Although, solar power has an Olympian capacity it is merely supplying a percent of world’s electricity consumption. This is so because the technology is currently relatively inefficient, expensive and requires a lot of subsidies.

It is important that solar technology expands so that research and development can enhance current systems. In other words, solar power plants will be able to generate more KWh at a lower cost.

Eicke Weber who is the current director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, says that solar power will be generated at a cost of 5 to 10 cents per KWh by 2030. This will make it as effective as fossil fuels and therefore, financial support will no longer be required.

This vision is perceptible but how to get there is still not clear.

Solar Photovoltaics

According to Weber, gradual enhancement to silicon-based-solar photovoltaic (PV) technology will become the most common use of solar technology. Now, 85 to 90 percent of the world’s solar market is represented by PV technology.

He also said “The big driver will remain crystalline silicon getting ever more efficient, with thinner wafers and cheaper silicon materials. It is a kind of Moore’s Law for solar PV,”

One potential way to enhance actual systems is to integrate laser methods in the production of solar PV. This will help to refine the efficiency, as thinner wafers can be produced, meaning less material and lower costs.

Fraunhofer institute did in 2009 create a new world record in the efficiency of converting sunlight into electricity. Concentrated photovoltaic reached an efficiency rate of 41.1 percent. Most commercial solar PV cells have only an efficiency ranging from 10 to 20 percent.

The prime weakness of conventional PV cells is that they are only able to absorb a limited bandwidth of sunlight. However, the concentrated PV increases the bandwidth potential as it uses “triple junction” solar cells. These cells are made from three particular materials being gallium indium arsenide, gallium indium phosphide and germanium. These materials are able to absorb the various colours of sunlight. Additionally, lenses are used to further amplify and intensify the energy, making the beam concentrated up to 500 times its original state.

Weber claims that various solar markets are behaving differently to the development of new technologies. In American the focus is on inventing the next generation photovoltaics while the European manufacturers are emphasising on mass production of silicon cells (high-volume and low cost).

Revolutionary technology is in the corner. In the first quarter of 2010, some members of the California Institute of Technology laboratory scrutinized the potential gain of enhancing silicon wire design. The team reported that an improvement of 85 percent efficiency was experienced on plain sunlight. There was also an increase in 95 percent on the efficiency of some wavelengths in collecting solar energy.

At “University of Texas scientists Xiaoyang Zhu” is moving from micro to nano-scale technology. It was in June 2010 proved that the use of ‘quantum dots’ or so called semiconductor nanocrystals could capture much more energy than typical solar cells. This technology could theoretically increase the efficiency by 60 percent.

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

It cannot be refuted the efficiency of concentrated solar power (CSP) is still far above photovoltaics. Another advantage with CSP systems is that they do usually have a natural gas turbine as back-up power whenever the weather is inappropriate for CSP.

The shortcoming related to this type of technology is the large demand for land and water footprint to install these mirrors. Moreover, these Concentrated Solar Power plants need to be erected in regions where there is intense sunshine. These areas are most commonly very far from large population centers, making transmission another issue..

The CSP and photovoltaic industry are both in an interesting technology race. We are unsure which one will be more prosperous in the future.

Currently, the best design is the parabolic mirrors that direct its concentrated sunlight to steam a synthetic fluid, heating water to stimulate turbines. Unfortunately, these transfer fluids are expensive and have a limited heat capacity of 380 degrees Celsius. Therefore, its energy and efficiency potential is restrained.

The International Energy Agency’s Concentrated Solar Power Roadmap says that the major challenge ahead is to be able to develop plants where the temperature can reach 500 degrees Celsius. The Agency recommends the replacement of the transfer fluids by water, thus inducing direct steam generation, which might both be cheaper and more effective.

There is also another way to reach superheated steam temperatures. This would be by using solar power towers surrounded by thousands of mirrors having sunlight concentrated at the tip of the tower. This would allow the heat to steam liquids in a central tank to an unanticipated superheat.

In Ivanpah CSP plant in California, researchers are already trying to bypass 530 degrees Celsius. This would meet new energy efficiency levels.

