China Puts the Heat On Germany's Solar Industry

Only a few years ago, Germany was the declared leader in the world's solar industry. This is no longer the case. Asia, China especially, is where the hot solar action is at, being able to produce solar cells quicker and cheaper (link):

Q-Cells, the world's biggest solar cell producer, last week issued a far from glowing set of results, with losses of 700 million euros (984 million dollars) in the first half of the year.

As a result, the German firm said it would cut 500 jobs from its workforce of 2,600 and put others on part-time working arrangements.

The crisis in the German solar industry is affecting small companies as well as giants such as Q-Cells. Only three months ago, start-up Sunline declared bankruptcy with the loss of all its 78 employees.

A glance at the TecDax, Germany's tech-heavy stock market index, nicknamed
"SunDax" for the predominance of solar firms, tells the story, with some companies losing around 30 percent of their value since the start of 2008.

"The fact is that Germany is losing more and more of its market leading position in renewable energy production to the United States and China," said Matthias Fawer from Swiss bank Sarasin, quoted in German weekly Die Zeit.

"Asian cell and module producers are going to squeeze out the Germans," Anne Kreutzmann, the chief editor of solar trade newspaper Photon, told the Financial Times Deutschland.

The main reason is simple: Chinese solar power companies are able to produce cells much more cheaply, due to lower labour costs and also the plummeting price for silicon, the raw material for solar cell manufacture.

Whereas German firms are tied in to long-term contracts for silicon deliveries, Chinese firms have been sourcing it from the spot market, where the price has dropped by around 70 percent in the past few months.

According to a survey from Photon Consulting, while it costs a German firm such as Ersol 1.01 dollars per watt to produce a solar cell, Chinese company Suntech can manufacture the same cell for 35 cents per watt.

All in all, production costs for the solar industry are as much as 30 percent lower in
China than in Germany, according to a UBS study.

Chinese firms also benefit from state support and the effect has been to push prices for solar cells down significantly in the past few years.

Adding to its troubles, the German solar industry's export market, which accounts for over 40 percent of turnover, is beginning to dry up in key areas.

- Brewskie

Solar Industry to Researchers: Go Ahead, Slack Off

There's no big hurry to generate photovoltaic breakthroughs. Go ahead, vacation like the Europeans do, surf the net all day for porn, hog the bong and dirty up your Che Guevara shirt. Solar's gonna take care of itself in good time, that's what the industry is saying. Hmm... we have a robot that can now play Frogger; maybe it'll perform a "Lawn Mower Man" jump in processing capability, build an array photovoltaic-powered "death satellites" that will burn the infidel species...

Whatever. You can read the bible of the solar industry here, or you can go on
a horrific acid binge with the rest of the photovoltaic engineers, envisioning a
giant preying mantis biting your head off. Grooovy...

The federal government is behind the times when it comes to making decisions about advancing the solar industry, according to several solar-industry experts. This has led, they argue, to a misplaced emphasis on research into futuristic new technologies, rather than support for scaling up existing ones. That was the prevailing opinion at a symposium last week put together by the National Academies in Washington, DC, on the topic of scaling up the solar industry.

The meeting was attended by numerous experts from the photovoltaic industry and academia. And many complained that the emphasis on finding new technologies is misplaced. "This is such a fast-moving field," said Ken Zweibel, director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University. "To some degree, we're fighting the last war. We're answering the questions from 5, 10, 15 years ago in a world where things have really changed."

[...]

Meanwhile, says Zweibel, conventional technologies "have made the kind of progress that we were hoping futuristic technologies could make." For example, researchers have sought to bring the cost of solar power to under $1 per watt, and as of the first quarter of this year one company, First Solar, has done this.

These cost reductions have made solar power cheaper than the natural-gas-powered plants used to produce extra electricity to meet demand on hot summer days. With subsidies, which Zweibel argues are justified because of the "externalities" of other power sources, such as the cost from pollution, solar can be competitive with conventional electricity even outside peak demand times, at least in California. And projected cost decreases will make solar competitive with current electricity prices in more areas, even without subsidies.

