities, he added, while existing power transmission lines would be closer than for similar projects such as in Australia.

Northern Cape, which contains the historic diamond-rush town, Kimberley, is South Africa's biggest province and one of its poorest. But it is hoped that the park would create a "solar hub" and regenerate the local economy with fresh opportunities in manufacturing.

South Africa currently consumes 45-48GW of power per year. It is estimated this will double over the next 25 years. "In South Africa over 90% of our power comes from the burning of coal and we need to reduce this because of our international obligations on climate change," de Vries said.

"If this proves to be cost competitive with coal and nuclear, the government will roll out more solar parks. This is a very bold attempt."

He added: "Solar power isn't a panacea that will cure all but it's a part of the solution, and a very important part. There are zones in the world that are ideally suited to it, often those with low population density."

Source - guardian

Conditional Federal Loan Guarantees For Abengoa Solar

2010-07-08T12:46:00.001+01:00

President Obama has announced in his weekly video address that DOE has offered a conditional commitment for a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar, Inc. The loan will support the construction and start-up of Solana, a 250 net megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Arizona.

"After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it's good news that we've attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs here in America," said President Obama.

Solana will include six hours of molten salt thermal energy storage capability, which will allow energy to be dispatched as needed during cloudy periods and after sunset. With this capability, Solana will be able to generate electricity well into the evening to help meet the summer peak demand.

The plant will be located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona. Solana will produce enough energy to serve 70,000 households and will prevent the emission of 475,000 tons of CO2 per year compared to a natural gas burning power plant.

DOE's Title XVII Loan Guarantee Program was created to support the deployment of innovative clean energy technologies pursuant to Section 1703 of Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Title XVII).

Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was amended by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to create Section 1705, a new program for the deployment of renewable energy and electric power transmission projects. Solana is eligible for a loan guarantee under both sections of Title XVII.

Santiago Seage, CEO of Abengoa Solar, said that "this conditional guarantee could allow us to start construction of Solana this year. I want to recognize the leadership and effort of the DOE in making Solana possible through this guarantee."

Mr. Seage also added that Solana is in a very advanced stage of development and permitting, having received most of its authorizations from local, county, and state authorities. Recently, DOE conducted an Environmental Assessment study and issued a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for the project.

"What the project needs now is for Maricopa County and the state to continue their support and work expeditiously on the last remaining permits needed for construction to begin," said Abengoa Solar's Seage.

The construction and operation of Solana will bring many economic and environmental benefits to Arizona and will support the nation's goals for energy independence through a "green" economy. The plant will create significant tax income for local communities and the state over the life of the project.

Abengoa Solar's Arizona Vice President Kate Maracas stated that "the building of Solana will also create between 1,600-1,700 new construction jobs, and operation of the plant will add another 85 permanent jobs. These construction and operating jobs will create a few thousand additional indirect jobs.

Taken together, 98% of the jobs created by Solana will be American jobs - primarily from Arizona, and a smaller portion from neighboring states."

Abengoa Solar signed a power purchase agreement with APS, the state's largest electric utility, to sell the energy produced by Solana for a period of 30 years. "APS has demonstrated a strong commitment to solar energy and has shown leadership in moving solar energy toward the mainstream," said Maracas.

Abengoa Solar has made it a priority to utilize U.S.-made components wherever possible for the Solana plant. More than 75% of the equipment and supplies required to build Solana will be manufactured in the U.S. These include steam generators, heat exchangers, power equipment, glass, steel, concrete and other construction materials.

As a direct consequence of the construction of Solana, a mirror manufacturing factory will be built in Surprise, Arizona. The mirror factory will employ almost 180 people, adding to the number of direct jobs created by Solana. This new facility will provide Arizona with the foundation upon which to expand its solar energy technology manufacturing capabilities and to support future CSP projects.

From an environmental perspective, Solana will provide Arizonans with clean, pollution-free and greenhouse gas free energy while, at the same time reducing Arizona's need for fossil fuel based generation facilities, eliminating the emission of nearly a half-million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

These reductions will contribute to state goals for renewable energy deployment as well as national targets for climate change abatement.

In late 2009 Abengoa Solar signed a power purchase agreement in California to supply electricity generated by a 250 MW CSP trough plant located in the Mojave Desert, 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The company also has several projects under development in the Southwest.

Abengoa Solar is currently building 350 MW of solar plants worldwide, and with an additional 142 MW already operating, it is the only company worldwide building and operating both trough and power tower CSP plants. The Solana plant will be Abengoa Solar's tenth CSP plant worldwide.

Source - Solar Daily

Solar Powered Agriculture Pump System

2010-07-08T12:42:00.001+01:00

The Power-Save Energy Company has announced a contract from California Power-Save to supply a complete photovoltaic solar system for installation on an Agriculture Water Pump System in Shasta County California.

Power-Save Energy Co. will supply all the solar equipment and CA Power-Save will be installing this 32.725 kW solar array. This specific contract is worth $194,423.00.

This project is significant to Power-Save Energy Co. in that it furthers the company's pursuit of larger commercial projects. This agriculture installation has been funded through an agricultural grant of $48,500.00, a Pacific Gas and Electric rebate of $26,000.00, and a Federal Tax Grant o\f $55,000.00.

The customer will save approximately $10,000.00 per year in electrical costs to pump water and have a ROI of approximately 7 years.

Chris Frye, Owner of CA Power-Save, stated, "This is a fantastic opportunity for CA Power-Save to design, engineer and install a solar array for agricultural purposes. This represents yet another example of how implementation of renewable energy can increase profits for businesses across America when adequate financing and incentives are in place.

Michael Forster, Power-Save Energy Company CEO also stated, "We will certainly take this system, and the way it was funded and market aggressively to farmers across America. This solar system combined with creative applications for funding makes so much sense for the Agricultural Community that we at Power-Save feel very strongly that this may become another growth aspect of the solar business."

Source - Solar Daily

Solar-powered plane lands safely after 26-hour flight

2010-07-08T12:34:00.003+01:00

An experimental solar-powered aircraft launched on Wednesday has landed safely in Switzerland after successfully flying through the night.

The feat is a step toward the makers' aim of circling the globe using the power of the Sun to fuel the plane.

The aircraft used super-efficient solar cells and batteries to stay in the air after the Sun's rays had faded.

The plane touched down at an airfield about 30 miles (50 km) from the Swiss capital Bern at 0900 (0700 GMT).

The plane landed at Payerne airport after a total flight time of 26 hours.

During the flight it reached a height of 8,700 m (28,543 ft).

Assistants rushed to stabilise the experimental aircraft as it touched down, ensuring that its huge 63m (207ft) wingspan did not scrape the ground and topple the plane.

It is the longest and highest flight recorded by a solar-powered plane.

The four-engine aircraft was steered by Andre Borschberg, a former fighter jet pilot from Switzerland.

The plane has 12,000 solar cells arranged on its wingspan which collected enough energy to power the plane for the flight.
'Perpetual flight'

Previous flights of Solar Impulse have included a brief "flea hop" and a longer airborne test earlier this year. But this week's attempt was described as a "milestone" by the team.

The designers, the Solar Impulse team led by Mr Borschberg and fellow aviator Bertrand Piccard, say that this proves that a plane can be kept in the air around the clock.
Continue reading the main story

Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight

"It's the first time ever that a [manned] solar airplane has flown through the night," Mr Piccard told journalists.

"That was the moment that proved the mission was successful, we made it."

The plane emerged from the darkness of night with three hours power remaining in its batteries, more than had been expected.

"Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight."

The team will now build a new, more advanced, model of the plane.

They aim to circumnavigate the globe by 2013.

Source - The BBC

5 Good reasons why it’s a good time to install solar panels

2010-07-05T11:39:00.001+01:00

1. One such issue, is pricing and if installations are likely to be reduced over the coming years.

This view is supported by other technologies which have come down in price as uptake is increased, however unlike going into Curry’s and buying a boxed new TV, solar panels have more complicated issues which prevent this easy type of purchase enjoyed by other technologies.

Firstly these systems are not plug in and play. If you are installing a solar heating panels or pv solar panels, then it needs to be plumbed in or wired in by properly qualified specialists installers, which are very expensive to employ. Another issue is the constant rising costs in general.

Stuart Lovatt from Heat my Home, says: “I have been in the solar industry for many years now, and the thing which I have heard time and time again are people expecting solar panels and installation costs to come down. In those same years, the overall industry prices have year on year risen because of manufacturing, global energy issues and now VAT increases. I expect the same will continue to happen over the coming years, so my expert opinion is, there is never going to be a better or cheaper time to install solar panels especially domestic sized, than now.”

Stuart adds, “A lot of people I spoke to in the early years are now wishing they had installed much earlier when the overall prices were cheaper back then”.
2. Incentives for installing have changed recently to reward the early pioneers of domestic pv electric solar panels the most.

The newly released government backed feed in tariffs (Clean Enegy Cashback Scheme) gives a great return on your solar installation investment. If you install pv solar panels to your home, then you will be given 41.3 p per Kwp for the energy you produce, and this is if you use it yourself or not. This incentive is guaranteed for 25 years, so on a long term investment opportunity it gives better return than the money staying in a bank account.

However, this is only a 3 years window of opportunity, with the 41.3p being reduced to 35p per Kwp after 2013 and so on. The reason for this is the tariff is digressive, and is only supposed to reward the early adopters with the most. Very late adopters probably won’t receive anything but cheaper bills only.

3. New incentives for solar heating on the cards for early adopters of this type of technology too.

Just like the feed in tariff scheme for solar electric, solar heating systems will have their own incentive scheme coming next year and still applicable to installations done this year. The new Renewable Heat Incentive will give a fixed amount of 18p per Kw of heat produced by your system for a guaranteed timescale of 20 years. Again this is a time sensitive reward scheme, so if you decide to install within the next 3 years, then you will get more benefit from your neighbour installing in 5 years time (which they will).

4. Don’t be caught out by the coming energy crunch.

If the recent budget by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the threat of strikes, are not reminiscent of the 1970’s problems, then the energy shortages predicted in the UK, will certainly take you back. The constant escalating energy prices are predicted to rise further, with unstable sources, the recent oil disaster, our own dwindling North Sea reserves with a much needed upgrade to National grid/power stations, which will ultimately be paid for through the nation’s energy bills.

5. Avoid the solar rush

If the up and coming energy crunch does occur in the same way the bank crisis hit, then you can be sure that everyone else will want an installation at exactly the same time as you. The infrastructure within the UK solar industry is not in place to handle so many requests for installations at the same time. Therefore it is advised people start preparing now. After all Richards Branson recent comments on the energy crunch have made a lot of people sit and take note. If anyone would know, it will be him.

A recent example of this is, the recent global demand in pv solar panels has caused integral parts such as photovoltaic panels and inverters to become short and supply and thus push up prices, as we are seeing at the moment. Manufacturers simply cannot make them fast enough.

Which cleverly loops me back to reason #1.

Source - Heatmyhome

London, United Kingdom: British Gas to Give Free Solar Panels to British Schools

2010-07-05T11:36:00.000+01:00

British Gas is to make £15 million available for investment in solar technology for the nation's schools. The company will donate and install solar panels - worth between 20,000 and 40,000 pounds per school - in up to 750 schools. Each school will be able to generate its own free, green electricity, cutting as much as 20% off its annual electricity bill.

The energy produced by the panels is anticipated to create around 1.3m pounds per year for the next 25 years. This will be reinvested in installing solar panels on yet more schools. This means that, in the next five years alone, British Gas could install free solar panels on a total of 1,100 schools. The panels will also help the selected schools to meet their carbon reduction targets, reducing emissions by up to 1,400 tonnes per year, equivalent to taking almost 400 cars off the road.

The schools receiving solar panels will receive a British Gas smart meter, offering real time information so pupils can see the difference their solar panels are making. Specially created Generation Green lesson plans will help teachers engage their pupils in learning about renewable energy, and schools will be able to track their performance against others and share tips and advice via a specially designed website.

All schools in the UK can register for an application form at http://www.generationgreen.co.uk/. British Gas has already earmarked half of the total investment to ensure that schools in low income areas benefit from the initiative, and intends to deliver the technology to these schools in conjunction with the Government's Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP).

Phil Bentley, Managing Director, British Gas, said: "This is the biggest investment of its kind in solar technology for our nation's schools, which will help them cut both their carbon emissions and their electricity bills - as well as learn about renewable energy in a hands-on way.

"The electricity generated by these schools will help pay for the scheme to be extended to even more schools throughout the country, which is great news for school leaders, parents and pupils who are all looking for ways to save money during these tough economic times."

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: "This is a very generous offer and I'm sure many schools will feel they can benefit from solar panels. Cutting down on energy costs and reducing carbon emissions are absolutely the right thing to do. It's a valuable lesson for pupils that we can all help to use energy sparingly, and where possible, generate it from sustainable or renewable resources."

Based on a formula created by the University of Bath's Centre for Research in Education and the Environment to measure the impact that teachers can have beyond the classroom, up to 1.8 million parents and family members could learn about renewable energy as a result of the initiative.

Source - British Gas

Obama announces $2billion of Government solar funding

2010-07-05T11:33:00.000+01:00

US president Barack Obama used his Independence Day holiday address to announce nearly $2billion worth of funding for the solar industry.

The funding from, the Department of Energy's Recovery Act, will go to two solar companies.

The furst, Abengoa Solar, has agreed to build, what Mr Obama says will be 'one of the largest' solar plants in the world in Arizona, which will also create about 1,600 construction jobs.

Once completed, the Arizona plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the US to actually store the energy it generates for later use - even at night, and it will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes.

The second firm Abound Solar Manufacturing is building two new plants, one in
Colorado and a second in Indiana - in what's currently an empty Chrysler factory.

When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year.

Mr Obama said: "After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it's good news that we've attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America.

"I've seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy.

"So that's some of what we're doing, but the truth is, steps like these won't replace all the jobs we've lost overnight.

"I know folks are struggling. I know this Fourth of July weekend finds many Americans wishing things were a bit easier right now. I do too."

Source - Edie

Solar power could create fuel for cars

2010-07-05T11:31:00.000+01:00

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could soon be used to create fuel to drive the word's cars and trucks, a U.S. researcher says.

Solar-powered technology could be used to "photosynthesize" hydrocarbon fuels that present-day vehicles could run on without major modifications, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

Solar reactors can take carbon dioxide and turn it into carbon monoxide and can also turn water into hydrogen
and oxygen.

The results can react with a catalyst to form hydrocarbon fuels, in a technique known as the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Tests have been conducted with solar reactors in New Mexico and Zurich, Switzerland.

