Category: Photo-voltaics
Bringing Renewable Energy to Island Nations
| July 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Photo-voltaics |
I just received an interesting phone call. Chris Mason, renewable energy contractor in Anguilla (Caribbean) called to discuss my work in Bermuda and understand how it might apply to his country a thousand miles south.
Mason speaks in a calm, measured tone, but there was clearly urgency in his voice as well. “We pay $0.41 to $0.43 a kilowatt-hour for electricity here, and it’s ruining us. The major hotel says that it will be forced to close its doors if we can’t come up with less expensive electricity. But no one is really trying to solve the problem. Can we talk about this?” he implored.
“Of course. Let me ask you: What are the issues re: solar?” I asked.
“It’s cultural,” Mason explained. “As far as the leaders here are concerned, there is no problem to fix. You flip a switch and the lights come on. Until the power goes out, there is no issue at all. I can do solar arrays for private customers, but there’s no incentive. Not only are there no feed-in tariffs, it’s even illegal to tie them to the grid.”
“Isn’t there any public consciousness on the subject?” I asked. “Won’t these so-called ‘leaders’ eventually be replaced by more enlightened people?”
“Oh yes, the government turns over completely every four years. But instability just makes the problem worse. Investors have no certainty in what they’ll be dealing with even a few short years in the future.”
“I hear you,” I sympathized. “I can tell you about a larger country in which that kind of uncertainty is putting a damper on clean energy. It’s called the United States.”
As we chatted and exchanged ideas, I came to know Chris as a terrific person with a heart the size of Texas. Information on his company, Comet Energy, and his blog, Caribbean Renewable, is linked here.
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Bringing Electric Power to the Third World
| July 6, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Photo-voltaics |
In this short video, MIT Professor of Energy Dan Nocera makes several interesting points about bringing electric power to the third world using solar energy and fuel cells. His analysis of how much energy will be required by the year 2050 is fascinating.
In it, he asks the question: How can we prevent three billion additional babies from being born into poverty? The simple answer: educate poor females. When you do that, the birth rate drops like a rock.
Thus the extraordinary value of organizations like the Turimiquire Foundation, which I hope readers will put on their Christmas giving list; I know it’s on mine.
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[The Vector] Clean Energy News from Around the Country: GE Goes Solar
| May 19, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Photo-voltaics |
On April 7th, General Electric (GE) announced it was purchasing PrimeStar Solar Inc., a thin-film solar panel manufacturer based in Colorado. GE also announced that it would build the nation’s largest solar panel manufacturing plant.
The thin-film products developed by PrimeStar Solar are apparently among the most efficient of all cadmium telluride (“cad tel”) on the market. The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) verified the record-breaking efficiency, finding a 12.8% aperture Read More
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New Jersey Power Poles to be Outfitted with Solar Panels
| April 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Photo-voltaics |
In a phone conversation with my mother just now, we talked about this article in today’s New York Times: a pending project whereby 200,000+ power poles in New Jersey will be outfitted with solar panels. Apparently, residents are dismayed about the aesthetics. Mom asked my opinion, to which I reply:
Until I actually read the article, I figured that this project must have been about generating a small amount of power to enable smart-grid communication. But no, it’s about generating meaningful amounts of power. Here are two points:
1) At $6 per watt, it’s clearly no bargain. But how could the idea of nesting small amounts of PV at the top of 200,000 different locations possibly be cost-effective? The industry is trying to get PV to $1/watt — and we’re already close. Paying $6 shows poor thinking, corruption, or some combination of the two. Though, from what I read, it’s not exactly as if either of these two concepts would be strangers to the state of New Jersey, would it?
2) To me, and I can’t imagine that I’m alone here, one of the key costs of renewables is aesthetics. The only reason we’re still using fossil fuels is their high “energy densities,” i.e., their ability to pack a lot of energy in a little space. This means that they can be kept in small, unobstrusive places, e.g., in our gas tanks, where each gallon gives us 35 kilowatt-hours of energy. Even the space in which to make this all happen is fairly compact; though no one wants to live next to an oil refinery, they occupy a relatively small portion of our land mass.
