Tessera Solar, the developer of a promising concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, says that AES Solar, a joint venture between AES Corp. and Riverstone Holdings, has acquired the Imperial Valley solar project, a 709 MW concentrating solar power (CSP) project that was under construction near El Centro, Calif. It is the second of its two major projects approved for federal lands in the US southwest.
Tessera was designed to develop 709 megawatts (MW) of CSP using a Sterling engine technology, owned by sister company, Sterling Energy Systems. But the company has made it difficult to align funding. In December, the company sold the development rights to 850 MW Solar Power Project Calico Road K Sun. The project development was halted in December 2010 by a court decision on the request of Quechan Tribe.
AES Solar plans to move the project forward and is committed to working with San Diego Gas & Electric with its obligations under the power of sale of businesses.
Concentrating solar power systems (Solar Thermal Power systems) uses concentrated solar radiation as a high temperature energy source to produce electricity using thermal process.
In the first step it converts solar energy into heat energy, an incident solar irradiance is collected and concentrated by concentrating solar collectors or mirrors, and then generated heat is used to heat the thermic fluids such as heat transfer oils, air or water/steam, depending on the plant design. These fluids acts as heat carrier and/or as storage media. Further the generated steam or hot gases is used to operate a heat engine.
Solar collectors are used to produce heat from solar radiation. High temperature solar energy collectors are basically of three types:
Parabolic trough system: at the receiver can reach 400° C and produce steam for generating electricity.
Power tower system: The reflected rays of the sun are always aimed at the receiver, where temperatures well above 1000° C can be reached.
Parabolic dish systems: Parabolic dish systems can reach 1000° C at the receiver, and achieve the highest efficiencies for converting solar energy to electricity.
$10 million worth of green rebates are proposed by the Democrats in the Senate for Iowans who install solar panels or small wind turbines to power.
Dave Krejchi, the President of Dalton Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Cedar Falls says “Our measurements show that the systems we have installed reduced energy for hot water consumption by 75 percent. That is a huge energy savings provided by the sun. Based on our experience we believe solar is the growth industry for us and for Iowa.”
Senator Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat from Iowa City, said that Iowa is going to offer same solar power rebates as neighbouring states like Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. These rebates will be offered on installation of solar panels and small wind turbines.
A new innovation from a solar energystart up could make photovoltaic cells across the country more efficient. These types of cells, called multijunction cells, achieve those higher conversion rates by using different materials than the traditional silicon cell and multiple semiconductors within a single package. During manufacturing, there are multiple layers of material deposited onto a gallium arsenide substrate, with each layer optimized to convert a different portion of the sunlight’s spectrum.
Solar Junction will begin production of new, highly efficient solar power cells within the next year, according to a report from CNet. What separates these cells from others is that they can be nearly three times more efficient than current photovoltaic systems because they use mirrors and lenses to concentrate the sun’s light onto smaller cells.
After the announcement of Gillard government’s green subsidy scheme it will end the era of installing rooftop solar systems for free or at little cost. The Government has announced that they are reducing the rebate by 20% (about $1200) in July 2011.
The federal Climate Change Department has drafted regulations, to take effect from January, that would slash thousands of dollars’ worth of subsidies for photovoltaic units installed on homes by 20 per cent or more if “there is systematic evidence that (they) were being provided at little or no out-of-pocket expense to consumers”.
From July 1 2011 the rebate will be reduced by 20%. (brought forward 6 months from the original date of 1 Jan 2012)
From Jan 1 2013 the scheme will be reduced by a further 25%.
From 2014 it gets reduced by a further 33%.
From 2015 there is no rebate.
The units are generally installed as solar panels on the roof, which convert the sun’s energy into electricity to power a home or is fed into theelectricity grid.
First, to be eligible for the rebate, your taxable income should not be over $100,000. The taxable income includes cars, your home, and the money you earn each month from working. All these acest will add up in your yearly taxable income. In addition, if you claimed the previous rebate (before 10 June 2009), you can’t claim solar credits to extend your system.