Using solar energy to create usable fuel is a possible way to satisfy the world's energy demands while minimizing carbon emissions, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution told Britain's New Scientist magazine.

"This area holds out the promise for technologies that can produce large amounts of carbon-neutral power at affordable prices, which can be used where and when that power is needed," he said.

Source - Solar Daily

A Sunny Legacy In Africa

2010-07-05T11:29:00.000+01:00

Yingli Green Energy
Holding Company Limited has announced that it will provide its expertise in solar energy to power "20 Centres for 2010", the official campaign of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

This campaign is part of the Football for Hope movement, which is using the power of the game for positive social change. It is led by FIFA, world's football governing body, and streetfootballworld, a social profit organisation that links relevant actors in the field of development through football, and their affiliates such as Yingli Green Energy.

Yingli Green Energy will actively support the campaign by providing solar power to training centres across Africa. Yingli Solar calls this "Football for Hope. Energy for Hope."

The company will supply the centres with solar installations that will, for instance, power pitch lighting, computers or study rooms in those centres. Of the 20 centres, five are being built in South Africa and 15 in other African countries. The first six centres to be built are located in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Mali, Namibia and Ghana.

"The FIFA World Cup offers an ideal opportunity for Yingli Solar to be involved with Football for Hope and to support the '20 Centres for 2010' project with highly desired solar power," Liansheng Miao, chairman and chief executive officer of Yingli Green Energy, commented.

"Social responsibility is an important pillar of Yingli Green Energy's core values. We are engaged in a variety of community-focused projects around the world - aiming to make solar power a sustainable and cost-effective energy for the world."

Federico Addiechi, FIFA's Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, said: "We are extremely pleased that Yingli Solar is not only a sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but also a strong supporter of the Football for Hope movement and, in particular, of '20 Centres for 2010' by offering its expertise in renewable energy. We want to commend Yingli Solar on their commitment to helping us build a better future, which is a fundamental pillar of our organisation. This is truly the beginning of a sunny legacy in Africa."

Source - solar daily

उप्ग्रडिंग

2010-06-29T13:00:00.000+01:00

We are upgrading our servers will be online in a few days time
from echarger

Solar power for Europe from North Africa

2010-05-31T14:57:00.001+01:00

North Africa has the potential to become a significant exporter of electricity to Europe from solar energy projects according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Solar power for Europe from North Africa
Recently, France has launched a new project, TransGreen, to build an underwater network for Electrical transmission cables from North Africa to Europe.

Earlier this year, a German consortium launched the mega-project "Desertec" that plans to use solar power in the Sahara to generate electricity for Europe.

Is the TransGreen Project a Competitive or a complementary project to Desertec?  

The TransGreen project has been introduced at the May 25 Cairo meeting of energy ministers from the 43 countries. Participants discussed the formation of a consortium to install electrical lines connecting Europe to North of Africa.

The project TransGreen, aims to bring together power companies, network operators and high-tension equipment makers under the leadership of French energy giant EDF. The German industrial and engineering group Siemens, which is already part of Desertec, may also join TransGreen.

Currently, only a dual AC line with a capacity of 1,400 megawatts across the Mediterranean, under the Strait of Gibraltar between Morocco and Spain.

At the end of May, the Transgreen consortium plans to launch the first phase, a €5 million study phase before the building of the actual lines. Many companies have already agreed to contribute to this first step.

In addition to this financial advantage, the Transgreen project offers obviously a nice reference for similar future projects in China and India, which has undoubtedly been at least as convincing for Siemens, ABB, Alstom/Areva, Nexans, Prysmian, Cap Gemini or Atos Origin.

Solar energy could supply up to a quarter of the world’s electricity by 2050. Solar plants would harvest sunlight from fields of reflectors to boil water and drive steam turbines. The region’s “high solar resource largely compensates for the additional cost of long transmission lines” beneath the Mediterranean Sea. 

Desertec aims to deliver 15 per cent of Europe’s power requirements by 2050 as the EU seeks to reduce its carbon emissions, in part by reducing consumption of electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. The MENA-region countries hoping to export power to Europe include Mediterranean nations such as Morocco and Algeria, Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia.

The Sahara, in North Africa, has the biggest Uninhabited Areas in the World, particularly well exposed to the Sun, which could boost Economies of Scale for a Big Solar Energy Production Network linked to the EU from Spain (via Gibraltar), up to Greece (via Crete) and Cyprus, as well as Italy (via Malta and Sicilia), France (via Sardaigne and Corsica), etc.

From the outset, the TransGreen project, sponsored by France, looks like a competitor to Desertec, a project initiated by German companies. However, The French group Saint-Gobain is actually part of the project Desertec, Siemens, the giant German electrical, engineering and electronics company is said to be joining the TransGreen consortium. Instead, one project (TransGreen) will deliver to Europe, part of the energy generated by the other (Desertec) project.

Source - IEA

Panasonic aims to be Japan No. 1 in solar business

2010-05-31T14:45:00.000+01:00

TOKYO — Panasonic Corp. is banking on the solar-panel business that it gained by acquiring domestic rival Sanyo, aiming for top market share of at least 35 percent in Japan by 2012.

New solar generation products, being offered in Japan starting next month, combine Sanyo Electric Co.'s solar technology with Panasonic's sales networks in appliances and housing, said Panasonic Executive Vice President Toshihiro Sakamoto.

Panasonic will be able to provide overall energy-saving systems for homes that will include rechargeable batteries, heating and air conditioning, security systems and Net-linking gadgets besides solar panels, which will all be hooked up to each other, he said.

Homes will be able to save on utility costs by selling surplus power from solar power generation systems, and using water heaters at night when utility rates are cheaper, he said.

"You will be living with virtually zero carbon-dioxide emissions through creating, saving, storing and managing energy," Sakamoto said in Tokyo.

Panasonic took over Sanyo in December and gained its solar-panel business as well as other businesses such as home appliances and batteries.

Although overlap in consumer electronics in the two companies is being eliminated, Panasonic has much to gain from Sanyo's technological prowess in solar panels and lithium-ion batteries, which are expected to be in stronger demand as the popularity of green vehicles grows.

The Osaka-based maker of Viera plasma panel TVs, has made being environmentally-friendly a major theme in its growth strategy, hoping to become "the No. 1 green innovation company in the electronics industry" by 2018.

Source - The Associated Press

SunEdison venture could lead to $1.5 billion in solar energy projects

2010-05-31T14:40:00.000+01:00

SunEdison, a Beltsville firm that develops solar energy plants around the world, is teaming with one of the industry's largest private-equity companies in a joint venture that could generate up to $1.5 billion in new projects.

The deal with First Reserve comes as the price of manufacturing photovoltaic cells has dropped sharply in the past 18 months, making new projects much more affordable. At the same time, a growing number of governments around the world are requiring utilities to generate more power from renewable sources -- helping to kick up demand for solar.

Rhone Resch, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said the deal could be a harbinger of what's to come in the industry.

"The biggest challenge we have faced in recent years is project financing," Resch said. "This starts to free up capital and allow the industry to begin to scale up."

With 350 projects built or underway, SunEdison is already one of the world's largest developers of solar energy projects. The company has a healthy backlog of plants going through the permitting process and waiting for funding.

SunEdison specializes in developing projects in areas near existing portions of the electrical grid in order to avoid large transmission costs. Its plants range from big, utility-scale operations to smaller rooftop systems feeding power to everything from Kohl's retail stores to Montgomery County school buildings. Any excess is typically sold back to utilities.

SunEdison employs about 100 people at its Beltsville offices. Last November, the company was bought by MEMC, a St. Peters, Mo.,-based manufacturer that sells silicon wafers to the semiconductor and solar industries.

"Our model has not changed," said SunEdison President Carlos Domenech. The joint venture "serves as an accelerator."
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SunEdison and First Reserve have agreed to put $167 million into their new venture, which they say should be enough to attract additional debt financing to fund as much as $825 million in new projects. First Reserve may raise an additional $150 million of equity, which can be leveraged to bring the total amount of projects funded to $1.5 billion, the companies said.

"We're looking for a way to invest in solar projects and a way to do it on an economical scale," said Mark Florian, managing director of First Reserve Energy Infrastructure.

First Reserve has $20 billion under management and invests exclusively in energy projects. It has offices in Houston, London and Greenwich, Conn.

Demand for solar power is projected to grow. At least 24 states have adopted rules requiring utilities to generate power from renewable sources, and federal climate legislation contemplates a national standard. Maryland and D.C. have adopted portfolio standards, as they are known, and Virginia has established nonbinding goals, according to an Energy Department summary.

In addition, the federal government has adopted tax credits, grants and loan guarantee programs to create incentives for new solar projects.

The cost of manufacturing solar cells has fallen 40 percent in less than two years, which many attribute in part to a decision by several countries to curb incentives. Spain, in particular, moved to cap the size of its market, shrinking the opportunities there by roughly 75 percent, Resch said. Many manufacturers that ramped up production in anticipation of new orders suddenly found themselves with a glut of supply.

Source - Washington Post

Taipower to Build Taiwan’s Biggest Solar Power Plant (Update1)

2010-05-26T15:46:00.000+01:00

May 26 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Power Co. plans to build the island’s biggest solar power station in the southern county of Tainan as the government aims to reduce carbon emissions.

The proposed 5-megawatt plant will surpass a 4.6-megawatt facility being constructed in the neighboring Kaohsiung County, Tu Yueh-yuan, chief engineer of Taiwan’s biggest electricity producer, said by telephone in Taipei today. One megawatt is enough to power 800 U.S. homes.

State-run Taiwan Power, known as Taipower, is building solar stations and wind turbines as the government aims to have renewable energy account for 15 percent of the island’s electricity generation capacity by 2025 to help cut carbon emissions. The industrialized island releases about three times more heat-trapping gases per person than the world average, Bloomberg data show.

“Budget for it won’t be a problem” as the company plans to boost solar power capacity, Tu said. Details of the project, including costs, aren’t yet available, she said.

The utility is negotiating with state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp., which owns the land for the proposed site, Tu said. Taipower plans to build another solar power station, with installed capacity of 4 megawatts, on Taiwan Sugar-owned land in Tainan, She said.

Energy Sources

Renewable source, including solar energy and wind turbines, accounted for 5.7 percent of Taiwan’s installed capacity as of April, according to Taipower’s website.

Taiwan’s government set minimum wholesale prices in December for electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines at levels higher than for power from fossil fuels to spur renewable energy production.

Lawmakers approved the Renewable Energy Development Act in June, designed to help cut carbon emissions and reduce the island’s dependence on imports, according to the Bureau of Energy. Taiwan relies on overseas shipments for about 99 percent of its energy needs.

The 60-megawatt Olmedilla plant in Spain is the world’s biggest photovoltaic power station, according to pvresources.com, a website on solar technologies and applications.

The government owns 97 percent of Taiwan Power, which generates about 75 percent of the electricity the island uses.

Source - Business week

Okotoks solar community sets world record

2010-05-26T15:43:00.000+01:00

Okotoks’ solar community has set a world record in energy production after becoming the first to provide 80 per cent of space heating from the sun.

Drake Landing, a solar community of 52 homes, is well on its way to achieving a goal of 90 per cent space heating over five years after reaching 80 per cent in only three.

“I’m fiercely proud of what we set out to do and the fact that it’s working validates the ideas that went in to the beginning of it,” said town councillor Ed Sands.

When the community first opened in September 2007 homeowner Robert Pugh was the second resident to move in.

“The house itself has totally lived up to my expectations. There’s no disappointments, no regrets, so it’s been a great decision,” he said.

Okotoks may have the first solar community of this kind but general director for Natural Resources Canada Gilles Jean said it won’t be the last.

“I think it’s quite clear that we’re not on a sustainable path the way we produce and use energy, so solar energy is going to be a huge contribution,” he said.

Source - Metro News

Green property: solar thermal systems

2010-05-26T15:38:00.001+01:00

Tony Dunn had solar water heating panels installed on the roof of his home in 2006 at a cost of £7,125. “When the installer’s salesman pitched to us, he promised wildly optimistic savings,” says Tony, who lives near Braintree in rural Essex. “I knew his figures were unrealistic, and told him so, but the money wasn’t important to us; our main reason for installing the panels was to be less reliant on fossil fuels for our energy needs.”

Although the Dunns did not expect enormous savings, they did expect to save slightly more than the £2 over three years that their solar thermal system has actually delivered.

Their story highlights findings from the consumer organisation Which? that the majority of solar thermal companies exaggerate the potential savings of installing these systems. Last year the Office of Fair Trading received more than 1,000 complaints about the solar panel industry. With a Government target of 800,000 such installations by 2020, consumers need to be able to trust this potentially vital technology.

So how did Tony Dunn’s system end up giving him such poor return on his investment? The installer, Smart Energy, now bust, sent one hard-pressed workman to install the system over one day. “He worked for nearly 12 hours in hot, cramped conditions in our roof,” says Tony, who runs a holiday cottage on his two-acre property. “I asked him to spread the work over two days but he made it clear his orders were to finish the job in one day so he could be free to do another one the next. But it’s evident now that corners were cut and the workmanship was not of a good enough standard.”

Shortly after the 12-month guarantee period expired, a thermocouple developed a fault, pumping cold water into the shower, then last July, Smart Energy went into administration and at about the same time some of the water pipes in the roof started to leak. A firm recommended by the administrator sent out an engineer who serviced the system and fixed the leak, for which they charged £250.

“The savings from the panels amount to 8kW per day for seven months a year, which makes £84 per year. After three years that means we have saved £252 off our heating bills,” Tony says. “If you subtract the service charge that means we have saved £2 on our £7,125 investment. Not great, is it?”

The Which? investigation found that 10 out of 14 solar installers exaggerated the savings home owners could make and not one of the companies tested warned potential clients about the technical challenges involved in installing a solar system.

“Complex plumbing and electrical work is required for these systems, plus it’s all in the roof, a vital part of any house,” Tony says. “We now have stains on our bathroom ceiling because of the leak. You’ve got to have a well-regulated system with well-trained and accountable technicians, otherwise people are going to turn their backs on renewable technologies,” he adds.

Cathy Debenham, of renewable energy users website YouGen, says: “I’m a great fan of solar thermal. We turned off our boiler last week and are showering solely in solar heated water. But both my father and uncle have been on the receiving end of pushy solar salesmen, who over-quote, offer discounts if you sign up today and claim too much for the product.”