Representatives of the solar industry say the federal government should do more to remove obstacles that are slowing the industry's development. One issue is financing for new solar installations, which can be much more expensive if lending institutions deem them high risk. A recent extension of federal tax credits and grants for solar investments is a step in the right direction, many solar experts say. But more could be done. A price on carbon would help make solar more economically competitive and more attractive to lenders.

- Brewskie

Solar Prices Shine in the Solar Glut

Solar's taken a beating this year, but there's one bright spot: cheap polysilicon, thus cheap solar products. Go shoppin', frugal "stingies..."

Prices for polysilicon, the raw material used in photovoltaic solar cells, keep plunging thanks to abundant supply and weak demand. It’s not just spot prices that are falling, but renegotiated contract prices also, says New Energy Finance, London-based clean-energy analysts.

“The new contract price of silicon for delivery in 2009 is down some 50% on that contracted for a year ago and now close to the spot price of $67/kg, equivalent to $0.50 per watt,” wrote NEF in a note today. The old contract prices averaged $150 per kilogram, while spot prices had jumped to $300 per
kilogram.

That may be bad news for the companies that process silicon—they’ve been squeezed by falling prices for their product since the credit crunch and a collapse in key solar markets. But it could be good news for the sector as a whole, notes NEF:

These prices suggest that leading manufacturers of crystalline silicon PV modules can afford to sell below $2/watt and still make a small profit. This is half the price of modules in 2008, making PV much more competitive with fossil fuel-generated electricity and much more attractive under subsidy regimes designed for 2008 prices.

- Brewskie

Happy Days Ahead for US Solar Manufacturing

One analyst foresees a boom in America's solar manufacturing.

The heady cocktail of generous federal and local government incentives and
renewable energy mandates in the United States could create a new manufacturing hub in a country that often talks about losing manufacturing jobs to Asia.

In fact, cell and solar panel manufacturing capacity is likely to grow roughly 50 percent annually between 2008 and 2012, said Shyam Mehta, senior analyst at GTM Research, Tuesday at Intersolar North America in San Francisco.

The U.S. market demand for solar panels could grow from 342 megawatts in 2008 to 2.13 gigawatts in 2012, he added. That appetite is driving companies such as SolarWorld and Schott Solar, both in Germany, and Japan's Sanyo to set up factories in the United States.

[...]

The country produced 499 megawatts of solar panels in 2008, 70 percent of which were thin-film panels. Ninety percent of those thin films came from factories owned by First Solar and United Solar Ovonic.

Mehta, who provided some key figures from his upcoming report on photovoltaic manufacturing in the United States, predicted that the country will likely be able to produce more than 2.7 gigawatts of cells, as well as panels, by 2012.

Thin-film manufacturing would play a big role in the growth. By 2012, 66 percent of the factory capacity would be devoted to making thin-film panels, including those that use cadmium-telluride, amorphous silicon and copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS).

CIGS companies are likely to expand their production capacity from 32 megawatts in 2007 to about 1.3 gigawatts in 2012, Mehta said. His bullish outlook, which he expressed previously, has raised eyebrows because most of the CIGS companies in the United States are in early stages of commercial production.

[...]

Mehta argued that it would only take a few successful CIGS companies out of the current crop of eight to 10 businesses to make a significant contribution to the solar market in 2012. He conceded that tough challenges remain for these companies to be able to mass-produce products at competitive costs.

He expects a big boost for producing crystalline silicon solar panels. The factory capacity devoted to making this type of solar panels could expand from 389 megawatts in 2008 to about 1.23 gigawatts in 2012.

- Brewskie

Suntech's 1.8GW of New Chinese Solar Projects

Suntech recently announced four new solar power facilities.

