Solar Hot Water: Which is better, PV or Thermal?
Recently, reductions in solar electric (PV) costs and maturation of air-to-water heat pump technology have provided a new model: solar-electric assisted heat pump water heating (HPWH).
Can the Challenges of Desert Solar be Overcome?
The most significant engineering challenges facing desert solar are windblown sand, lack of water and transmission lines. Aside from the physical logistics, political resistance also hinders the development of desert solar.
Solving Turbine Wake Issues in Dense Development Areas
Using a specialized wake model, 3TIER is able to help clients take into account the impact of external wakes on the final net energy numbers they must take to their project stakeholders and financing partners.
Critical thinking for innovation at the World Energy Congress 2013
For most energy and utility companies, success will be achieved through transforming the utility network, improving generation performance, and transforming customer operations - via big data analytics.
China to offer tax breaks to solar power manufacturers
China's Ministry of Finance announced it will offer tax breaks to manufacturers of solar power products on Sunday, as China moves to support an industry still struggling to deal with massive overcapacity and weak demand.
The ministry said in a short statement on its website that producers of solar power products will receive immediate refunds of 50 percent of value-added taxes.
The National Development and Reform Commission provided subsidies for solar power stations in late August.
"China's bloated photovoltaic industry still faces a grim outlook as many companies are deeply mired in debts," said a report on the official Xinhua news service discussing the announcement.
It cited data from the China Renewable Energy Society saying that the country's top 10 solar panel makers are up to 100 billion yuan ($16.34 billion) in debt, with a debt to asset ratio above 70 percent on average.
Beijing has said it wants to consolidate the industry, but the sector continues to enjoy protection at the central and local level; the latter is particularly strong because solar power companies are frequently major employers.
Solar power to overtake wind for the first time
Solar power capacity is set to overtake wind for the first time this year, as a slowdown in the world’s two largest wind markets, China and the U.S., clear the way for a growing solar market, according to a report released Thursday.
Clean energy news and data provider Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast new onshore and offshore wind farms to add 33.8 gigawatts and 1.7 gigawatts, respectively, to global power markets.
That compares with an estimated 36.7 gigawatts of new photovoltaic, or PV, capacity, the first year in which solar power will add more megawatts than wind.
“The dramatic cost reductions in PV, combined with new incentive regimes in Japan and China, are making possible further, strong growth in volumes,” said Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Europe is a declining market, because many countries there are rapidly moving away from incentives, but it will continue to see new PV capacity added.”
Wind may be down but not out. Wind installations will shrink by nearly 25% in 2013 to their lowest level since 2008, due to the slowdowns in the U.S. and China caused by policy uncertainty, BNEF said.
Solar Power From Giant Mirrors Flows Into California's Grid
BrightSource Energy’s massive solar farm in a remote corner of California delivered its first flow of power to the grid, an important step for demonstrating that the project is on the final path to become a fully operating power plant, the company said Tuesday.
BrightSource achieved what is called the “first sync” with the project,Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, where for the first time the steam was sent to one of its three turbines for generating electricity and synching to the grid. Ivanpah is the first commercial power plant project in the United States for BrightSource, which owns a stake in the project along with NRG Energy and Google.
The project also is one of the massive solar power projects being built in California to enable the state to meet its goal of using an increasing amount of renewable electricity. The state’s mandate requires 33% of its utilities power supplies to come from renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass by 2020.
The project has a 392-megawatt capacity but is set to deliver 377 megawatts to the Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison . It’s sized to deliver enough power to about 140,000 homes per year.
Ivanpah is made up of three power generation stations. The “first sync” milestone took place at Unit 1, and the same step will be done at Unit 2 and Unit 3 soon. Unit 2 and Unit 3 are scheduled to start delivering electricity to the grid by the end of the year.
India To Build World's Largest Solar Power Plant In Rajasthan
The Indian government will set up the world’s largest solar power plant in its northwestern state of Rajasthan, an official statement said on Friday, and the venture is expected to significantly reduce solar power taxes in the country.
The project, known as the "Ultra-Mega Green Solar Power Project," will have a total power generation capacity of 4,000 megawatts, which is more than double the total solar power generation capacity in India.
“This will be the largest solar-based power project in the world. Being the first project of this scale … this project is expected to set a trend for large-scale solar power development in the world," a government statement said.
The project will be spread across 23,000 acres of land belonging to the state-run Sambhar Salts Ltd, near the Sambhar Lake, which is about 47 miles away from Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital city. The first phase of the project, which will be for 1,000 megawatt capacity, is expected to be completed in three years and will be run by a joint venture of five state-run utilities, including BHEL, Power Grid Corporation of India and Solar Energy Corporation of India.
China to limit construction of new solar panel factories
China, the world's biggest maker of solar panels, will limit construction of new photovoltaic manufacturing plants to curb excess capacity in a move that may encourage consolidation within the industry.
New solar plants that "purely" expand capacity will be strictly banned, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement on its website yesterday.
Annual spending by companies for research and development and upgrading equipment must total at least 3 per cent of revenue and must exceed 10 million yuan (HK$12.6 million).
Chinese authorities have pledged to cut overcapacity in industries from steel to paper as policy makers seek to reduce the economy's reliance on investments and exports.
A global oversupply of solar panels led to a 20 per cent plunge in prices last year, according to data.
The policy will slow efforts to expand production capacity in favour of mergers and acquisitions as a growth strategy for the biggest companies, said Angelo Zino, an analyst with S&P Capital IQ in New York.
Photoflow is solar power and rainwater harvesting in one
A design company called NOS has developed a solution to two major problems facing developing countries: scarcity of drinking water and electricity. The concept is called the PhotoFlow, a combination solar photovoltaic device and rainwater harvester.
NOS says, "Most of the developing countries are located near the equator, receiving more sunlight and rainfall than most other countries on the planet. Despite this abundance, a large number of people living in these countries suffer from a lack of electricity and potable drinking water.
Building upon the designs of some existing rooftop water containers, we have created a simple device to collect both of these precious natural resources to meet the need for both electricity and drinking water."
The PhotoFlow is made up of eight identical triangular photovoltaic panels that are mounted on a 400-liter recycled polyethylene water tank. The panels form an octagon with a slope of 3 degrees that allows water to funnel into the central filter and be collected into the tank. To keep the water potable once it's collected, the inner layer of the tank is covered with a coating that controls levels of bacteria and fungi.
Real World PV Solar Project - One Year Later
We've been living with the solar system for a little over a year now and I thought it time to report back to you about the experiences we've had and talk about how the system is operating and performing.
DC Fast Chargers for Electric Cars
DC Fast Chargers can charge an EV battery in 15 - 30 minutes, depending on vehicle make, model and initial battery state-of-charge.
Flywheels: A Way To Change the Utility Business Model?
The purpose of this note is to explore the feasibility and stimulate discussion of such an approach ( a few others have discussed this possibility as well), which has the potential to reduce utility peak power demands, reduce consumer costs by taking consumers off the grid at peak periods, and transform the nature of utilities.
Solving Wind Farm Siting
An automated approach takes the guesswork out of siting. Software-generated algorithms automatically search the solution space, quickly and efficiently providing planners with a near optimal solution that can statistically be guaranteed.
The Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) Program
A Solar Renewable Energy Credit, often referred to as an SREC, represents the renewable component of 1 megawatt hour of power production generated from a solar photovoltaic system.
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