In a statement the industry body said: “The Solar Trade Association (STA) takes the issues highlighted by Which? seriously. The solar industry is growing exponentially and as a new industry it is not immune from 'rogue traders’. We will do everything within our power to eradicate such companies.”

STA board member Peter Creasey added that if home owners are to take advantage of the financial incentives of the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive, which comes into force next April, they must use installers accredited through the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).

HOW TO SOLAR ON

* www.yougen.co.uk

* www.which.co.uk/solar

* www.microgenerationcertification.org

* www.solar-trade.org

Source - The Telegraph

The global popularity of solar panels

2010-05-26T15:36:00.000+01:00

PV solar panels are expected to provide almost a quarter of the globes electricity supplies by 2050, according to a report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA). With the right policies in place, the IEA says that Photovoltaic solar panels on domestic and commercial buildings could compete with fossil fuel electricity supplies by 2020. By 2030 the IEA anticipate pv solar panels will provide about five percent of global electricity.

In April this year, the UK Government introduced the Feed in Tariffs Scheme (FITs) to stimulate growth in the UK PV solar panel market. The scheme promises cash rewards to homeowners, businesses and communities who install solar technologies, and the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme which begins next April, promises to pay householders to a guaranteed income from installing solar heating panels too.

11% of total supplies are predicted to come from solar panels on homes and offices while a further 11 percent will be provided by central solar power stations feeding clean electricity to populous areas.

Stuart Lovatt from Heat my Home believes that solar power is a viable combination with fossil fuels.

“Realistically, I think solar power has quite a bright future. I’ve seen predictions before and they are becoming more and more bullish as the technology develops. Countries like Germany, Spain and Belgium have embraced PV solar panels and are already reaping the rewards, but solar panels perform very well in the British climate too so there’s no reason why UK home-owners shouldn’t benefits of solar”.

“Solar power’s time is starting to come, and we are seeing the begins of a new solar powered century”, Lovatt adds.

Whilst the benefits of solar Photovoltaic s are well documented, the opportunity extends far beyond the market for household systems.

The FITs also provide opportunities for integrating PV into buildings, as a way for building owners to generate their own power, utility companies to meet their ‘Renewable Obligation’, and for not-for-profit organisations to help cut fuel poverty. However, to boost solar PV in the UK it’s essential to create new ‘green’ jobs along the supply chain and build the infrastructure to support the growing low carbon economy.

The UK’s solar industry is still in it’s infancy, but with these new incentives and rewards in place, the growth of the solar industry is expected to sharply rise and give our country a fighting chance not only with global trade in green technologies but also with environmental issue’s.

Source - Heatmyhome

Solar Industry Poised To Create 200,000 Jobs With Key Tax Policies

2010-05-26T15:31:00.000+01:00

The Solar Energy Industries Association, joined by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and industry leaders, has released an independent study projecting the positive economic impact of the Deparent of Treasury Grant Program and the Solar Manufacturing Invesent Tax Credit.

The study found that extending the TGP by two years and including solar manufacturing in the industry's existing tax credit would add 200,000 new domestic jobs to the solar workforce and supporting industries in the U.S. Additionally, it would result in 10 gigawatts (GW) of new solar installations by 2016 - enough to power 2 million homes.

"Extension of the Treasury Grant program is essential to continuing our nascent economic recovery and moving to a cleaner, more distributed 21st Century energy system," said Senator Cantwell. "Tens of thousands of jobs hinge on continuing this successful program, including thousands of new solar jobs in Washington State in the next two years."

"Unemployment across the country remains near 10 percent, while the construction industry is suffering at nearly 22 percent unemployment," said Rhone Resch, President and CEO of SEIA.

"But last year, the solar industry was one of the bright spots in our economy with the creation of 17,000 new jobs."

New solar jobs by State include: California (60,000); Michigan (24,000); Ohio, Oregon and Texas (13,000+ each); Arizona, Colorado, and Florida (10,000 each); Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington (about 5,000 each); Nevada, New Jersey, and Tennessee (3,000+ each); and Connecticut and Hawaii (1,500+ each).

New solar installations through 2016 by State include: California over 4,400 MW; Arizona over 1,400 MW; Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, and New Jersey 300 MW each; and Hawaii, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas 100+ MW each. Every 100 MW can power 25,000 average American homes.

"We need to support these workers with stable, common-sense policies like an extension of the Treasury Grant Program that provides new opportunity for American workers while saving the taxpayer money," added Resch.

Source - Solar Daily

Solar Power Manufacturing Makes Good Business Sense For Governments

2010-05-26T15:30:00.000+01:00

Canadian and provincial governments could spend $2.4 billion to build a large scale solar photovoltaic manufacturing plant and then give it away for free and still earn a profit in the long run, according to a financial analysis conducted by the Queen's University Applied Sustainability Research Group in Kingston, Canada.

Queen's University Mechanical Engineering Professor Joshua Pearce conducted the study - to be published in the August edition of the academic journal Energy Policy - to find out if it makes economic sense for governments to support solar cell manufacturing in Canada.

He was surprised to discover the answer is an overwhelming yes even in extreme situations and feels governments should be aggressively supporting this industry to take advantage of the financial opportunity.

"This study uses hard financial numbers. Everything we did is transparent and all our equations are in the study," says Professor Pearce. "The benefits of encouraging solar manufacturing in Canada are clear and massively outweigh the costs."

The report looked at six different scenarios: everything from building a plant and giving it away or selling it to more traditional and less costly loan guarantees or tax holidays for a private sector company to construct the plant.

In all the scenarios, both federal and provincial governments enjoyed positive cash flows in less than 12 years and in many of the scenarios both governments earned well over an eight per cent return on investments ranging from hundreds of millions to $2.4 billion.

The revenues for the governments of nearly $500 million a year, were determined from taxation (personal, corporate and sales), sales of panels, and saved health, environmental and economic costs associated with offsetting coal-fired electricity.

Queen's started the study last summer, before the Ontario government announced a $7-billion power production and manufacturing deal with Samsung in January. Some criticized the deal but Professor Pearce says Canadians are the winners.

"Canada will really make out if Samsung comes through with what they said they are going to do. We gave them a little bit of incentive and Samsung will give us a lot of jobs, less pollution, and a long term substantial source of revenue. We are absolutely winning on this deal - there is no question," Professor Pearce says.

"The market is much larger than the Samsung deal. The question now is how to bring even more photovoltaic manufacturers to the province."

The Energy Policy report, co-authored by Queen's student Kadra Branker, studied the financial impact in Ontario but Professor Pearce says the numbers can apply to all provinces in Canada.

Source - Solar Daily

Google blows $39m into wind power

2010-05-05T10:03:00.002+01:00

Google has added another string to its bow: wind farms

The internet search giant, which has expanded into mobile phones and maps of world, the ocean and the stars, has invested $39m (£25.6m) in two North Dakota wind farms.

It is Google's first direct investment in a large-scale green energy project. The company said the windfarms, developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will generate enough electricity to power 55,000 homes.

The move is a shift in strategy for Google, which previously sought to invest in renewable energy via start-ups.

Rick Needham, Google's green business operations manager, said: "To reach a clean energy future, we need three things: effective policy, innovative technology and smart capital. Through our philanthropic arm Google.org, we've been pushing for energy policies that strengthen the innovation pipeline, and we've been dedicating resources to developing new technologies, including making investments in early-stage renewable energy companies such as eSolar and AltaRock."

He said bigger projects such as the windfarms will help "accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects".

Google is one of the world's largest users of electricity via its data centres, which house millions of servers.

Earlier this year Google began trials of its own high speed fibre broadband network in the US.

Source - Telegraph

Solar Paint – a dream?

2010-05-05T09:49:00.000+01:00

NextGen is a start up company which is developing new product in the solar industry field which could become a a small revolution in the solar industry.

NextGen Solar has announced that it has raised half of the $1 million it needs to bring its “solar paint” to customers.

The NextGen solar paint is a liquid material that forms webs of nanoscale solar cells when it dries and it can be painted onto practically any surface. Developed by the Argonne National Laboratory, the solar paint beats out thin-film PV cells in efficiency because it captures more wavelengths of light.

The company is working with ambitious clean tech investors, hoping to get the prototype out of the lab and onto roofs, windows and walls soon. A commerical breakthrough of this type of clean energy technology – one that is cheap and efficient enough to go up against coal – could make a big impact.

NextGen is claiming the efficiency for at least 25%, and possibly as much as 40% at a third of the cost.

Source - EcoGeek

German solar energy real estate investments being offered in UK

2010-05-05T09:41:00.000+01:00

There is an increase in interest among property investors for German solar energy investments as a feed-in tariff cut approaches, it is claimed.

Germany is one of the world leaders in solar energy but a cut off up to 16% is expected for most solar photovoltaic installations from 1st July 2010, significantly reducing the incentive for investment.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) panel manufacturers have been inundated with orders not only from domestic homeowners but also from businesses and investment groups with larger roof spaces and qualified installers have been working around the clock to fit the panels in time.

‘With the 1st July deadline fast approaching we are sourcing additional roof space in order to meet the serious demand for solar energy investments in Germany. Investors know that plugging in by this date will maximise their returns over the next 20 years,’ explained Steven Worboys, managing director of Experience International who is marketing solar energy investments in Germany in the UK for the first time.

Feed-in tariffs (FIT) was first introduced into Germany in 1990 and required utilities to connect renewable energy generators to the grid and buy the electricity produced at a rate of 65 to 90% of the average tariff charged per unit to end-users. The model has been so successful in supporting the development of the renewable energy industry that is has been replicated all over the world, including the UK.

However, some 20 years later, the German government has decided that the feed-in tariff, currently at 32 to 43 eurocents/kWh, is over-subsidizing the renewable energy industry and costing the consumer too much so the FIT rate is to be reduced. The fall of up to a third in the production of solar panels and growth in cheaper imports, especially from China, has also influenced the decision.

By their very design FITs are intended to reduce over time and the cut is not unexpected, even if the double-digit nature is deemed somewhat severe by some. ‘The feed-in tariff has been integral in turning Germany into the largest and most successful solar energy producer in the world. It has installed 9 GW of PV capacity with government targets for 66 GW by 2030. The industry has a turnover of some €1.7 billion per annum, employs 20,000 people and analysts predict that solar energy can provide 25% of the nation’s electricity by 2050, said Warboys.

With such marked progress to date and new government targets for renewable energy production being made, the imminent cut in FITs is certainly not the end of Germany’s solar success story, he believes. ‘There remains a window of opportunity for investors to see returns of €21,501 net income in year one and 17% net ROI for years one to 20. Investment is from €50,000 and 90% non-recourse finance is available,’ he added.

Source - Property Wire

Dutch SolarNow program wins EU award for renewable energy

2010-05-05T09:34:00.002+01:00

Today the Dutch Rural Energy Foundation received the prestigious EU Sustainable Energy Award 2010 for its SolarNow program from EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger.

Rural Energy Foundation facilitated during the past three years access to solar energy to 330.000 off-grid Africans. Access to energy is an important condition for development. People save a considerable amount of oil, batteries and candles, while their productivity increases and children can do homework after sunset.

The foundation is praised because of the high cost-effectiveness and sustainability of its approach. The costs related to providing access to solar energy to an off-grid African are only EUR 4.

Most rural households in Africa largely depend on kerosene lamps. Besides poor quality of light, this is expensive and polluting. Most people have not heard of solar energy; there are hardly any shops selling and servicing solar home systems in rural areas.

The SolarNow program supports local entrepreneurs to start a business in solar energy household solutions. The program thus far supported 200 entrepreneurs in nine sub-Saharan African countries.

In addition, the program organizes awareness campaigns to promote the use of solar energy. Finally, as many households do not have the cash available to meet the upfront investment, SolarNow facilitates access to end-user credit schemes.

Director Willem Nolens reacts enthusiastically: "Great that the EU recognizes that small-scale renewable energy solutions in Africa are more efficient than large-scale infrastructural energy projects.

Africa faces an attractive opportunity to leapfrog the carbon-intensive development path that industrialized countries followed". The Foundation receives financial support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Source - Rural Energy

Half Of Moroccan Territory To Be Powered By Solar Energy

2010-05-05T09:27:00.000+01:00

This makes perfect sense given the fact that the North African Kingdom receives more than three thousand hours of dependable sunshine on a yearly basis. Nine centuries of unremitting sunlight have drenched this Kingdom of Morocco with all of its ancient charm and intrigue.

Morocco has plans to invest nine billion dollars in advance to construct two gigawatts of solar power, dispersed between five solar power facilities within ten years.

Two Gigawatts or [Two Thousand Megawatts] is plenty to provide for forty percent of the country’s electricity requirements for thirty two million inhabitants, who by the sounds of it, utilize very little energy in general. For instance, in California in 2008, they needed to add three thousand megawatts of power – primarily in the form of wind energy production. Nevertheless, it was supplying but a small fraction of the states actual energy requirement.

In Morocco, their five solar power facilities will be constructed successively, the initial plant slated for construction beginning in 2015. It will start saving Moroccans money straight away since it will reduce the need for foreign fossil fuel imports from adjacent oil producing nations.

It is inspirational to see the country’s politicians get behind the solar power initiative stating how they desire to see a “green footprint in the sands of time” and even more astounding was the ability to garner the majority of ballots in the Kingdom’s parliament that will give it the necessary push to get it off the ground.

No Right Wing Media Pundits Here!

The Moroccan Minister of Finance has said that the solar project will be an obviously significant point regarding the vital requirement of government to step up to the climate change question and he says this is simply their initial effort as a country. He adds that Morocco is placing a priority on environmental safeguards in every foreseeable project.

The Moroccan Minister of Energy also is staunchly behind the solar power progress. She emphasized that though it is a formidable plan it is a realistic endeavor and that guarantees are in place for all financial and technological resources for the project to be a winning venture.

The government of Morocco is putting into place all of the necessary financial resources as it collaborates with the World Bank, the European Commission as well as Desertec to realize their vision of a future with lean solar energy at the forefront.

One can only wish that our own western governments – specifically North American – could be so simply persuaded to leave their own green footprints in the sands of time. Domestic reliance on fossil fuel is so great that making any significant inroads toward a renewable energy future is more of a transparent gesture at this time than a determined energy policy promoting green renewable energy advances.

Granted, countries such as Morocco have less of a power commitment than most western democracies do and they have their predictable climate going for them. However, until political will is transformed across the aisle, green energy initiatives will continue to be patronizing at best.