Suntech Power Holdings, one of the world's largest photovoltaic module makers, yesterday announced plans for four new on-grid photovoltaic solar projects in China with a compbined capacity of 1.8GW.

The New York Stock Exchange-listed company said it had signed solar plant construction deals with the governments of Shaanxi province and Shizuishan
ity in Ningxia Autonomous Region.

The Shaanxi facility will have an installed capacity of 300MW, while the other three developments will have a capacity 500MW each, delivering a total of 1.8GW of solar capacity from the new projects.

All four projects will need to be approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, which administers China's energy policy, and secure a sufficient amount of investment and project financing before they can proceed, said Suntech.

However, executives are likely to be optimistic that approval can be attained given the government recently announced a 15-fold increase in its solar energy targets for 2011 to two gigawatts and has signalled that solar power will play a key role in its efforts to curb carbon emissions.

- Brewskie

Tessara Plans 500MW Solar Project

It's no Sahara solar project, but we'll take what we can get. Tessera Solar Plans 500MW Solar Thermal Power in Riverside County, California.

Tessera said it's teaming up with Optiflex Properties & Development on developing and financing the power plants, which would be located on closed landfills and undeveloped properties, said Janette Coates, a spokeswoman for Tessera.

Tessera announced the project earlier this week, about two weeks after it said it would build a 27-megawatt solar project in Texas and sell the power to CPS Energy, which is run by the city of San Antonio.

Building 500 megawatts would require about 3,500 acres, she said. Tessera and Optiflex are scouting for ideal locations in Riverside for erecting Stirling Energy Systems' SunCatcher equipment.

A SunCatcher is made up of a giant parabolic dish of mirrors (40 feet across) to concentrate the sun onto a receiver called a "power conversion unit (PCU)." Sunlight heats up the hydrogen gas in tubes in the PCU, and the gas goes through a heat exchanger to run a four-cylinder Stirling engine. The engine then drives a generator to produce electricity.

Stirling Energy Systems (SES) recently unveiled a newly designed SunCatcher that it said would be easy to mass produce and maintain than its first-generation design.

The history of Stirling engines goes back to 1816, when Robert Stirling in Scotland designed the first machine and built it two years later to pump water from a quarry.

The companies plan to start construction between 2010 and 2012.

- Brewskie

Solar Built on Nanopillars

University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated another way to fabricate efficient solar cells from cheap, and flexible materials (link):

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated a way
to fabricate efficient solar cells from low-cost and flexible materials. The new design grows optically active semiconductors in arrays of nanoscale pillars, each a single crystal, with dimensions measured in billionths of a meter.

[...]

solar cell’s basic job is to convert light energy into charge-carrying electrons and “holes” (the absence of an electron), which flow to electrodes to produce a current. Unlike a typical two-dimensional solar cell, a nanopillar array offers much more surface for collecting light. Computer simulations have indicated that, compared to flat surfaces, nanopillar semiconductor arrays should be more sensitive to light, have a greatly enhanced ability to separate electrons from holes, and be a more efficient collector of these charge carriers.

“Unfortunately, early attempts to make photovoltaic cells based on pillar-shaped semiconductors grown from the bottom up yielded disappointing results. Light-to-electricity efficiencies were less than one to two percent,” says Javey. “Epitaxial growth on single crystalline substrates was often used, which is costly. The nanopillar dimensions weren’t well controlled, pillar density and alignment was poor, and the quality of the interface between the semiconductors was poor.”

Javey devised a new, controlled way to use a method called the “vapor-liquid-solid” process to make large-scale modules of dense, highly ordered arrays of single-crystal nanopillars. Inside a quartz furnace his group grew pillars of electron-rich cadmium sulfide on aluminum foil, in which geometrically distributed pores made by anodization served as a template.