Clean energy, by contrast, requires certain amounts of space onto which the sun can shine or across which the wind can blow. Because of that, it’s incumbent upon us proponents of renewables to get clever in ways to deal with these issues — to try to hide our wind turbines, solar panels, etc., in places where they affect us the least. This, of course, is why the 6.6 gigawatt offshore wind project going in off the Atlantic coastline will be 12 miles offshore: far enough away so as to be invisible to anyone but marlin fishermen.
Having said all this, I would argue that the project in New Jersey is the worst of all possible worlds. Here, we have 200,000 assaults upon the natural beauty of the landscape that the NJ citizens have a right to expect to be preserved.
If they honestly wanted a better solution, all they needed to do was to ask me first… :)
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[The Vector] Consumer Attitudes Revealed in Latest Solar Survey
| April 14, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Photo-voltaics |
San Jose State University and SolarTech conducted a study recently in Silicon Valley to understand consumer attitudes toward solar energy and solar power for home use. Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County) is considered a bell-weather county in a state that is more aware of solar and alternative energy than the typical American.
The goal of the survey was to analyze consumer awareness, preferences, perceptions and ultimate attitude to adoption of solar energy by homeowners.
A brief profile of the respondents: Read More
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[The Vector] Sahara Could Export Electricity to Europe in 5 Years
| February 22, 2011 | Posted by Aedan-Kernan under Photo-voltaics |
DESERTEC, a $496 billion project to generate solar electricity in the Sahara Desert could be exporting electricity to Europe in five years, according to European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, following a meeting with energy ministers from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which will each house a portion of the project. Read More
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[The Vector] US Solar Supplier Scaling Up as Residential Market Commoditises
| February 1, 2011 | Posted by Aedan-Kernan under Photo-voltaics |
As the residential solar market matures in the Southern US, investors should be asking themselves which solar outfits are on the verge of growing into a project developer, capable of delivering big systems to the utilities, according to Paul Leming, an analyst with Princeton Tech/Soleil Securities. Read More
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[The Vector] Winter Wonderland and Solar Panels
| January 29, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Photo-voltaics |
In light of another stormy winter and plenty of snow falling around the country, there has been more talk about the following question: can PV solar panels work in snow and cold?
Solar PV panels can indeed work in a cold, snowy climate especially if there are sunny days and good exposure of the panels. In fact, several companies point out that PV panels work best in the cold, as the output of silicon can reduce in very hot weather. However, when snow piles up on panels and blocks all sunlight, the panels obviously stop working. Most say this happens after a few inches accumulate, but that a light dusting doesn’t stop functions and the light dusting will most likely melt off in sunlight. But many areas of the country are getting more than a light dusting of snow. What to do?
The majority of companies and experienced users say tilted panels are a good defense. Many panels are tilted Read More
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Guest Post from Wayne Mackey: A Case for Solar Photovoltaics Today
| January 17, 2011 | Posted by Wayne-Mackey under Photo-voltaics |
Systems can last for 40 or more years. By going solar, you can lock in your current and future energy costs in at today’s lower rates.
The first crude modern solar photovoltaic Solar cells were created in the Bell Telephone Labs in 1952 – 1954 by Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson. They were trying to find a way to power telephones in remote areas of the country. They were able to produce a solar cell that was 6% efficient at converting sunlight into electrical energy.
Solar energy is not diminished by harvesting, unlike fossil fuels. The amount of energy we capture today in no way diminishes how much we can take tomorrow, or how much is left for our children and grandchildren. Every single day enough solar energy falls on the earth to supply all of the world’s energy needs for four or five years. Solar energy shows up directly in the form as sunlight which can be harvested by panels that can create either heat or electricity. Our allotment of solar energy can also show up indirectly as wind, the result of uneven heating on the earth’s surface. Read More
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[The Vector] Solar Gets Serious in the United Arab Emirates
| January 12, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Photo-voltaics |
The Emirates Solar Industry Association was launched in early January 2011. The association is bringing together industry players in photovoltaics, concentrating solar power and solar thermal as well as those involved in supplying and subsidiary roles, like engineering or glass firms. But a goal of the industry is to aid international solar companies that want to set up business or bases in the Emirates.
The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi is behind the initiative. The Masdar Institute is an independent, graduate-level, not-for-profit, research-driven institute that works in cooperation with MIT. Its mission is to solve world problems on the issues of sustainability. The Institute is situated in Masdar City, an Read More