Source - Renewable Power News

Frogs, Foam and Fuel: Solar Energy Converted to Sugars

2010-05-05T09:26:00.001+01:00

For decades, farmers have been trying to find ways to get more energy out of the sun. In natural photosynthesis, plants take in solar energy and carbon dioxide and then convert it to oxygen and sugars. The oxygen is released to the air and the sugars are dispersed throughout the plant -- like that sweet corn we look for in the summer. Unfortunately, the allocation of light energy into products we use is not as efficient as we would like. Now engineering researchers at the University of Cincinnati are doing something about that.

The researchers are finding ways to take energy from the sun and carbon from the air to create new forms of biofuels, thanks to a semi-tropical frog species. Their results have just been published online in Nano Letters.

Research Assistant Professor David Wendell, student Jacob Todd and College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Carlo Montemagno co-authored the paper, based on research in Montemagno's lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Their work focused on making a new artificial photosynthetic material which uses plant, bacterial, frog and fungal enzymes, trapped within a foam housing, to produce sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide.

Foam was chosen because it can effectively concentrate the reactants but allow very good light and air penetration. The design was based on the foam nests of a semi-tropical frog called the Tungara frog, which creates very long-lived foams for its developing tadpoles.

"The advantage for our system compared to plants and algae is that all of the captured solar energy is converted to sugars, whereas these organisms must divert a great deal of energy to other functions to maintain life and reproduce," says Wendell. "Our foam also uses no soil, so food production would not be interrupted, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments, like the exhaust from coal-burning power plants, unlike many natural photosynthetic systems."

He adds, "In natural plant systems, too much carbon dioxide shuts down photosynthesis, but ours does not have this limitation due to the bacterial-based photo-capture strategy."

There are many benefits to being able to create a plant-like foam.

"You can convert the sugars into many different things, including ethanol and other biofuels," Wendell explains. "And it removes carbon dioxide from the air, but maintains current arable land for food production."

"This new technology establishes an economical way of harnessing the physiology of living systems by creating a new generation of functional materials that intrinsically incorporates life processes into its structure," says Dean Montemagno. "Specifically in this work it presents a new pathway of harvesting solar energy to produce either oil or food with efficiencies that exceed other biosolar production methodologies. More broadly it establishes a mechanism for incorporating the functionality found in living systems into systems that we engineer and build."

The next step for the team will be to try to make the technology feasible for large-scale applications like carbon capture at coal-burning power plants.

"This involves developing a strategy to extract both the lipid shell of the algae (used for biodiesel) and the cytoplasmic contents (the guts), and reusing these proteins in the foam," says Wendell. "We are also looking into other short carbon molecules we can make by altering the enzyme cocktail in the foam."

Montemagno adds, "It is a significant step in delivering the promise of nanotechnology."

Source - Science Daily

First look: Architect creates 'Solar City Tower' for Rio's Olympic Games

2010-05-05T09:24:00.000+01:00

Swiss architect Rafael Schmidt, of Zurich-based practice rafaa, has entered a breathtaking structure into the International Architecture Competition for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which he hopes could help turn the city into a symbol of eco-sustainability.

Consisting of a skyhigh, artificial waterfall structure built around a solar plant, the Solar City Tower is designed to greet visitors to the city, "whether they arrive by air or sea."

With a dominant position on Cotonduba Island, the energy-producing building could grow into an icon for green living and put Brazil, which has announced plans to cut down on carbon emissions and deforestation in the past, at the forefront of the development.

The structure would rely on solar energy from its massive panels to provide energy to the city and the Olympic village during the day, with excessive energy being pumped as seawater into the tower. At night, this 'left-over' energy could be released again and, with the help of turbines, generate electricity to illuminate Rio.

"After hosting the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992, Rio de Janeiro will once again be the starting point for a global green movement and for a sustainable development of urban structures," Schmidt said. "It will perhaps even become a symbol for the first zero carbon footprint Olympic Games."

If approved by the jury, the building would also host viewing platforms, a cafeteria, shopping facilities, and even a deck for bungee jumping.

It is the first project to emerge as candidate for the official architectural structure to mark Rio's hosting of the Olympic Games. According to the organizers, building work on the winning proposal is planned to begin this year, even though no official schedule has yet been announced.

For more information, visit http://www.rio2016.org

Source - Independent

Future of solar energy looks bright

2010-05-05T09:22:00.000+01:00

Professor of Engineering Angus Rockett spoke about the positives and negatives of solar energy during his speech titled “Photovoltaics as Part of a Renewable Energy Economy” Monday at 4 p.m. in the ACES library.

While it’s still an evolving technology, solar energy can already be found in a few places on campus.

The Gable Home, 1900 S. First Street, Champaign, was created by the 2009 Solar Decathlon team and won second place in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. The house has 40 solar panels on it.

The house runs almost completely on solar energy, said Patrick Chapman, one of the team’s advisors and professor of electrical and computer engineering. “On average, we generate more power than we use,” he said.

A unique aspect of the house’s technology is that it converts the solar energy directly to electricity, instead of being converted to heat.

Other buildings powered by solar energy include the Business Instructional Facility, which uses solar cells on its roof.

Also, there is a single solar cell module outside Grainger Library. Rockett said solar energy is an expanding industry.

“The industry has been growing about 40 percent a year in recent years,” he said.

While solar cells are expensive right now, they are becoming more affordable.

“Prices are coming down. Prices are low enough now that it make sense for consumers to invest,” Rockett said.

Chapman said this price decrease should make solar energy a more viable option.

“I think that, just in general, as solar energy becomes cheaper, it will become more attractive,” Chapman said.

At 10 percent efficiency, solar energy is more efficient than other renewable sources of energy, including wind energy, Rockett said.

Another benefit is people do not have to go through the power grid because solar cells can be installed on their roofs, he added.

However, rare elements involved in making solar cells make solar energy problematic due to lack of sources, Rockett said.

Also, storage systems are needed in order to preserve the energy.

Curtis Manahan, graduate student, said he found the lecture interesting but did not think the University should install more solar cells.

“I think it (solar energy) has great possibility for growth and widespread use,” he said. “With the current amount of money they’re making, I don’t think it’s worth it to currently invest in it,” he said.

Source - Daily illini

Purple Pokeberries Hold Secret To Affordable Solar Power Worldwide

2010-05-05T09:17:00.000+01:00

Pokeberries - the weeds that children smash to stain their cheeks purple-red and that Civil War soldiers used to write letters home - could be the key to spreading solar power across the globe, according to researchers at Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials.

Nanotech Center scientists have used the red dye made from pokeberries to coat their efficient and inexpensive fiber-based solar cells. The dye acts as an absorber, helping the cell's tiny fibers trap more sunlight to convert into power.

Pokeberries proliferate even during drought and in rocky, infertile soil. That means residents of rural Africa, for instance, could raise the plants for pennies. Then they could make the dye absorber for the extremely efficient fiber cells and provide energy where power lines don't run, said David Carroll, Ph.D., the center's director.

"They're weeds," Carroll said. "They grow on every continent but Antarctica."

Wake Forest University holds the first patent for fiber-based photovoltaic, or solar, cells, granted by the European Patent Office in November. A spinoff company called FiberCell Inc. has received the license to develop manufacturing methods for the new solar cell.

The fiber cells can produce as much as twice the power that current flat-cell technology can produce. That's because they are composed of millions of tiny, plastic "cans" that trap light until most of it is absorbed. Since the fibers create much more surface area, the fiber solar cells can collect light at any angle - from the time the sun rises until it sets.

To make the cells, the plastic fibers are stamped onto plastic sheets, with the same technology used to attach the tops of soft-drink cans. The absorber - either a polymer or a less-expensive dye - is sprayed on. The plastic makes the cells lightweight and flexible, so a manufacturer could roll them up and ship them cheaply to developing countries - to power a medical clinic, for instance.

Once the primary manufacturer ships the cells, workers at local plants would spray them with the dye and prepare them for installation. Carroll estimates it would cost about $5 million to set up a finishing plant - about $15 million less than it could cost to set up a similar plant for flat cells.

"We could provide the substrate," he said. "If Africa grows the pokeberries, they could take it home.

"It's a low-cost solar cell that can be made to work with local, low-cost agricultural crops like pokeberries and with a means of production that emerging economies can afford."

Source - Solar Daily

Inexpensive Highly Efficient Solar Cells Possible

2010-04-23T10:06:00.001+01:00

Thanks to two technologies developed by Professor Benoît Marsan and his team at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Chemistry Department, the scientific and commercial future of solar cells could be totally transformed. Professor Marsan has come up with solutions for two problems that, for the last twenty years, have been hampering the development of efficient and affordable solar cells.

His findings have been published in two scientific journals, the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and Nature Chemistry.

The untapped potential of solar energy

The Earth receives more solar energy in one hour than the entire planet currently consumes in a year. Unfortunately, despite this enormous potential, solar energy is barely exploited. The electricity produced by conventional solar cells, composed of semiconductor materials like silicon, is 5 or 6 times more expensive than from traditional energy sources, such as fossil fuels or hydropower. Over the years, numerous research teams have attempted to develop a solar cell that would be both efficient in terms of energy and inexpensive to produce.

Dye-sensitized solar cells

One of the most promising solar cells was designed in the early '90s by Professor Michael Graetzel of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Based on the principle of photosynthesis -- the biochemical process by which plants convert light energy into carbohydrate (sugar, their food) -- the Graetzel solar cell is composed of a porous layer of nanoparticles of a white pigment, titanium dioxide, covered with a molecular dye that absorbs sunlight, like the chlorophyll in green leaves. The pigment-coated titanium dioxide is immersed in an electrolyte solution, and a platinum-based catalyst completes the package.

As in a conventional electrochemical cell (such as an alkaline battery), two electrodes (the titanium dioxide anode and the platinum cathode in the Graetzel cell) are placed on either side of a liquid conductor (the electrolyte). Sunlight passes through the cathode and the electrolyte, and then withdraws electrons from the titanium dioxide anode, a semiconductor at the bottom of the cell. These electrons travel through a wire from the anode to the cathode, creating an electrical current. In this way, energy from the sun is converted into electricity.

Most of the materials used to make this cell are low-cost, easy to manufacture and flexible, allowing them to be integrated into a wide variety of objects and materials. In theory, the Graetzel solar cell has tremendous possibilities. Unfortunately, despite the excellence of the concept, this type of cell has two major problems that have prevented its large-scale commercialisation:

* The electrolyte is: a) extremely corrosive, resulting in a lack of durability; b) densely coloured, preventing the efficient passage of light; and c) limits the device photovoltage to 0.7 volts.

* The cathode is covered with platinum, a material that is expensive, non-transparent and rare. Despite numerous attempts, until Professor Marsan's recent contribution, no one had been able to find a satisfactory solution to these problems.

Professor Marsan's solutions

Professor Marsan and his team have been working for several years on the design of an electrochemical solar cell. His work has involved novel technologies, for which he has received numerous patents. In considering the problems of the cell developed by his Swiss colleague, Professor Marsan realized that two of the technologies developed for the electrochemical cell could also be applied to the Graetzel solar cell, specifically:

* For the electrolyte, entirely new molecules have been created in the laboratory whose concentration has been increased through the contribution of Professor Livain Breau, also of the Chemistry Department. The resulting liquid or gel is transparent and non-corrosive and can increase the photovoltage, thus improving the cell's output and stability.

* For the cathode, the platinum can be replaced by cobalt sulphide, which is far less expensive. It is also more efficient, more stable and easier to produce in the laboratory.

Source - Science Daily

Suntech Brings Solar Power To Harrah's Rincon Casino

2010-04-23T10:04:00.000+01:00

Suntech Power Holdings has announced that it has completed a 1 megawatt (MW) solar installation for Harrah's Rincon Casino in Southern California, a top resort-gaming destination. The system will offset nearly a quarter of the Casino's total energy consumption and is part of Harrah's ongoing conservation and sustainability effort.

With over 4,000 Suntech solar panels installed at the Harrah's Rincon site, the system covers over five-and-a-half acres and will provide enough power to run nearly 90% of the 662-room property's HVAC system. The Harrah's Suntech solar installation is expected to provide the Casino with considerable energy cost savings over time.

"Led by the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians in partnership with the California Center for Sustainable Energy, TRANE and San Diego Gas and Electric, the Harrah's Rincon Casino solar plant is a model for California businesses to follow and speaks to the success of the California Solar Initiative program," explained Steven Chan, Chief Strategy Officer of Suntech.

"We're thrilled with the environmental and cost benefits from Harrah's solar installation as well as the education opportunity it provides for visitors to its resort."

Bo Mazzetti, Chairman of the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians, said, "This is an important step forward in energy efficiency. It is just the beginning of what we, as a tribe, look to accomplish as responsible members of our community which is addressing the multiple energy and environmental issues
that currently face all governments."

Source - Solar Daily

Solar projects shine in North Africa

2010-04-23T10:01:00.000+01:00

North Africa is taking a shine to solar power in a big way, with plants slated for Morocco and Tunisia as a German-led consortium pushes ahead with the world's most ambitious solar project in the Sahara Desert.

The $555.3 billion Desertec project is designed to turn the Sahara's endless sunlight into carbon-free electricity that will supply 15 percent of energy-hungry Europe's power and lessen its dependence on natural gas from Russia.

Separately, the Moroccan government hopes to invest $9 billion in a solar energy program over the next decade.

This means big-ticket contracts could be up for grabs from major European, mainly French energy concerns, such as GDF Suez; oil giant Total; Areva, which specializes in building nuclear plants, and St. Gobain which manufactures mirrors and photovoltaic panels.

Paris's Maghreb Confidential online newsletter says the French were lining up to join the program when Moroccan Energy Minister Amina Benkhadra presented her investment program to her French counterpart, Jean-Louis Borloo, March 8-9 in Paris.

The centerpiece of the Moroccan plan is a Franco-Moroccan solar power plant generating 20-40 megawatts and exporting up to 4 MW to France.

That's a relatively modest project. But the Moroccans are hoping that it will lay the groundwork for more ambitious projects that will boost solar power exports to Europe and beyond.

One project being mooted for Morocca's Solar Plan is a 500MW solar power station and at least nine international companies are bidding. They include Nexant of California and Fichtner Solar of Stuttgart, Germany, which has won contracts to design power plants at Ain beni Mather in Morocco, Hassi R'Mei in Algeria and Kuraymat in Egypt.

In neighboring Tunisia, the government unveiled a solar plan in late 2009 that includes some 40 renewable energy projects, such as thermo-solar photovoltaic power plants, with a cost of $2.67 billion.

Desertec is by far the most complex of all the solar projects currently under way. It is still in the planning stage and construction isn't expected to begin for another 2-3 years.