In the same furnace they submerged the nanopillars, once grown, in a thin layer of hole-rich cadmium telluride, which acted as a window to collect the light. The two materials in contact with each other form a solar cell in which the electrons flow through the nanopillars to the aluminum contact below, and the holes are conducted to thin copper-gold electrodes placed on the surface of the window above.

The efficiency of the test device was measured at six percent, which while less than the 10 to 18 percent range of mass-produced commercial cells is higher than most photovoltaic devices based on nanostructured materials – even though the nontransparent copper-gold electrodes on top of the Javey group’s test device cut its efficiency by 50 percent. In future, top contact transparency can easily be improved.

- Brewskie

Solar Without the Sun

A cool concept: an energy startup, Cool Energy(!), is working on a solar system that, in theory, could be competitive conventional electricity sources - even in darker climates (link):

The company's system combines a conventional solar water heater with a new Stirling-engine-based generator that it is developing. In cool months, the solar heater provides hot water and space heating. In warmer months, excess heat is used to drive the Stirling engine and generate electricity.

Samuel Weaver, the company's president and CEO, says that the system is more economical than solar water heaters alone because it makes use of heat that would otherwise be wasted during summer months. The system will also pay for itself bout twice as quickly as conventional solar photovoltaics will, he says. That's in part because it can efficiently offset heating bills in the winter--something that photovoltaics can't do--and in part because the evacuated tubes used to collect heat from the sun make better use of diffuse light than conventional solar panels do.

The system is designed to provide almost all of a house's heating needs. But the generator, which will produce only 1.5 kilowatts of power, won't be enough to power a house on its own. The system is designed to work with power from the grid, although the power is enough to run a refrigerator and a few lights in the event of a power failure.

The company's key innovation is the Stirling engine, which is designed to work at temperatures much lower than ordinary Stirling engines. In these engines, a piston is driven by heating up one side of the engine while keeping the opposite side cool. Ordinarily, the engines require temperatures of above 500 °C, but Cool Energy's engine is designed to run at the 200 degrees that solar water heaters provide.

- Brewskie

Fed Plows Solar into Southwest

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the federal government is aiming to fast-track solar projects in six southwestern states:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he has signed an order setting aside more than 1,000 square miles of public land for two years of study and environmental reviews to determine where solar power stations should be built.

"We are putting a bull's-eye on the development of solar energy on our public lands," Salazar said during an announcement with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, in a courtyard shaded by a solar power array at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

[...]

Salazar vowed to have 13 "commercial-scale" solar projects under construction by the end of 2010. He set a goal of producing a total of 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity.

Salazar said the federal Bureau of Land Management plans to spend $22 million conducting studies of 24 tracts in the 670,000 acres of property he set aside in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Posters displayed Monday showed some of the sites in southern Nevada, Southern California east of San Diego, an area west of Phoenix, and tracts north of Cedar City in Utah, southwest of Pueblo, Colo., and around Las Cruces, N.M.

Bureau officials said the goal will be to identify lands of at least three square miles with solar exposure, suitable slopes and proximity to existing or designated roads and transmission lines. Wilderness, high-conservation-value lands and lands with conflicting uses were excluded. Setting aside the sites, called Solar Energy Study Areas, would prevent new mining claims and other third-party use during the studies.

An industry official hailed Salazar's promise to clear a logjam in utility-scale solar developments. The BLM said it has 158 active applications for solar power plants pending.

[...]

Salazar said bureau was already considering environmental reviews for two projects in Nevada. The NextLight Silver State South would have a solar array producing 267 megawatts, and NextLight Silver State North would produce about 140 megawatts.

Salazar said the two plants combined would produce more electricity than a "mid-sized" coal-fired plant that can produce 350 megawatts.

- Brewskie

"Solar Magic" Kills Solar Ineffiency

One thing solar critics point out is "shady interferences:" for example, if one solar array falls under a shade, the performance of all the panels drops. As if this isn't something you couldn't see being solved - good grief!