If 10 per cent of buyers spend less than $1000 for their solar power system per kilowatt of capacity, the federal Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator will reduce the number of renewable energy certificates issued for those units, according to the draft new rules.
Photovoltaic(PV) solar panels are devices that generates electricity directly from sunlight. The power generated by these panels can be used to powerelectric appliances and lights for home. This power can also be used for industrial purpose as well.
In a grid connected PV system, the excess power which is not used, can be fed back to the electricity grid. Government is also providing solar panel rebate for new systems.
The standalone PV system is used where there is no electricity grid, there are additional components like batteries. In that case, the excess energy is stored in the batteries and used at night time and on cloudy days.
Hertz, which is the biggest airport car hire company in the US, announced this week that it will install solar power systems of 2.3MW of solar power cells by the fall as the company moves to reduce its electricity consumption and offset its greenhouse gas emissions and they have initially rolled out a 235kW solar electric system at their rental facility at Denver International Airport produced 342,766 Kwh of electricity – enough to offset 650,000 lbs of CO2 per year.
Hertz plans to retrofit 16 of its facilities with photovoltaic systems; in total, which will be operational by the 3rd quarter. The planned solar panel systems will generate 2.3 megawatts of clean energy for the company.The other 15 facilities will be in California, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Massachusetts.
Executives from the company assert that if the plan goes well, they will install solar systems at more of its outposts in the U.S. and abroad. They currently operate 8,426 locations in 146 countries under their Hertz and Advantage rental brands.
A British student has invented a solar powered refrigerator. Is bringing hope to village residents in Namibia, Africa.
A refrigerator whose units run by solar Power has been invented by Emily Cummins . It is the good invention as is does not require expensive Solar panels and complex technology. The design of this invention is simple. The refrigerator needs two cylinders, inner cylinder made of metal and outer cylinder of wood or plastic. And in between the cylinders wet soil or wet sand is sand is placed. When sun rays warm the cylinder. water evaporates, drawing heat from the inner cylinder.
At only 6 degree Celsius the inner part of the invention can remain cool. This invention of Emily Cummins is changing the life of villages, as they can now have fresh and safe milk and they can also keep their eatable in the refrigerator.
This is one of the great invention, and it shows that students are also concerned about healthy environment.
Taiwan’s top panel manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display panels (TFT-LCD), submitted an application on 15 March to the government confirming its plan to build a 7.5-generation plant in eastern China. The company will open asolar factory in Taiwan late this year to save money and increase competitiveness in a growing industry. It will thus become the first Taiwanese LCD maker to take advantage of its own country’s lifting of the ban on building TFT-LCD fabs in China.
The Taiwan-based firm’s wholly owned AUO Crystal Corp. plans to spend US $1.2 billion initially; the total investment will be about $3 billion. It will begin by processing 60 000 glass substrates a month, with capaci0ty eventually topping out above 90 000 substrates per month.
AU Optronics expects the factory to create 1,000 jobs in three years.
A 7.5-gen fab turns out a glass substrate 1950 x 2250mm—big enough for manufacturers to cut it up into eight 42-inch panels, six 46-inch solar panels, or three 55-inch panels. These specifications fit the Chinese market, which consistently favours screens measuring 42 inches and up.
Due to a collapse in the prices of the renewable energy certificates, about $1.5 billion worth investment in wind farms has completely been ruined. And there is no idea about when a revised schedule for the next month will reinstate the prices to a viable level.
The NSW Sugar Milling Co-operative, nation’s biggest baseload renewable energy generator, gets receivership by February if the prices paid for RECs almost becomes twice within next three months. Renewable energy projects like wind farms and solar schemes are granted allowance by RECs. And if generate power above a baseline set by the Office of Renewable Energy Regulator, they receive one certificate for each megawatt of power.
Under the government’s Renewable Energy Target scheme, which aims at having nation’s 20 percent solar power produced by renewable means by 2020, presently requires energy retailers to buy large number of RECs. Read the rest of this entry »