It has big-name partners, such as Deutsche Bank and Siemens, and is still attracting new companies, such as First Solar, a U.S. photovoltaic company that has constructed utility-scale solar plants in the deserts of the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Using a method known as concentrated solar power it would generate inexhaustible and affordable quantities of energy across the Mediterranean -- and even on a global scale if necessary.

One of its big attractions is that it would emit no carbon dioxide, making it the world's biggest green-energy project. If Desertec does get off the ground, it would be the largest green-energy project on the planet.

In theory, a global system of solar thermal power would also eliminate the prospect of resource wars erupting in the years ahead as the planet's natural resources that currently produce energy -- oil, gas, coal, timber and water -- disappear.

The idea for this massive project to harness the sun's energy on a gigantic scale originated with a group of European scientists and politicians called the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation.

The concept of large-scale solar power has been around for some time but was never able to make the breakthrough because of cheap oil.

Desertec's backers believe it will open the door to a new era of environmentally friendly generated power on a massive scale.

That would keep Europe at the forefront of the struggle against climate change and help North African and European economies to expand within the limits of greenhouse gas emissions.

Its critics caution that there are numerous pitfalls, among them the vagaries of North African politics and the perception that European projects like Desertec is just another form of economic plundering by the old colonial powers.

According to Nature magazine, the solar-cell market has been growing by an average by 31 percent a year for the last decade, and enthusiasts predict a 20-25 percent growth rate in the next few years.

Every year, the sun produces 630,000 terawatt hours -- a terawatt equals 1 trillion volts -- of energy in North Africa that is untapped. Europe consumes 4,000 terawatt hours of energy a year. That's only 0.6 percent of the unused energy that falls on the North African desert.

Source - Solar Daily

Finland plans 'massive' renewable energy boost

2010-04-23T09:58:00.000+01:00

Finland's government on Tuesday outlined a plan to massively boost renewable energy production
to meet European Union requirements on slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

"This addition of renewable energy is equivalent in scale to three big nuclear power plants," Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said in comments broadcast by YLE.

"In terms of scale, this is a massive solution," Vanhanen said after a ministerial working group on climate and energy policy agreed on the proposal.

Finland's energy mix currently includes nuclear power, and the government is due to decide this month on how many new nuclear reactor permits to allow.

Three utilities have made requests for permits, and the decision will need parliamentary approval.

To meet an EU requirement for raising the share of renewables to 38 percent of energy consumption by 2020, Finland must increase energy production based on renewables by 38 terawatt hours, the employment and economy ministry said in a statement.

It plans to do so by increasing the use of wood-based energy, wind power, biofuels and heat pumps, with support for renewable energy envisioned at around 327 million euros (439 million dollars) per year in 2020.

The efforts would see Finland's annual carbon dioxide emissions cut by seven million tonnes by 2020 while reducing coal use would cut emissions by a further two million tonnes, the statement said.

Source - Solar Daily

Japan's solar power capacity more than doubles in 2009

2010-02-23T11:15:00.001Z

Solar power capacity in Japan rose to 483,960 kilowatts in 2009, 2.1 times more than the 2008 total, according to the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA).

The new total -- based on shipments of solar energy systems -- marked a record jump in the nation's installed solar power base, with the previous highest increase coming in 2005.

The growth in solar power can be traced to both national and local body support for installing solar power systems, and feed-in tariffs through which households with solar power systems can sell surplus energy back to the electric grid. With both installation subsidies and feed-in tariff systems continuing, 2010 also looks to be a good year for solar power growth.

Some 88.6 percent of solar battery shipments in 2009 were for home systems, and the new installations cover the power needs of more than 100,000 households at normal consumption rates. Installations by governments and companies also increased sharply compared to 2008, with public bodies raising their solar capacity by between 55.9 and 83 percent, and the private sector by 37.5 percent.

Solar power system shipments reached their previous peak in 2005 before government subsidies for installations were cut, and solar power capacity growth had been sluggish since. However, the government reinstated subsidies in January 2009 as both an environmental measure and to stimulate the faltering economy.

Including support from local governing bodies, subsidies can cover 30-50 percent of the more than 2 million yen cost of installing a solar power system. Meanwhile, in November electric companies began buying excess power from households with solar systems installed at twice the normal consumer rate, spurring sudden demand for solar panels.

Source - Mainichi Daily News

Government delivers raw deal for solar thermal industry

2010-02-23T11:12:00.001Z

Today the Solar Trade Association welcomed the announcements by Ed Milliband regarding solar energy, but expressed disappointment that the proposed rate of investment will be lower than that for other green energy technologies.

The announcements today are intended to shift consumers towards the use of green energy technologies. Ed Milliband indicated today that householders installing low carbon electricity such as Photovoltaics will receive a feed-in tariff of 5–8% of their total initial investment for up to 25 years. Similarly, he announced the Renewable Heat Incentive to commence in 2011 to provide guaranteed income to householders installing renewable heat technologies.

The STA welcomed these bold steps to embrace and extend the use of renewable technologies, but were disappointed that solar thermal technologies were singled out to receive a rate of return half that planned for other renewable heat energy sources. The STA outlined their belief that this has been driven by a lack of understanding of solar energy per se and a similar lack of ambition for progressing solar solutions.

Howard Johns, Chairman of the Solar Trade Association said: “It is extremely disappointing that despite numerous discussions with Ministers and civil servants during the last year they patently do not recognize the huge opportunities for solar thermal in the UK. It is the only zero carbon heat technology available and has yet again been underestimated by the policy makers. There are in excess of 100,000 of these systems out there already, far more than any other renewable heat technology. We will be urgently seeking meetings with DECC to express the concerns of our members who have invested heavily in order to grow the market and are yet again not being recognized.”

Solar thermal systems within homes have the potential to provide very low cost hot water and heating. The scheme announced today will provide an income stream for householders, but in the view of the STA does not place all renewable energy technologies on a level playing field.

Source - Solaruknews

EDF plans solar-power plant at Euro Disney, Paris

2010-02-23T11:09:00.002Z

Energy company EDF plans to build France's biggest solar-power plant at the Euro Disney theme park resort on the outskirts of Paris. A sweeping structure would see solar cells cover huge canopies built above Euro Disney's 11,000-space car park, which is one of the biggest in Europe.

The canopies could also collect rainwater to reduce Euro Disney's water consumption, and the solar energy they generate would be used on-site or sold back into the grid.

"It is a very interesting project," says EDF spokeswoman Marilys Dubernet, and it could help reduce Euro Disney's €1.2bn (£1bn) annual running cost. This pushed the company to a €63m net loss last year. Earlier this month it announced that revenue for the first quarter of 2010 was down 11 per cent year-on-year to €292m.

But it will take more than the wave of a magic wand to pull off this plan to build what would be one of the biggest solar plants in Europe. Ms Dubernet says the project is still at the "first stage of development".

Euro Disney already has an agreement with EDF to buy 15 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy sources, and some of its rides run on natural gas. EDF's magic touch would help to reduce the carbon emissions from the 64 per cent of its 15.4 million guests who arrive by car or bus.

Source - The Independent

Record solar plane's first 'hop'

2010-02-23T11:02:00.001Z

The Solar Impulse prototype plane, part of a planned solar-powered circumnavigation of the globe, has left the ground for the first time.

The maiden flight was dubbed a "flea hop" by project leaders, at 350m in length and a height of just one metre.

The plane will now be transported to a different airfield for a flight of a few hours in March.

The final version of the plane will attempt a transatlantic flight in 2012 prior to the round-the-world trip.

The prototype first ventured outside a hangar in November, with a range of on-the-ground tests and a run-up of the plane's motors.
Solar Impulse plane

Thursday's flight, with test pilot Markus Scherdel at the controls, was the first time the plane had been brought to takeoff speed.

"The airplane flew the way we have experienced it in the simulators," said Bertrand Piccard, a founder of Solar Impulse and the first person to carry out a round-the-world balloon flight.

"That's of course a very big comfort for all the engineers who've worked for six years to build this airplane."

The next flight, at the Payerne air force airfield in western Switzerland, will see the plane reach an altitude of nearly 9,000m.

Only after this flight will the plane make its first "solar flight" - that is, powered by the solar generators rather than the on-board batteries.

The team plans a flight of a full day and night in the summer of 2010, building up to a transatlantic flight in small steps as the crew ensure the plane's behaviour is well-understood.

"It's a completely new flight domain," said Dr Piccard.

"It's the first time in the history of aviation that an airplane so big and so light using so little energy gets in the air - basically everything is new."

Source - BBC

Suntech Energizes Schools In Lebanon's Largest Solar Initiative

2010-02-23T10:56:00.001Z

Suntech Power Holdings recently supplied solar panels for 19 remote schools in Lebanon working with local partner and Lebanese integrator Asaco General Trade and Contracting.

Sponsored and facilitated by the Country Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Demonstration Project for the Recovery of Lebanon (CEDRO), established through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the combined systems represent the largest solar initiative in Lebanon.

"Suntech is proud to support this initiative," said Nader Jandaghi, Suntech's Director of Middle East. "CEDRO's adoption of solar power for these schools will brighten the lives and enhance the learning of children who will define Lebanon's future. Together, we want to power a world where everyone has direct and dependable access to nature's most abundant energy resource."

Because of the locations of the schools in rural villages spread across the Bekaa Valley and Northern Lebanon, grid power can be intermittent and unreliable. In the past, teachers and administrators at these 19 schools have persevered through the blackouts; now they will be able to rely on the sun to provide classroom and library lighting as well as reliable access to a computer or fax/copy machine. Integrator Asaco designed custom systems using Suntech solar modules for each of the 19 schools, with power outputs ranging from 1.2kWp to 1.8kWp.

"This is the largest set of solar projects in Lebanon to date - not only in terms of power output but also because of the large number of sites spread across the country," said Mr. Ramzi AbuSaid, CEO of Asaco.

"CEDRO set reasonable and challenging system design objectives. We had to integrate several power sources at each site, including grid power, the solar systems
, and even diesel generators in some cases, and leverage each of their attributes to ensure that the schools have dependable power at all times. Each power system is very efficient and takes maximum advantage of the clean electricity generated through Suntech's high-performing solar modules."

"For more than 20 years, and ever since the war, electrical power failure in the public grid has been a chronic problem for us," explained Joseph Nakleh, Principal of the Anna Intermediate Public School. "We experienced blackouts on average for six to twelve hours each day. As a public school, we didn't have the budget to fund an alternative power source
, so over time we adapted to the frequent grid power failures. Unfortunately, this was affecting the quality of educational services that we strive to provide our students. The new system is not only an excellent solution since it finally solved our electricity issues, but it will serve as a tangible, everlasting example for our students about the good uses of green power."

Source - Solar Daily

T-Solar And Solarpack Sell Solar Energy To Peru

2010-02-23T10:54:00.000Z

Spanish T-Solar and Solarpack have been awarded the Peruvian Government's contract for the annual supply of 173 GWh of PV energy
over a period of 20 years. T-Solar's installed capacity makes it one of the biggest photovoltaic (PV) power generators
in the world, and Solarpack is a pioneer in the development, construction and maintenance of photovoltaic projects.

To supply the 173 GWh, T-Solar and Solarpack will be jointly developing four 20-MW photovoltaic plants. Two of these will be developed and run by T-Solar (Majes Solar
20T and ReparticiÃ³n Solar 20T) and the other two (Tacna Solar 20T and Panamericana Solar 20TS) by SolarPack in consortium with T-Solar.

The four PV plants must be in operation before 30th June 2012. They will be located in the south of Peru, in the regions of Tacna, Arequipa and Moquegua, which have a high average annual irradiation of 2,300 KWh/m2.

According to the resolution of this first tender for power supply using renewable energy resources (RER), the electricity generated by the four plants will be bought by the national grid system (SEIN) in Peru at a guaranteed price over 20 years.

The award of the PV power tendered in this auction is an important operation for T-Solar in the Americas. According to T-Solar's CEO, Juan Laso, the company wanted to participate in this process because "the project looks good, as there is high solar irradiation in these areas and the conditions in Peru are attractive, an investment-grade country with political and economic stability."Juan Laso says that this award "increases T-Solar's backlog under development, which now comprises over 650 MW".

This contract enables Solarpack to consolidate its operations in South America, where the company is already one of the biggest developers specialising in photovoltaic (PV) solar energy. From its subsidiary in Chile, Solarpack is spearheading the implementation of projects such as the "Calama Solar 1" plant, which is the first multi-megawatt solar plant with an environmental licence in the entire South-American continent. Pablo Burgos, Solarpack's general manager, states that "our upfront, innovative wager on this market is bearing fruit even earlier than we expected."

Source - Solar Daily

Solar panels are coming to a street near you?

2010-02-23T10:52:00.000Z

Solar panels have always been a symbol of the environmental movement in previous years, but more recently solar technology has become a symbol of energy efficiency and conservation instead.

Stuart Lovatt from Heat my Home explains, “Since I started in the solar panel industry in 2004, the only people to install this technology were die hard green people. Nobody bought them for energy reasons because domestic energy was cheap and plentiful with payback always the deciding factor for most people then.”

“Roll the clock forward 5 years, and we have seen a huge increase in the number of people installing solar panels to their homes with a change in the reasons why people install. Simply, the world has woken up to the fact that energy in the form of oil and gas has a much larger demand on its finite resources since the industrialisation of China and India.”

On a local level, the UK is especially sensitive to energy price rises because:

* North Sea resources are dwindling
* Increase reliance on imported energy from unstable political area’s
* Under investment in existing power networks, decommissioning and new power stations needed

Stuart insists, “The golden age of cheap energy is over. The UK public is slowly waking up to this fact, and as Sir Richard Branson, whose business’s are sensitive to the price of energy, has exposed this week, we as a country are not facing facts that an ‘energy crunch’ is coming and our political foresight is short.

“Heat my Home, as a resource for energy efficiency in the home”, Stuart adds, “We have seen enquiries increase by a factor of 10 over the last couple of months. People are coming to us saying they want a permanent way of reducing household energy consumption to reduce bills. We are seeing for the first time, homeowners using solar panels as a longer term investment in their home.”

“This is great news for the environment, and with the governments new Clean Energy Cash Back and Feed In Tariffs scheme starting this April 2010, the number of enquiries turning into actual installations will also increase tenfold too. Currently a survey of existing solar users has shown that 86% installed for energy reasons.”

Stuart with 6 years experience in the solar industry, concludes, “This begs the question, when will you be installing solar panels to your home? The government incentives will reduce after 3 years, so it’s best to install sooner rather than later for best returns, but the biggest irony of all this, is, as we progress further down the chronological timeline, the energy costs will increase, as will the cost of manufacturing and installation. Global demand is already pushing up prices and reducing supplies.”