Now we have Solar Magic(!): a power management circuitry that remedies this simple problem...

If just one solar panel in a rooftop array falls under shade, the performance of all of the panels typically drops. That's because an array's electrical voltage and current are usually set at just one point: the inverter that changes direct current to alternating current. The settings the inverter can choose are determined by the worst-performing solar panel. National Semiconductor of Santa Clara, CA, has developed power management circuitry that adjusts the voltage on each panel to match its power output. Field tests show that the gadget can reduce losses from unshaded panels by 57 percent.

- Brewskie

Holy Gigawatts: World's Largest Solar Project Planned for Saharah

What's all that sand, sun and vacant land good for anyway (link)?

If just 0.3% of the Saharan Desert was used for a concentrating solar plant, it would produce enough power to provide all of Europe with clean renewable energy. That is why 20 blue chip German companies are gathering together next month to discuss plans and investments to create such a massive project. Both the meeting and project are being promoted by the Desertec Foundation, which is proposing to erect 100 GW of concentrating solar power plants throughout Northern Africa.

The red squares in the above map represent the land area necessary to meet the energy demand of the world, the EU and MENA in 2005. The last square represents the land necessary for the proposed project to generate 100 GW of concentrating solar power. The project being proposed by Desertec would not all be situated in one location, but scattered throughout politically stable countries. Taken as a whole, the project qualifies as the world’s largest solar installation - 80 times larger than the PG&E and BrightSource project planned for the Mojave Desert. The power generated would be transported over high-voltage DC lines across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, where it would supply 15% of the energy demand. The project is still 10-15 years from going online, but that’s why major players are getting started now.

[...]

To build the 100 GWs worth of solar power a total of €400bn investment is
needed.

- Brewskie

Texas to Gain America's Biggest Solar Power Facility

(Hat tip: the always wonderful Big Gave of Peak Energy)

Texas has big steers, big SUVs, big McMansions, big butts, big DQ's, big BBQ. They also have big wind and now Austin has big solar, too.

Texas is famous for having the biggest of everything, from the biggest capitol in the nation, to the largest population of livestock cattle. And while one may not immediately think of Texas as a green state, that will soon change, as Gemini Solar Development has been selected by Austin Energy to install the United States’ largest solar power facility. A green Texas? Why not!

The array will be owned by San Francisco-based company Gemini Solar evelopment, which will lease the plant to Austin Energy. 30 megawatts is the amount of power that will be produced by the United States’ largest solar array - enough power for about 5,000 homes, and around double the output of the current largest solar array in the US. The array will be located in a 300 acre site at Webberville, which is owned by Austin Energy, the city’s electric company.

The plant is being installed as part of the city’s plan to increase its use of renewables by 30 percent in the year 2030.

- Brewskie

Solar Air-Conditioning

And for today's ironic post of the day...

Le Lievre, a co-founder and former CEO of solar thermal specialist Ausra, has formed a new company – Chromasun – that hopes to capitalize on the small, but growing market for multifunctional solar systems (see All-in-One Solar Panels and Solar Thermal). The company has erected a working prototype in San Jose, Calif. and is currently raising money to build larger prototypes that will be installed in the U.S. and overseas. By the first quarter of next year, he wants to be in mass production.

Multifunctional solar devices harvest both light and heat from the sun.
Traditional PV cells only harvest light and are only around 23 percent efficient in converting photos to electric power. Solar thermal systems collect heat, and
are about 48 percent efficient at best. Utility-scale solar thermal systems are
closer to 20 percent efficient because the captured heat gets converted to electricity.

Chromasun's device is 75 percent efficient. The device – at 10 foot by 4 foot sealed box – is essentially a utility scale solar thermal plant and a utility-scale concentrating solar PV plant in miniature. It contains mirrors, receivers and a concentrator for generating solar thermal energy as well as silicon solar cells.

