AltEnergyMag.com - Special Tradeshow Coverage of Solar Power PV Conference & Expo
Solar Power PV Conference & Expo 2016 will be held from February 24th - 25th in Boston. This AltEnergyMag
How One Energy Producer Uses IT Workload Automation to Solve Energy Pricing Challenges
Because weather conditions-precipitation, wind and sun in particular-can have a major impact on both production and demand for any renewable energy producer, Statkraft pays unusually close attention to historical and predictive weather data.
Why You Should Start Investing in Solar
A solar-powered home reduces carbon emissions by 3-4 tons annually, equivalent to planting 100 trees every year).
1.2-million sq. ft. solar panel 'Gigafactory' in Buffalo almost ready, will make 1 GW/year
Michael Graham Richard for TreeHugger: Soon after SolarCity acquired solar panel maker Silevo in the summer of 2014, it announced the construction of a 1.2-million-square-foot 'Solar Gigafactory' in Buffalo, New York. The move had two main goals: 1) For the solar installer to get its own secure supply of high-efficiency solar panels (Silevo panels are currently 21% efficient, but the company claims that they can get to 24%) and 2) drive down the cost of the panels and of installing them.
If the panels are higher efficiency, you need fewer of them per roof for a given capacity, lowering installation costs, and if you make them in very large quantities in a 'Gigafactory', you can further reduce costs through economies of scale.
The Buffalo solar gigafactory, which can be seen in the photo at the top of this article, aims to start producing solar cells in 2016, with a ramping up to 1 GW of annual capacity by 2017. If all goes well, the facility could eventually be expanded to 5 GW/year at some point. The solar cells produced there have a target price of around $0.50/watt, which would make them very competitive with other power sources. Cont'd...
Trends To Watch In Alternative Energy
Firmly entrenched in the mainstream, alternative energy's momentum accelerates.
Advancing Solar Storage Solutions
As battery storage solutions advance and become more available, our reliance on fossil fuels will decrease and grid reliability will increase, putting us on the right track to a sustainable future.
Orison Plug-And-Play Energy Storage System Live On Kickstarter
Orison, an energy storage company, announced today that the first true plug-and-play energy storage system is now available for pre-order on Kickstarter. Orison powers homes and businesses to reduce energy costs, provide backup energy during blackouts, and contribute to a clean energy future. The Orison Kickstarter Campaign can be found at: http://kck.st/1Kr9Zn5
Orison envisions a future with abundant, clean, and affordable energy for all. The networked, distributed energy storage solution gives consumers control so they can store energy from any electricity source, including grid or solar power, to access energy whenever it's needed. When powered by the grid, it stores energy when utility rates are low to power homes and businesses when rates are high. If connected to solar, Orison allows consumers to locally store the energy they produce so that it will not be sold at a loss to the utility. By localizing energy distribution, Orison helps to save money and reduce peak demand. Full Press Release:
The Two Things To Note In The DOE's Solar + Storage Initiative
Michael Kanellos for Forbes: The Department of Energy doled out $18 million in grants this week as part of an effort to drive down the cost of solar plus storage down to less than 14 cents a kilowatt hour. The DOE, under its SunShot program, has long had a goal of driving down the cost of solar alone to 6 cents per kWh by 2020. So far, the program has hit its milestones.
Grants recipients include Austin Energy, Carnegie Mellon University, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Aquion Energy, among others.
The DOE regularly gives out grants, but the latest program is somewhat interesting because:
First, that’s a really low price for storage. Utility-scale solar, generally cheaper than residential solar, without storage delivered power for 14 cents a kilowatt hour in 2014. The cost of batteries, however, has been declining rapidly. Ten years ago, batteries progressed slowly compared to other electronic devices: Tesla Motors TSLA +0.50% co-founder and CTO J.B. Straubel was famous for noting that the performance of batteries doubled every decade, versus the roughly two year cycle for semiconductor. Cont'd...
Smart Buildings Shape the Future
The latest in control technology, sustainable natural resources and alternative energy methods, combine to deliver a smart building, which makes for a comfortable environment for the occupants while saving our over-taxed energy grid.
FastRack 510 Installed on VA Caribbean Medical Center in Puerto Rico
Sollega supplied their FastRack 510 ballasted mounting system for the installation of a 645 kW rooftop solar array at San Juan, Puerto Rico Caribbean VA Hospital.
A solar-powered soccer pitch in Lagos also uses players' footfall to keep the lights on
Yomi Kazeem for Quartz: Africa is already waking up to the possibilities that renewable energy provides, the African Union has pledged a $20 billion investment over the next decade. In East Africa, pay-as-you-go solar energy services arealready proving a mainstream success. In West Africa, things are still at an early experimental stage. One such experiment is a solar-powered football pitch which also uses kinetic energy generated by footballers playing.
Located at a teacher’s college in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial center, the innovative soccer pitch was launched last year in a three-way collaboration between energy giant Shell; music star Akon, who has been championing solar energy on the continent; and Pavegen, a UK-based start-up which has a target of providing low-cost renewable energy solutions to Africa’s electricity problems.
Perhaps the most interesting technological feature of the solar-powered pitch—only the second ever launched across the world (the first was launched in Brazil in 2014)—is that it combines both kinetic and solar energy to produce electricity. Cont'd...
EnergySage - 2015 Solar Installer Survey Report
We are noticing a major shift in the way today's homeowners shop for solar. The era of the solar "hard sell" is coming to an end - solar shoppers are educating themselves about all their options beforehand, and placing more value in the ability to compare multiple quotes before they commit.
Overcoming the First Cost Barrier to Ground Source Heat Pump Technology: The Utility Ground Loop Service Provider Concept
Several utility CEO's and PSC/PUC regulators have all acknowledged the importance of GHP technology in the overall landscape of the energy industry.
Scientists are using satellites to find untapped sources of geothermal energy under cities
Peter Dockrill for ScienceAlert: Urban environments are often hotter than rural areas due to the way city structures trap and generate excess heat. This phenomenon, called urban heat islands, was first observed in the 1800s, but a new way of gauging it could help us make the most of this untapped source of geothermal energy.
Scientists in Germany and Switzerland have developed a means of estimating groundwater temperature hidden under the surface of our cities, based on surface temperatures and the density of buildings as measured by satellites.
A range of factors, including population density, vegetation levels, surface sealing, industrial structures, and transport all contribute to why cities are often hotter than the country.
But while scientists have long used satellites to measure heat on the surface, the relationship between ground temperatures and underground temperatures has not been fully explored. Cont'd...
Juno spacecraft breaks solar power distance record
Jim Sharkey for SpaceFlight Insider: NASA’s Juno mission has broken the record for distance traveled by a solar-powered spacecraft. Juno reached this milestone at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Wednesday, Jan. 13, when the spacecraft was approximately 493 million miles (793 million kilometers) from the Sun.
The record was previously held by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft, whose orbit peaked at the 492 million-mile (792-million kilometer) mark in October 2012, during its approach to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
“Juno is all about pushing the edge of technology to help us learn about our origins,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We use every known technique to see through Jupiter’s clouds and reveal the secrets Jupiter holds of our solar system’s early history. It just seems right that the sun is helping us learn about the origin of Jupiter and the other planets that orbit it.”
Juno is the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate so far from the Sun. Generating sufficient power to operate the spacecraft requires a very large area of solar cells. The four-ton Juno spacecraft carries three 30-foot (9-meter) solar arrays festooned with 18,686 individual solar cells. At Earth’s distance from the Sun, the cells can generate about 14 kilowatts of electric. The further away from the sun the spacecraft is, the lower the power its solar cell will be able to generate. Cont'd...
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