With this in mind, being the first on your street to install solar panels will not only give you pride as our existing customers are reporting, but you installed with the best returns possible and you can smile when your 1980’s level energy bills fall on your door matt.

Heat my Home are promoters of solar panels, evacuated tubes and green energy in the UK.

Source - Heatmyhome

Maryland's Largest Single Rooftop Solar Power Installation Unveiled

2010-01-18T09:02:00.000Z

Staples and SunEdison have hosted a dedication ceremony to unveil the largest single rooftop solar power installation in Maryland at Staples' 200,200 square foot fulfillment center in Hanover. The 1.01 megawatt solar installation covers nearly 175,000 square feet of roof space, larger than three football fields.

The environmental savings associated with the system will offset more than 43 million pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) over 20 years, equivalent to removing CO2 produced by more than 4,200 automobiles driving 12,000 miles per year. The zero-emission, silent photovoltaic system will generate approximately 1.2 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year, and 21 million kWh during the initial 20 years of the project.

The solar installation was financed, built and maintained under a power purchase agreement (PPA) with SunEdison. Under the PPA, Staples will purchase the electricity produced for the term of the contract.

"The solar power system installed at our Hanover fulfillment center is the latest example of Staples' ongoing commitment to environmental leadership," said Mark Buckley, vice president of environmental affairs for Staples.

"Through our relationship with solar services provider SunEdison, we are able to purchase solar energy from our rooftop at a rate below or equal to the cost of electricity from the grid. This reduces our operating costs while freeing up more electricity during peak times for use by local homes and businesses."

"We are proud to be a long time partner of Staples in providing economical solar solutions to meet their energy needs and commitment to the environment," said Carlos Domenech, President of SunEdison.

"SunEdison continues to be an industry leader by combining cutting edge technologies with our unique project finance capabilities to enable large-scale development of solar."

"EPA applauds Staples for initiating this solar energy project to power its Hanover facility," said Shawn M. Garvin, administrator for the EPA's mid-Atlantic region.

"I hope this work inspires other companies to use energy in a manner that does not contribute to global climate change. Staples is demonstrating the kind of leadership that is needed to reduce greenhouse gases and move our nation into a clean energy future."

Source - Solar Daily

Solar Irrigation Boosts Local Incomes In Africa

2010-01-18T08:59:00.001Z

Solar-powered drip irrigation systems significantly enhance household incomes and nutritional intake of villagers in arid sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new Stanford University study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The two-year study found that solar-powered pumps installed in remote villages in the West African nation of Benin were a cost-effective way of delivering much-needed irrigation water, particularly during the long dry season. The results are published in the Jan. 4, 2010, online edition of PNAS.

"Significant fractions of sub-Saharan Africa's population are considered food insecure," wrote lead author Jennifer Burney, a postdoctoral scholar with the Program on Food Security and the Environment and the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford.

"Across the region, these food-insecure populations are predominantly rural, they frequently survive on less than $1 per person per day, and whereas most are engaged in agricultural production as their main livelihood, they still spend 50 to 80 percent of their income on food, and are often net consumers of food."

Burney and her co-authors noted that only 4 percent of cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated, and that most rural, food-insecure communities in the region rely on rain-fed agriculture, which, in places like Benin, is limited to a three- to six-month rainy season.

"On top of potential annual caloric shortages, households face two seasonal challenges: They must stretch their stores of staples to the next harvest (or purchase additional food, often at higher prices), and access to micronutrients via home production or purchase diminishes or disappears during the dry season," the authors wrote.

Promotion of irrigation among small landholders is therefore frequently cited as a strategy for poverty reduction, climate adaptation and promotion of food security, they said. And while the role of irrigation in poverty reduction has been studied extensively in Asia, relatively little has been written about the poverty and food security impacts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Benin demonstration sites
To address the lack of data, Burney and her colleagues monitored three 0.5-hectare (1.24-acre) solar-powered drip irrigation systems installed the Kalale district of northern Benin. The systems, which use photovoltaic pumps to deliver groundwater, were financed and installed by the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a nongovernmental organization.

"As with any water pump, solar-powered pumps save labor in rural off-grid areas where water hauling is traditionally done by hand by women and young girls," the authors said. "Though photovoltaic systems are often dismissed out-of-hand due to high up-front costs, they have long lifetimes, and in the medium-term, cost less than liquid-fuel-based pumping systems."

Solar-powered pumps also can be implemented in an easily maintained, battery-free configuration, they added, "thereby avoiding one of the major pitfalls of photovoltaic use in the developing world."

In November 2007, the research team began a close collaboration with local women's agricultural groups in two villages in rural Benin. In Village A, which draws surface water from a year-round stream, researchers worked with residents to install two identical solar-powered pumping systems.

In Village B, which relies on groundwater irrigation, water was pumped from 25 meters (82 feet) below the surface. Each solar-powered pumping system was used by 30 to 35 women affiliated with an agricultural group. Each woman farmed her own 120-square meter (1,292-square foot) plot. The remaining plots were farmed collectively to fund group purchases and expenses.

The researchers also chose two control villages for comparison with Villages A and B. Women's agricultural groups in the control villages continued to irrigate by hand, allowing for comparison of the solar-powered drip irrigation systems to traditional methods.

"Household surveys were conducted in both treatment and control villages upon installation (November 2007) and following one year of garden operation (November 2008), and included detailed questions concerning consumption and agricultural production, as well as other socioeconomic, health and general questions," the authors wrote.

Striking results
The results were striking. The three solar-powered irrigation systems supplied on average 1.9 metric tons of produce per month, including tomatoes, okra, peppers, eggplants, carrots and other greens, the authors found. Woman who used solar-powered irrigation became strong net producers in vegetables with extra income earned from sales - significantly increasing their purchases of staples and protein during the dry season, and oil during the rainy season.

During the first year of operation, the women farmers kept an average of 18 percent by weight - 8.8 kilograms (19.4 pounds) per month - of the produce grown with the solar-powered systems for home consumption and sold the rest in local markets.

"Garden products penetrated local markets significantly," the authors found. "Vegetable consumption increased during the rainy season (the time of greatest surplus for the women's group farmers) for the entire four-village sample of households."

Survey respondents also were asked about their ability to meet their household food needs. Seventeen percent of the project beneficiaries said they were "less likely to feel chronically food-insecure. In short, the photovoltaic drip irrigation systems had a remarkable effect on both year-round and seasonal food access," the authors said.

Nutrition and sustainability
In terms of nutrition, vegetable intake across all villages increased by about 150 grams per person per day during the rainy season. But in villages irrigated with solar-powered systems, the increase was 500 to 750 grams per person per day, which is equivalent to 3 to 5 servings of vegetables per day - the same as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Recommended Daily Allowance for vegetables - and most of this change took place in the dry season.

The research team also concluded that, despite higher up-front costs, using solar power to pump water can be more economically sustainable in the long run than irrigation systems that run on liquid fuels, such as gasoline, diesel or kerosene.

"When considering the energy requirements for expanded irrigation in rural Africa, photovoltaic drip irrigation systems have an additional advantage over liquid-fuel-based systems in that they provide emissions-free pumping power," they added.

"Overall, this study thus indicates that solar-powered drip irrigation can provide substantial economic, nutritional and environmental benefits," the authors said.

"With the proper support, successful widespread adoption of photovoltaic drip irrigation systems could be an important source of poverty alleviation and food security in the marginal environments common to sub-Saharan Africa."

Source - Solar Daily

2010-01-01T15:20:00.001Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR for 2010 from echarger :) may this year bring also all good health, hope for the planet. Lets make a difference to change our planet with renewable products, renewable energy e.t.c

China amendment to boost renewable energy

2009-12-30T13:24:00.001Z

China adopted an amendment to its renewable energy law Saturday that requires utilities to buy all the power produced by generators of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Power enterprises that refuse to do so will face fines up to an amount double that of the economic loss of the renewable energy company, state-run news agency Xinhua reports.

The amendment also requires the Chinese government to set up a special fund for renewable energy scientific research, finance rural clean energy projects, build independent power systems in remote areas and islands, and build information networks to exploit renewable energy.

The fund would be managed by finance, energy and pricing sectors of the state council.

China's renewable energy law, which took effect in January 2006, covered subsidies, pricing management and supervision measures and was aimed at "optimizing the country's energy structure and safeguarding energy security."

China, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, last year relied on coal for nearly 70 percent of its total energy use. But its goal is to increase use of renewable-energy sources to 15 percent of its total by 2020, from 9 percent last year.

Last month Chinese president Hu Jintao announced a separate target ahead of the Copenhagen climate-change summit to reduce the country's carbon emissions relative to economic output by 40 percent to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Yet China's emissions will continue to grow as its economy expands.

The amendment "strengthens the confidence of achieving the target" and "contributes to the global fight on climate change," said Wang Zhongying, director of the renewable energy development center of the Energy Research Institute under China's National Development and Reform Commission, Xinhua reports.

According to Xinhua, renewable resources supplied 9 percent of China's total energy consumption last year, equal to reducing carbon dioxide by 600 million tons. It said China used more hydro and solar power than any other country and ranked fourth worldwide for its use of wind power.

But industry experts estimate that one-third of China's wind-generated electricity could not be well transmitted to the grid. The new legislation requires grid companies to improve transmitting technologies and enhance grid capability to absorb more power produced by renewable energy generators.

Xiao Liye, director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested using "smart grids" to enhance grid capability. He said "smart grids" and renewable energy should be developed in tandem like "twin brothers."

Source - Solar Daily

World's largest solar energy project planned for Africa desert

2009-12-23T22:07:00.002Z

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) group claims a network of solar plants in north Africa harnessing the sun's rays will be the biggest in the world, dwarfing the current largest installation already running at Andasol in southern Spain.

Planners hope the project will eventually provide 15 per cent of Europe's electricity by 2050, together with similar amounts of electricity for countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

It is thought the energy demands of the world could be met by covering as little as one per cent of the world's deserts.

Dr Gerry Wolff, coordinator of DESERTEC-UK, a group of British investors in the project, said: "Within five years people in the UK could start to use desert electricity that has been produced in the Sahara.

"Householders will be able to say they are making a cup of tea with energy collected from the African sun.

"The consortium of businesses needs to talk to the relevant governments and there will be a need to make changes to laws and regulations to smooth the path for these developments.

"An important point that must be stressed is that the electricity will be for people throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. If everyone is benefiting, this will help the project to run smoothly.

"Much of the project depends on the good will of the people living in the countries where we will collect the sunshine."

The DII group hopes to begin building the huge solar plants within three years and delivering energy by 2015.

Instead of using photovoltaic solar panels that absorb the sun's blistering rays, hundreds of giant mirrors would instead reflect the light and concentrate it – firing the sunbeams at a focal point, such as a tower next to the field of mirrors.

Such technology is already at work at the PS10 and PS20 CSP plants near Seville in Spain.

Dr Wolff added: "Because it is relatively cheap and easy to store solar heat, a CSP plant can carry on generating electricity at night – something that is not so easy to do with photovoltaic solar panels."

The full list of businesses who have joined the consortium are ABB, Cevital, Deutsche Bank, E. ON, HSH Nordbank, MAN Solar Millennium, Munich RE, M&W Zander, RWE, SCHOTT Solar, and Siemens.

Source - Telegraph

Large, Solar-Powered, Sustainably Built Affordable Housing

2009-12-20T14:05:00.001Z

When it opens later this year, Ironhorse will offer 99 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments that will be affordable to families with annual incomes ranging from $18,000 to $50,000. Designed by architect David Baker + Partners, Ironhorse includes many sustainable building and landscaping measures, including:

+ Vegetated "green roofs" that last longer than standard roofs and provide excellent insulation from both heat and sound.

+ Solar hot water panels to pre-heat domestic hot water.

+ Solar panels that supply nearly all of the electricity to power the common areas.

+ Certified CRI Green Label Plus carpets.

+ 100% of outdoor furniture, benches and seat walls made of composite lumber created from recycled materials.

+ A landscape irrigation controller that receives weather data via a satellite connection and a high-efficiency drip irrigation system.

+ Two vegetated swales, which naturally filter and percolate rainwater captured from the roofs into the water table.

GreenPoint Rated, a widely recognized program of Build It Green, grades homes in five categories: energy efficiency, resource conservation, indoor air quality, water conservation and community. Currently, new multifamily developments score an average of 85 points under the rating system; Ironhorse has a pending GreenPoint Rating of 116 points.

"We are committed to creating energy- and resource-efficient homes that are cost-effective, good for the environment and healthier places to live," said Lydia Tan, Interim President and CEO of BRIDGE. "Visitors to Ironhorse will see how it's possible to incorporate significant green measures into affordable multifamily homes."

Ironhorse stands at the center of a major reintegration of some 29 acres of abandoned former industrial land into the surrounding residential neighborhood.

Ironhorse forms part of Central Station, a new master-planned undertaking by several developers including BUILD, a BRIDGE affiliate. A total of more than 1,200 new homes will be constructed, along with new neighborhood-serving retail and the anticipated restoration of the historic 16th Street Station.

Source - Solardaily

Solar panels – A new way to invest in your future

2009-12-20T14:03:00.000Z

Solar panels are about to become more affordable. Over the past decade, solar panels – called photovoltaic or PV panels and solar heating have become increasingly visible.

They power street lamps and road signs in some counties, and are increasingly seen on homes up and down the UK. The key change the government are bringing in April next year is the feed in tariff and that means you and I can earn money from generating our own electricity.

So if there are doubts about how effective solar panels are, and overcast skies, the financial argument is about to get much better.

Especially as electricity costs have doubled in the last three years, says Stuart Lovatt from Heat my Home.

“If you put solar panels on your roof the government will pay you 36p – or 36.5p is the number out for consultation and what we expect it to be,” he said.

“The pay-back time on your investment could still be nearer to 10 years.”

“Even on a cloudy day, it can generate over 50%.”

“We do have doldrums. When we have heavy clouds, they cease to produce anything to let you run the washing machine and so on.”

Most days, on an average kind of day, there’s enough juice to keep our HDTV, surround sound stereo and other creature comforts running. No problem.

Ironically most solar panels manufactured in Wales are exported to mainland Europe, especially Germany. With more generous grants for householders to invest in lowering their energy bills there, solar panels are more common than here.

Possibly – if homeowners prefer to invest £8-£20,000 in solar panels rather than keep their cash in a bank – the feed-in-tariff system next April could see far more panels on houses all over Wales, utilising the power of the sun.