The heat – roughly 65 percent of the power generated – gets exploited to run the air conditioners while the PV-generated electricity is used locally to offset grid power. Because there are spaces between the mirrors, sunlight can be used to light the interior below. Smaller devices will later come out for the residential market.

[...]

Why? Air conditioners are some of the biggest energy hogs out there. HVAC systems gobble up 16 percent of the energy in the U.S. (Building operations account for around 39 percent of U.S. power according to the Department of Energy and 40 percent of that power goes to HVAC). Worse, air conditioners move into high gear on the hot afternoons when power costs the most and is the most difficult to find. It's no coincidence that blackouts occur on hot summer days.Fifty percent of the demand for power during peak periods in California and 70 percent of the power in Dubai can be attributed to air conditioners, he said.

"Ninety-five percent of that can be tackled by a solar thermal air conditioner on the roof," he said. "The biggest market is for peak AC."

Chromasun is geographically challenged. The device works best in the U.S. southwest, North Africa, Western Australia and Southern Europe.

"In dry hot it's good. Humid hot is not so good," he said. Still, these regions account for $28 billion of the $70 billion annual AC market.

Payback can occur in two to four years, assuming 18 cents a kilowatt hour for peak power. An electrical air conditioner can cost $27.69 an hour to run while a natural gas one can cost $21.63 an hour. The equivalent cost for a solar conditioners, which still need pumps and other devices, is $15.52. A 1,200 square meters worth of rooftops outfitted with these devices can put out 700 kilowatts of heat.

On the PV side of things, Chromasun's device uses 95 percent less silicon than a conventional solar system with the same power rating. The reduction comes because of the Fresnel concentrator that is put in for the thermal system. (The solar cells are located on the underside of the solar thermal collector.) Performing two functions also reduces the cost that has hampered widespread acceptance of concentrating PV.

Brewskie comment: In regards to the second-to-the-last paragraph, as solar becomes cheaper and more efficient, the time it takes to recoup one's investment will fall even more.

- Brewskie

Sanyo's 23% Solar-Effieciency is a "Hit"

The Sanyo Hit:

Several key processing breakthroughs in the lab have seen conversion
efficiencies of Sanyo’s Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer ‘HIT’ solar
cells raised from 22.3% to 23%. The new internal record results have been
validated by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology (AIST).

Sanyo said that it was able to reduce the
recombination loss of the electrical element (charged carrier). Recombination loss occurs when the negative electron and positive hole (carriers) that are produced within the solar cell combine and disappear, causing a loss in the electrical current produced by the cell, resulting in a reduction in output of the solar cell. This was reduced by surrounding the energy generation layer of single thin crystalline silicon (c-Si) with high quality ultra-thin amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer, while not damaging the c-Si surface. The open circuit voltage (Voc) then increased from 0.725V to 0.729V.

Optical absorption loss in the a-Si layer was also reduced. Although the company did not say how this was achieved, a reduction was made for both the a-Si and transparent conductive layers. However, Sanyo noted that the absorption of short-wavelength solar radiation by the a-Si layer and that of long-wavelength solar radiation by the transparent conductive layer were the causes of the optical absorption loss. As a result of its research efforts, the short circuit current (Isc) improved from 39.2mA/cm2 to 39.5mA/cm2.

The final key development came by reducing electric current loss via the inherent resistance. Sanyo said that a newly developed electrode material for use as the grid
electrode and a higher-aspect ratio through improving printing technology, combined to reduce resistance loss when an electric current flows through the grid electrode. As a result, the fill factor (FF) was improved from 0.791 to
0.80.

- Brewskie

Solar-Powered Plane Crosses the Alps

Click this link for a video of the SunseekerII solar plane flying across the alps.

- Brewskie

Lockheed War Titans to Build 290 MW Arizona Solar Thermal Plant

Looks like Lockheed Martin is actually good for stuff other than building bombs to wreck Iraq. This will be its first solar thermal project.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin is building its first large-scale solar power plant -- a $1.5 billion, 290-megawatt solar thermal plant about 75 miles west of Phoenix.

Under the deal announced Friday, Lockheed will build and operate the plant for developer Starwood Energy Group, which has a contract to sell the power to utility Arizona Public Service Co. when it is complete in 2013.

It's the first project under a Lockheed/Starwood partnership first announced in 2007, aimed at marrying Starwood's deep pockets and project expertise and Lockheed's experience in space-based photovoltaic applications to bring utility-scale solar power projects to Earth.

[...]

BrightSource uses a "power tower" design -- a field of mirrors, or heliostats, to concentrate the sunlight and heat the water atop of a central tower to make steam to power a turbine. Its first plant, a 110-megawatt solar thermal station in Ivanpah, Calif., is set to begin construction in 2010 and begin operation in 2012.

Lockheed, on the other hand, will use a parabolic trough design, using 3,000 100-meter reflective troughs to focus sunlight on fluid-containing tubes that carry the heated fluid to a heat exchanger to generate steam (see Solar Thermal: Which Technology Is Best?).

California's investor-owned utilities like PG&E and Edison are under a state mandate to include 20 percent of its power mix with renewable electricity. Arizona Public Service also has a mandate to provide 4.5 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2014.

- Brewskie

Juicing More AC Out of Solar

Why solar will continue to become more efficient, cheaper (link):

There's more to solar power than blue glassy panels shimmering on rooftops. Just as important are the inverters that convert DC power created by the solar panels into grid-ready AC power. Typically, all the panels in a rooftop PV system are connected to one large inverter mounted on the side of a house.

Startup Enphase Energy of Petaluma, CA, is now making the first micro-inverters. These smaller inverters can be bolted to the racking under each solar panel, to convert DC power into AC for each panel individually. The company claims that the devices will increase a PV system's efficiency by 5 to 25 percent and decrease the cost of solar power.

[...]

In addition to DC-to-AC conversion, inverters are in charge of getting the most power from solar modules. They have a logic circuit that constantly searches for the best voltage and current levels at which the panels can operate. (Power is the product of voltage and current.)

In a conventional PV system, solar panels are wired together in series, and their combined high-voltage DC power is fed to an inverter. Therefore, the inverter's logic circuit optimizes the total current and voltage levels. But if one panel's current drops, it limits the overall output of the system. "Something as simple as a leaf blowing over a module, or dust or debris or shade on one module, will affect the entire array of all those modules that are connected in series," says Leesa Lee, director of marketing at Enphase.

Micro-inverters optimize the voltage-current levels at each panel individually. This squeezes the most power from each panel and then adds it together, increasing the system's efficiency. "Any impact on a module is limited to that module alone," Lee says. In addition, the equipment cost for micro-inverters is about 15 percent less than the cost for a traditional system, she says, because expensive DC components, such as signal combiners and disconnects, can be replaced with off-the-shelf AC parts.

- Brewskie

Crazy Asians Have 100% Solar-Powered Stadium

The always venerable Big Gav - the smartest writer of the Oil Drum - has this bit on a 100% solar-powered stadium in Taiwan (great pictures):

Taiwan recently finished construction on an incredible solar-powered stadium that will generate 100% of its electricity from photovoltaic technology! Designed by Toyo Ito, the dragon-shaped 50,000 seat arena is clad in 8,844 solar panels that illuminate the track and field with 3,300 lux. The project will officially open later this year to welcome the 2009 World Games.


Building a new stadium is always a massive undertaking that requires millions of dollars, substantial physical labor, and a vast amount of electricity to keep it operating. Toyo Ito’s design negates this energy drain with a stunning 14,155 sq meter solar roof that is able to provide enough energy to power the stadium’s 3,300 lights and two jumbo vision screens. To illustrate the incredible power of this system, officials ran a test this January and found that it took just six minutes to power up the stadium’s entire lighting
system!