Source - BBC

Energy savvy investors turn to solar panels

2009-12-20T14:02:00.001Z

Solar panels works by converting the energy from the sun (Photons) into useable heat for heating stored water in a hot water tank or producing power which can be used around the home.

Solar panels reduce your dependency on fossil fuels and your dependency on utility companies by using a free, natural, renewable resource – solar energy.

This is done not just by direct sunlight but also works with standard daylight (cloudy days). The optimum time of year for solar panels in the UK from March to October months however the solar panels will generate heat / electricity all year round.

There are two types of solar heating technologies, the evacuated solar tubes and the flat plate collector. The solar tubes have a greater efficiency and work better at lower temperatures. Some people believe the flat plate is more pleasing to the eye, however, they usually cost around the same to install, so many people choose based on performance and others aesthetics .

On average solar heating can save you between 70-80% on your heating bills, not only that but it will prolong the life of your boiler as it does not need to be activated as much being the primary source of heat. With energy pricing forecast to rise continually over the coming years, more energy savvy homes now use a mixture of energy inputs such as solar and heat pumps too.

Solar heating systems work by capturing the sun’s rays which is then converted to heat energy; this heat energy is transported through a heat exchanger that will then transfer the heat into the stored water within the solar cylinder.

Solar PV panels work by converting photons into electrons accumulating them into a usable electric current for your home.

With current interest rates and unstable utility energy prices, installing solar panels currently represent one of the best investments, increasing your properties value and reducing your energy bills.

Another benefit if you decide to sell your home in the future is, home buyers would choose to buy house with solar panels over a house with no solar panels. Recent Energy Saving Trust surveys indicate home buyers would still buy if the price was £10,000 more expensive than the none-solar house.

A final food for thought, when considering solar for your home, is a Financial Times article pointed out, it’s likely that the financial cost of manufacturing solar panels and their installation costs will rise in the future in line with the cost of energy, resources, materials and other manufacturing costs as global energy price’s keep rising.

Solar panels or solar energy can be collected, harnessed and used for your long term energy requirements.

China solar panel makers see boost from कोपेन्हागें

2009-12-06T12:48:00.000Z

In Trina Solar's brilliant white factory in eastern China, masked workers in lab coats turn silicon wafers into solar power cells capable of harnessing the sun's clean and limitless energy.

China is now the world's top producer of the cells -- the tile-like engines of solar panels -- and firms like Trina see next week's climate talks as a potential key moment in the wider adoption of renewable energies like solar.

"The Copenhagen talks, from our point of view, are going to be positive," Terry Wang, Trina's chief financial officer, told AFP in an interview.

"A global target for emissions cuts would have a positive impact across all 20 countries we sell to."

As the world seeks to curb the carbon emissions blamed for global warming, companies such as Trina illustrate how central China will be to that effort.

Thanks to a surging Chinese solar cell industry, there may have never been a better time for the world to go solar.

Chinese production capacity surged more than fourfold in the past year to 8 gigawatts -- more than the total global 2010 demand of 7.5 gigawatts in solar panels, according to Yuanta Securities.

Meanwhile, a collapse in financing for large solar projects in Europe -- linked to the world financial crisis -- has pushed solar cell prices to near historic lows.

As a result, the prices for solar modules -- the grid-like panels typically comprising 60 cells -- are half what they were at the beginning of 2008, said Min Li, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Yuanta Securities.

Global solar power demand last year roughly equalled 10 medium-sized coal-fired electricity plants, said Rory Macpherson, investor relations director at China's New York Stock Exchange-listed SunTech, the world's largest solar panel maker.

"For solar to be effective in decreasing carbon emissions, we really need to increase the scale and adoption many times over," he said.

As the world's leading source of carbon emissions, China has launched ambitious plans to increase use of renewable energies like wind but has yet to harness the sun. Yet that is changing.

China did not figure in Trina's sales charts last year, but will account for two to three percent of the New York-listed company's sales this year, Wang said, adding he expected China sales to double in 2010.

Domestic customers will represent about five percent of SunTech's sales this year, Macpherson said.

"In the next three or four years it could be one of the world's largest markets," he said.

Beijing kick-started a solar drive this year with its "Golden Sun" stimulus plan to subsidise half the cost of solar power generation and transmission facilities, rising to 70 percent in remote, off-grid areas.

The government last week announced the first batch of 294 projects, which are expected to come on line within three years and generate 642 megawatts at a cost of 20 billion yuan (2.9 billion dollars).

It did not specify how much it would pay in "Golden Sun" grants, adding it wanted to gradually reduce Chinese producers' reliance on overseas sales and build infrastructure so the national grid can tap solar power.

China announced last week it planned to curb 2020 emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels.

It had already set a target of generating 15 percent of its power through renewable sources, including solar power, by 2020.

Renewables are expected to account for 10 percent of China's energy by 2010, according to officials.

That means it will have to add 1.8 megawatts of solar generation per year from 2011 to 2020, Yuanta's Li said.

"Starting from 2011, China's domestic market will be on a par with some of the leading European countries," he said.

The sector remains dependent on subsidies, especially European producers.

Still, Trina, which boasts the lowest prices in the market, expects strong growth in Italy, France and the United States next year.

European producers accuse Chinese producers of selling panels at unsustainably low prices to grab market share.

Wang rejects the allegation, saying Trina's gross profit margin in the third quarter of this year rose to 29 percent from 22 percent a year earlier due to falling costs.

"Government incentives will not last forever," he said. "We should continue to reduce the price of solar systems so we can be more competitive with traditional power generation. That's healthy for the solar sector."

Source - Solar Daily

Brown attacks flat-earth global warming scepticism

2009-12-06T12:45:00.000Z

Gordon Brown tonight led a chorus of condemnation against “flat-earth” climate change sceptics who have tried to derail the Copenhagen summit by casting doubt on the evidence for global warming.

Sceptics in the UK and the US have moved to capitalise on a series of hacked emails from climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia, claiming they show attempts to hide information that does not support the case for human activity causing rising temperatures.

On the eve of the Copenhagen summit, Saudi Arabia and Republican members of the US Congress have used the emails to claim the need for urgent action to cut carbon emissions has been undermined.

But tonight the prime minister, his environment secretary, Ed Miliband, and Ed Markey, the man who co-authored the US climate change bill, joined forces to condemn the sceptics.

“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,” Brown told the Guardian. “We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act and close the 5bn-tonne gap. That will seal the deal.”

According to the government adviser Sir Nicholas Stern, 10bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions must be taken out of the atmosphere by 2020. So far agreement is in place for only half of that amount.

Ed Miliband gave his most damning assessment of the sceptics yet, describing them as “dangerous and deceitful”.

He said: “The approach of the climate saboteurs is to misuse data and mislead people. The sceptics are playing politics with science in a dangerous and deceitful manner. There is no easy way out of tackling climate change despite what they would have us believe. The evidence is clear and the time we have to act is short. To abandon this process now would lead to misery and catastrophe for millions.”

Markey warned against allowing America’s political agenda to be hijacked by the email affair. “We can no longer allow our climate and energy policy to be hijacked by the government of Saudi Arabia, ExxonMobil, and the defenders of the fossil fuel status quo,” he said.

Even if an investigation into the university emails were to show evidence of wrongdoing, scientists and politicians say there is an overwhelming body of evidence that humans are causing climate change. However, the hacking affair is putting new obstacles in the way of getting a bill past Congress – seen as a crucial precondition for a binding climate change treaty.

The summit, which begins on Monday, aims to seal a global deal to control greenhouse gas emissions, but all of the significant issues remain to be resolved. There is still no agreement between developing nations and the richer countries over the carbon cuts required and the funding which must be given to poorer countries to help them cope with global warming.

China and India, whose economies are growing rapidly, must still agree a deal on curbing their emissions while being able to lift billions of people out of poverty.

The concern for some of those attempting to drive through a global deal is that the sceptics will delay critical decisions by casting doubt over the science at a time when momentum has been gathering towards a historic agreement. “The sceptics have clearly seized upon this as an incident that they can use to their own ends in trying to disrupt the Copenhagen agreements,” said Bob Watson, Defra chief scientist and former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “If this slows down an international agreement to significantly reduce greenhouse gases, it will mean we’re committed to an even larger temperature change … with adverse consequences on agriculture, water, human security, human health and biodiversity.”

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, said it would be disastrous for the planet if sceptics were able to undermine support for a climate change deal. “Ideological dinosaurs, whether in Saudi Arabia or in the Conservative party, who deny climate change must not be allowed to hide behind some leaked correspondence to support their outdated theories,” Clegg said.

A number of prominent Conservatives, including former chancellor Lord Lawson and former Cameron frontbencher David Davis, have pounced on the email furore. But tonight the shadow climate change secretary, Greg Clark, made clear the party line remains that climate change is a serious man-made threat. “Research into climate change has involved thousands of different scientists, pursuing many separate lines of independent inquiry over many years. The case for a global deal is still strong and in many aspects, such as the daily destruction of the Earth’s rainforests, desperately urgent,” he said.

Source - The Guardian

Solar panels grants closed due to unprecedented demand

2009-12-06T12:44:00.001Z

Solar panels manufacturers have warned of their frustration after the government’s flagship grant scheme for solar panels ran out of money less than halfway through the financial year.

The UK PV Association, which represents companies making and installing solar panels, warned that they were “in limbo” after the Low Carbon Building Programme Phase 2 was closed to solar applications this week.

The £50m scheme had included up to £18m for hospitals, schools and other public sector buildings to install pv solar panels on their roofs. But it has been closed down due to unprecedented demand.

Meanwhile, an announcement has been delayed on a clean energy cashback scheme – called “feed-in tariffs” – which will let people sell renewable power back to the grid. The industry had expected the decision this month but now believes it has been delayed amid wrangling between the energy department and the Treasury.

“This leaves installation companies in limbo land, unable to plan their businesses and unsure of what advice to give customers,” said the association.

Andrew Lee from Sharp UK, which employs 600 staff making solar panels in Wrexham, said the industry would have to endure another “unnecessary hiatus in support”.

The news is awkward for the government, coming just days before international climate change talks open in Copenhagen. Britain gets less energy from renewables than almost any other EU country.

Green campaigners have complained about the way ministers have launched a succession of “piecemeal” renewable energy grants.

“Our members face ongoing uncertainties and yet another round of stop-start support,” said Ray Noble from the Renewable Energy Association.

This week the energy department announced it was closing the scheme to companies and public sector applicants – although Phase 1, which applies to households, is still open. The energy department is also still offering grants for large-scale wind, hydro and biomass projects but has introduced a waiting list.

Dave Sowden, chief executive of the Micropower Council, said the removal of the grants would put green jobs in jeopardy and undermine Britain’s credibility ahead of Copenhagen.

A spokeswoman for DECC said feed-in tariffs were on track to begin next April. “It’s very encouraging that there’s been an unprecedented demand for this technology but we have to be fair to all renewable technologies,” she said.

Source - The Financial Times

Climate change sceptics and lobbyists put world at risk

2009-12-06T12:41:00.001Z

Climate skeptics and fossil fuel companies that have lobbied against action on greenhouse gas emissions have squandered the world’s chance to avoid dangerous global warming, a key adviser to the government has said.

Professor Bob Watson, chief scientist at the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, said a decade of inaction on climate change meant it was now virtually impossible to limit global temperature rise to 2C. He said the delay meant the world would now do well to stabilise warming between 3C and 4C.

His comments come ahead of key UN negotiations on a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen next month that the UK government insists should still aim for a 2C goal, despite doubts over whether a meaningful deal can be sealed.

In an interview with the Guardian, Watson said: “Those that have opposed a deal on climate, which would include elements of the fossil fuel industry, have clearly made making a 2C target much, much harder, if not impossible. They’ve clearly put the world at risk of far more adverse effects of climate change.”

The decision of former US president George W Bush to walk away from the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on carbon emissions, sent a message to other countries not to act, he said. “The last decade was a lost opportunity. Elements within the fossil fuel industry clearly had major implications for the Bush administration.”

He added: “I think they’ve clearly been partly to blame, without any question at all. But you have to say it is not just the fossil lobby. Within the US, there is not strong support for the Kyoto protocol in both parties. Even Obama now will have to persuade a still somewhat sceptical Senate that we should be doing this.”

The Copenhagen talks are not expected to deliver a legally binding treaty as originally hoped, but could still make progress on issues such as emissions cuts for rich countries and financial assistance for the developing world. A strong agreement rests on how far Obama is willing to push towards strong carbon cuts in the US.

European officials fear the agreement could eventually do no better than return emissions in 2020 to 1990 levels; scientists say they must fall by 25-40% to have a good chance of staying within the 2C limit.

Watson, a former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: “I think we will do well to stabilise between 3 and 4C. Even that is going to take strong political action to decarbonise the energy system and to require us peaking greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 or more years,” he said. “We have to make sure we understand what it would mean to see 3-4C. How would we adapt our agriculture, our water resources, coastal protection and human health systems.”

A Guardian poll this year showed that almost nine out of 10 climate scientists thought the 2C target would be missed.

The British government last month published a map that laid out the stark details of a world warmer by 4C. It showed that the rise would not be evenly spread across the globe, with temperature rises much larger than 4C in high latitudes such as the Arctic. Because the sea warms more slowly, average land temperature will increase by 5.5C, which scientists said would shrink yields for all major cereal crops on all regions of production. A 4C rise would also have a major impact on water availability, with supplies limited to an extra billion people by 2080.

Source - The Guardian

New Jersey Completes 100 MW Of Solar Capacity

2009-11-04T14:02:00.001Z

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has announced that New Jersey now has over 100 MW of solar capacity with more than 4,340 projects statewide. The ground-breaking achievement is the latest example of New Jersey's renewable energy leadership and commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"This monumental achievement only serves to further strengthen New Jersey's position as one of the fastest growing solar energy markets in the United States," said Governor Corzine. "Our leadership is credited to our commitment to environmentally responsible action and a competitive market-based initiative."

New Jersey's solar success is particularly remarkable for the rapid progress it has made in reaching the 100 MW milestone. Seven years ago, the state had only 6 solar installations. Since that time New Jersey has established a model program that incorporates both energy efficiency and renewable energy.

New Jersey's integrated approach to solar development includes a strong Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) with a solar electric set aside, excellent interconnection and net metering standards that have made it easier for systems to connect to the distribution system, a Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) financing model that provides energy credits and additional long term financing for those who invest in solar.