The stadium also integrates additional green features such as permeable paving and the extensive use of reusable, domestically made materials. Built upon a clear area of approximately 19 hectares, nearly 7 hectares has been reserved for the development of integrated public green spaces, bike paths, sports parks, and an ecological pond. Additionally, all of the plants occupying the area before construction were transplanted.

- Brewskie

Toothepaste Compound Brings Big Hydrogen Solar Breakthrough

Titania, titanium dioxide, titanium white, or CI 77891. Mythic stuff. It's used everywhere: semiconductors, oxygen sensors, protein cleaver... food coloring, sun tan lotion, kitty litter! When you see fake snow in a movie... that's pigment white 6!

The egg-heads of Northeastern University, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have gone further to display the potential, demonstrate its value, why it's paramount to fulfilling the 35-year dream of hydrogen fuel cells inspired by Akira Fujishima (link):

Increasing the available surface area is one way to boost a catalyst's performance, so a team at Northeastern has been studying techniques to build tightly packed arrays of titania nanotubes, which have a very high surface to volume ratio. They also were interested in how best to incorporate carbon into the nanotubes, because carbon helps titania absorb light in the visible spectrum. (Pure titania absorbs in the ultraviolet region, and much of the ultraviolet is filtered by the atmosphere.)

This brought them to the NIST X-ray spectroscopy beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS)**. The NIST facility uses X-rays that can be precisely tuned to measure chemical bonds of specific elements, and is at least
10 times more sensitive than commonly available laboratory instruments, allowing researchers to detect elements at extremely low concentrations. While making
measurements of the carbon atoms, the team noticed spectroscopic data indicating
that the titania nanotubes had small amounts of potassium ions strongly bound to the surface, evidently left by the fabrication process, which used potassium
salts. This was the first time the potassium has ever been observed on titania nanotubes; previous measurements were not sensitive enough to detect it.

The result was mildly interesting, but became much more so when the research team compared the performance of the potassium-bearing nanotubes to similar arrays deliberately prepared without potassium. The former required only about one-third the electrical energy to produce the same amount of hydrogen as an equivalent array of potassium-free nanotubes. "The result was so exciting," recalls Northeastern physicist Latika Menon, "that we got sidetracked from the carbon research." Because it has such a strong effect at nearly undetectable concentrations, Menon says, potassium probably has played an unrecognized role in many experimental water-splitting cells that use titania nanotubes, because potassium hydroxide is commonly used in the cells. By controlling it, she says, hydrogen solar cell designers could use it to optimize performance.

- Brewskie

California's Wonderful Solar Subisdies

As mentioned recently, China announced massive subsidies to encourage the purchase and installation of solar panels, and the usage of solar-powered electricity. Now, the Golden State has decided to dole out liberal subsidies, too. Catch the link, or read below:

The state of California pays $3.30 a watt for solar panels to power common areas – i.e., parking lots and hallways – and $4.00 a watt for solar panels to provide power to individual apartments, says Richard Raeke, director of project finance at Borrego Solar.

The subsidies can be determined by square footage if the complex is on a centralized master power meter. If 20 percent of a complex's electrical load gets consumed by the common areas, 20 percent of the rebate is at the $3.30 rate and the rest goes at $4.00.

We're really looking at 40 to 60 percent of the cost," he said.

By contrast, standard homeowners get $1.55 a watt in California.

[...]

The state has also created a solar subsidy for low-income individual homes that range from $7 to $5.75. At $7 a watt, the subsidy would cover more than the
cost of installing a solar system now, which can be put in for just under $7 a watt. Nonetheless, the building must be occupied by residents with federal income tax liability ranging from $2,000 to zero.

California set aside $108 million for the Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) program as part of its comprehensive solar initiative. The state's public utility commission fleshed out the program in November 2007. However, it only began accepting applications somewhat recently. The money will be spent over the next four years.

- Brewskie