"As we strive to meet Governor Corzine's comprehensive Energy Master Plan goals, the NJBPU is continually looking to efficiently increase our renewable energy generation while reducing New Jersey's greenhouse gas emissions." said Jeanne M. Fox, President of the NJBPU.

"The innovative SREC financing model combined with federal tax credits and New Jersey's Renewable Energy Portfolio requirements provide the incentives needed to continue to spur New Jersey's solar growth."

New Jersey's Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) financing model is one of the State's newest initiatives to develop a vibrant solar market in the state. Representing all the clean energy benefits of electricity generated from a solar electric system, one SREC is issued for each 1,000 kWh (1MWh) generated.

SRECs are then sold or traded, separately from the power, providing solar system owners a source of revenue to help offset the cost of installation. In most cases, SRECs replace State rebates, which fueled solar growth in the early years of the State's solar program. New Jersey is the first government globally to adopt the use of SRECs to help finance solar projects on a broad scale.

The BPU also recently approved innovative financing programs at three of the State's electric utilities: Jersey Central Power and Light, Atlantic City Electric, and Rockland Electric Company. In addition, earlier this year the Board approved Public Service Electric and Gas's "Solar 4 All Program" to expand solar generation in its service territory. Under these programs, the State's electric utilities may enter into long-term contracts with customers for the purchase of SRECs, which facilitates long-term financing for solar projects.

Clean Energy Cashback will benefit early installers most

2009-11-04T13:57:00.002Z

Most countries in the EU now use guaranteed price Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) to support renewable energy projects, with different prices being fixed for each type of technology.

The FITs have proved to be very effective at getting capacity installed rapidly at relatively low costs. For example, Germany has installed 25 Gigawatt (GW) of wind generation capacity so far under a FIT scheme , whereas the UK, with its competitive Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) trading scheme, has only achieved 4 GW, with some of that actually being supported by grants (for offshore projects). And this in a country with a far better wind regime than Germany.

With the UK committed to getting 15% of is total energy from renewables 2020, which means they would have to supply maybe 30% of its electricity, something had to be done. The UK governments remains wedded to the market-orientated ROC system, and it has made some changes to it – e.g. creating ‘technology bands’ with different numbers of ROCs for each type of technology. That may help to some extent – making it a bit more like a FIT. But the government eventually conceded that a fixed-price FIT system might be better for small-scale projects. There was some debate about how small ‘small’ should be, but a ceiling of 5MW was chosen- large enough to include some small community projects.

The governments proposals were for a fixed ‘Clean Energy Cashback’ payment from the electricity supplier for every kilowatt hour (kWh) generated (the “generation tariff”); i.e. for self-generated power you use, plus a guaranteed minimum payment additional to the generation tariff for every kWh exported to the wider electricity market (the “export tariff”). The export tariff will be market determined – it’s currently at £0.05/kWh, for electricity delivered to the grid. Proposed generation tariff levels were set at 36.5p/kWh for retrofitted PV solar systems up to 4kW; and 28p/kWh for systems up to 10kW, while wind projects would get 30p/kW for turbines below 1.5kW and progressively less for larger units, down to 4.5p/kWh for wind turbines between 500kW and 5MW. Hydro projects would get 4.5-17p/kWh depending on size. Anaerobic digestion and biomass were also eligible (getting up to 9p/kWh), so was AD fired combined heat and power (11p/kWh), but not landfill gas or sewage gas, which are deemed already commercially viable.

As with the German FIT, UK FIT prices will be reduced, or ‘degressed’, in annual stages to reflect expected reductions as the technology develops and the market for it builds. But only for some of the technologies. The annual degression was set at 7% for all solar PV projects, 4% for wind turbines below 1.5kW, 3% for those in the 15-50KW range. The rest would have no price degression.

Source - Environmental Research

The future’s bright for home owners with solar panels?

2009-10-21T09:07:00.001+01:00

The solar panels are cheaper than ever and you can sell your surplus energy to the grid. No wonder, the future’s bright for home owners solar panels.

Real, gutsy solar power is as rare as hen’s teeth in this country. By the real deal I mean photovoltaic (PV solar) systems that convert sunlight into electricity as opposed to rather prosaic solar thermal systems that heat water. Last year just 6MW of solar PV solar panels were installed in this country. Compare and contrast the situation in Germany, where more than 1,500MW was installed last year and one in 10 buildings has a solar power system.

This is ludicrous because solar PV could provide 30-40% of the UK’s total electricity needs by 2050, reducing CO2 emissions by 15% a year. An average domestic system (a fairly modest 1.8kWp PV system) can provide at least 25% of a household’s energy. The sticking point has been the expense.

Luckily there are sunnier days ahead. We’ve been waiting years for a Feed-in Tariff scheme (rebranded as the Clean Energy Cash Back Scheme), and now it is expected to arrive in April 2010. This will guarantee domestic PV installations 36.5 pence per kw hour of electricity they feed back into the grid, probably for around 25 years.

If plans go through, they’ll get just 36p for their surplus output and be able to enjoy the more generous tariff and possibly a grant (£10m is available until April 2010 via the governments grants programme in the form of £2,500 per households.

And you’ll be able to take advantage of the fact that solar panels have come down in price. According to Sharp, a UK-based solar-module manufacturer, units are 30% cheaper than a year ago. You can get different types to stick on or integrate into your roof, not just the traditional crystalline cells using reject silicon from the electronics industry. The new wave is full of efficient, sleek models. Some look uncannily like normal roof tiles. Thanks to a recession in Spain (a voracious PV consumer) there are lots around.

But in the solar rush, remember to purchase responsibly. PV solar cells are far from ecologically innocuous, as they contain a concoction of toxic conductors. They should be manufactured in a closed-loop system to high environmental standards.

They also remain the only renewable really attuned to normal life. You can add them on to a house without incurring the wrath of planning departments or undertaking huge civil engineering projects.

Source - The Guardian

Solar panels have become financially viable

2009-10-21T09:04:00.002+01:00

60% rise in energy bills per annum over the next decade, Stuart Lovatt of Heat my Home adds; “The age of easy and cheap oil is coming to an end. It doesn’t suddenly come to an end; obviously it’s a gradual change, but we’re moving away from cheap oil at a much faster pace with increasingly difficult to extract oil and an outdated energy infrastructure here in the UK, which will push energy bills up further over the coming years.”

The UK Energy Research Centre has added, there is a ’significant risk’ that global oil production will peak in less than ten years time. It also says that there is a growing consensus that discovery of new oil had peaked in the early 60s. Since then, new oil fields have got smaller and smaller.

The future of energy is unknown but what we do know is global reserves are finite, and global demand has increased, meaning there has to be a day when supply and demand rules dictate higher energy as a best case scenario or a global supply famine as a worse case scenario.

For those concerned about climate change, an unsatisfactory conclusion is that high oil prices resulting from a peak in production might encourage countries to start converting non-liquid fuels like coal to liquid fuels to plug the gap. These techniques are carbon intensive and will only put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, making climate change worse.

So how does all this make solar panels financially viable? With increasing energy pricing globally, this makes extraction of raw materials, manufacture and installing of such a system more and more expensive as the chronological clock ticks.

Stuart Lovatt of Heat my Home says: “We have promoted the use of solar panels when solar was still a green product and only bought by environmental orientated people. A lot has happened in the last 5 years and the UK is slowly waking up to the realities it faces with energy security, continued energy price rises and the global energy issue’s. Suddenly solar panels are a real financial benefit and are installed not just by green’s, but also energy savvy people with a longer term view.

Yes, quality is important when choosing a system but equally you have considered the costs. I see installing a solar panel system or solar tubes just like having a new kitchen or bathroom. You would not the let consider the cheapest quote because you run the risk of a poor tradesman and/or damage to your property due to poor workmanship. Exactly the same principle should apply when installing solar panels.

The way we see solar panels in the UK, is as a long term investment. Not in green terms although this in itself should be long term view, but because they have such a long lifespan, typically 30 years they are viewed as a long term investment financially as energy prices will forever keep rising, and/or increasing the value and sell ability of your home so a homeowner can benefit even if they decide to not stay in their current property.

Heat my Home has been promoting the use of solar and is educational, so people can find a quality solar system worth their investment.

Source - Heatmyhome

Energy Conversion Devices Announces Large Solar Project In Spain

2009-10-07T08:56:00.001+01:00

Energy Conversion Devices has announced it has been selected by Recurrent Energy to deliver 4.8MWp of solar generating systems for eight separate building rooftops at ProLogis Park Sant Boi in Barcelona and ProLogis Park Alcala in Madrid, Spain.

ECD will be supplying its UNI-SOLAR photovoltaic (PV) laminates and providing development resources through its Solar Integrated subsidiary.

The solar power systems will be owned by Recurrent Energy, a distributed power company and a leading provider of solar energy, and installed on rooftops leased by Recurrent Energy from ProLogis, a leading global provider of distribution facilities. Construction on the project is expected to start in October 2009.

ProLogis, a leading global provider of distribution facilities, currently has UNI-SOLAR systems installed on facilities in the U.S., Spain and France.

"We are very pleased to continue our relationship with UNI-Solar and SIT through this project," said Drew Torbin, director of global renewable energy for ProLogis. "We look forward to working with the company closely over the next several months as we bring this project on line."

"This new agreement is the first example of the benefits of combining our leading UNI-SOLAR PV laminate product with the rooftop solar expertise of Solar Integrated. This project also demonstrates how we will work closely with Recurrent Energy and our key channel partners--in this case Soprema and its dedicated subsidiary Solardis--to provide innovative solutions that meet the needs of our customers and their roofs," said Mark Morelli, president and chief executive officer for ECD.

For this project, Solar Integrated will engineer, procure, and construct the solar PV systems totaling 4.8 megawatts for Recurrent Energy.

The PV systems will consist of UNI-SOLAR laminates combined with the SOPRASOLAR complex - a bituminous waterproofing system, and will be applied directly on the roofs. Installation will be done by Soprema's local installer Master Renovables.

Source - Solar Daily

Has China kick started the solar panel revolution

2009-10-02T17:48:00.002+01:00

In recent years China, and in particular the capital Beijing, have become synonymous with heavy air pollution with carbon emissions a natural result of being the largest manufacturing base in the world.

The Olympic Games held in Beijing in 2008 highlighted to the world the problems that China is having with pollution in urban areas where population density and heavy road traffic has contributed to a situation where on some days visibility is severely reduced.

The televised images of the Beijing skyline obscured by a murky cloud of smog offered a grim reminder of the contamination which is of course an inevitable by-product of a rapidly industrialising economy. However, China has embraced the concept of renewable energy with a massive shift towards solar energy. Legislation introduced by the Chinese government has been designed to spark investment in renewable energies and has so far, proved to be successful.

As the largest manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV solar) components, China has been a market leader in developing new products for markets elsewhere. Certainly, the Spanish market which experienced its own boom following the introduction of a feed-in tariff in 2007 relied massively on Chinese PV imports with the market experiencing a glut of Chinese produced PV solar panels plant when the Spanish industry went through its downturn and failed to install the solar plant which had been ordered. However, in a bid to alleviate some pollution problems and help meet climate change targets, the Chinese government has recently sought to increase the number of solar installations within the country.

In order to do this the government introduced a feed-in tariff system. Essentially, the feed-in tariff (FIT) was designed to attract investment in the new solar industry by offering financial incentives to investors. The FIT mechanism operates on the basis that the law guarantees a fixed, premium rate for units of electricity fed-in to the grid by solar energy generators. The utility companies are obliged by the legislation to purchase the solar electricity at above market prices, the costs of which are passed on to the consumers. In China this mechanism which has been successful in areas such as Germany, Spain and California has also proved successful in China. In July 2009, the New York Times ran with the headline, “Green Power Takes Root in China” heralding the arrival of the Chinese PV market on the world stage.

The arrival of the Chinese PV solar industry has come in the form of a national renewable energy law which decrees that utilities must generate 8 per cent of their energy by renewable means by 2020. The fact that this 8 percent figure does not include hydroelectric power adds to the importance which the Chinese are now placing on green energy. The growing awareness of the lack of long-term sustainability in traditional coal energy sources has prompted the Chinese government to take action to maintain China has a major industrial power well in to the future. There has also been somewhat of a frenzy among private companies seeing the opportunities that will undoubtedly present themselves in the Chinese renewable industry, with a growing activity particularly in sectors such as wind and photovoltaic solar panels technology which will inevitably boom in China in the near future.

The New York Times was keen to use this Chinese government action to make comparisons with the comparatively weak efforts being made in Washington to spur the renewable sector in the United States. Indeed, in the United Kingdom, with the recent feed-in tariff legislation, members of the green energy industry will be hopeful that government action in the UK will have the same effect it has had on the Chinese market.

The New York Times asserted its almost neurotic view of Chinese renewable growth compared to that of the US by warning,

“You won’t just be buying your toys from China, you’ll be buying your energy future from China.”

China has a target in place to produce 8000 megawatts of energy by wind energy by 2010 which they are set to smash. If China continues apace to move towards solar energy, they will surely shame efforts currently being made in the West to develop their own sustainable renewable industries.

Source - Official Wire

An extra 10p to create a solar panel industry in UK

2009-10-02T17:43:00.001+01:00

A higher tariff for green electricity generation would help the UK catch up with the rest of Europe.

An extra 10p on the level of the proposed tariff given to small-scale renewable energy producers would be enough to kick-start a solar power sector in the UK, say industry groups.

Earlier this summer the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) finally agreed to introduction of a long sought-after feed-in tariff (FIT) under which households and businesses will be paid an above-market rate for every unit of electricity they generate and feed back to the grid.

Feed-in tariffs have been identified as the key factor behind the success of solar energy in Germany. But UK campaigners for solar power worry that the planned Government tariff will be too low.

The campaign group We Support Solar, which includes Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and more than 270 MPs, says that increasing the tariff from around 30p per unit of electricity to around 40p would increase uptake six times over.

Now, construction groups, including the Federation of Master Builder (FMB) have predicted that the extra 10p on the proposed rates could result in 400,000 new solar PV installations on homes by 2014. The knock-on effect would be the creation of nearly 30,000 jobs in the solar power sector.

‘There is a lot of talk about the “green economy”. The construction industry have seen the huge potential of solar power. The feed-in-tariff is the chance to now drive investment in the sector,’ said Seb Berry of solar installation company, Solar Century.

The UK lags badly behind in the solar power stakes compared to other EU countries, where financial incentives have been in place for a number of years.

Germany, which introduced FITs 9 years ago, installed 250 times more solar photovoltaic panels than the UK in 2008.

Source - Ecologist