There is an undeniable benefit of CSP over typical solar PV cells. CSP plants can store solar energy even at night. An example is “Andasol solar power plant in Spain” where heat is stored in molten salt. The salts cool down during the evening, and this emits a heat enabling the generation of steam for another 7.5 hours. This is done despite that there is no sunlight.

Solar Technology Needs New Storage systems

According to Weber, if a similar storage system used for thermal would be available for solar PV then the market would expand rapidly.

A storage system is currently being examined for PV solar power during the day, where surpluses are used to drive a pump to compress air beneath the ground. The air would then be released during the night to spin a turbine.

Daniel Nocera a research at MIT has discovered a complex technique that could be used for small solar PV installations. This system uses solar-powered electrolyzers to split atoms of water into oxygen and hydrogen, and thereafter re-combining the gases in a fuel cell, in order to produce current. This is an expensive process but could within a few years become effective.

According to IEA, using electrolyzers at an industrial scale as well as for CSP could probably help to introduce hydrogen fuel to the world transport system. This would thus significantly help to decrease carbon emission.

It is necessary that solar power contributes significantly to our energy mix. Otherwise, our future generation will have to behold various climatic disasters. Evidently, the energy provided by the sun is limitless so it is simply to capture and use it. There is no reason for not exploiting the solar power for world energy requirements.

Source: Allianze

© Jimmy Eriksson for Renewable Power News, 2010. | Permalink | One comment

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The consumer electronics company based out of Japan will begin creating their own innovations while they put their power behind acquisitions of technology like solar cell and battery manufacturer Sanyo Electric, so says company president Fumio Ohtsubo. He says Panasonic wants to shift from their current battle plan to a different field and they believe that their current core business will become benefactors of their new green tech approach to their business. Panasonic is getting formidable competition from another player in the electronic market, Samsung in Korea.

Panasonic wants to develop an energy monitoring system for residences as part of their new shift. The gadget will acquire information from domestic devices – and likely other power demanding sources – and then show the amount of power being utilized on the TV sets. This unique technology could be ready by 2012 – 2013.

Since Panasonic has an eye for ease of use with their products and the distinction of being a respected business, no real surprise they would first concentrate on an item of consumer interest that concerns monitoring a home power usage. With their deep rooted global distribution pathways, Panasonic likes their chances. Many companies are jumping on the home energy organization bandwagon but analysts think the one who will be successful are those who understand how to promote, sell and understand the needs of their consumers. Panasonic qualifies under all of these criteria.

Because Panasonic obtained Sanyo Electric a year ago, spending over four and a half billion dollars for it, they have a step up for other clean tech products. These include lithium-ion batteries and solar cell technology. Sanyo is the world’s largest producer of rechargeable batteries and they have more than thirty years of practice manufacturing solar photovoltaic goods. Sanyo claims to have originally begun commercial building of amorphous silicon solar cells, and continues to manufacture hybrid variations at their facilities in Hungary and Japan.

Their subsidiary, Sanyo Homes, a month previous began marketing what it referred to as “all electric homes” outfitted by means of a 3.78 kilowatt solar unit, a heat pump for water heating, ten LED light fittings and lithium-ion storage to give it all back up power. Panasonic had previously begun functional operations using battery technology that was independent of Sanyo. Beginning in early October, Panasonic declared they had produced a prototype of a novel 1.5 KWh lithium-ion electricity storage unit it believed had a use for storing power that was linked to rooftop solar panels or even electric automobiles.

Like most other consumer electronics companies, Panasonic was impacted pretty good by the recent global recession which meant they experienced losses and were forced to let thousands of employees go from their jobs in 2009. Nevertheless, Panasonic appears to have found a second wind with the rapidly growing new energy industry.

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The installation is named the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project and it is located close to the community of Tonopah, Nye County, Nevada. It is under development by a sub business of SolarReserve called Tonopah Solar Energy, LLC. The power plant is supposed to break ground near the end of 2010 and it is predicted it will generate four hundred eighty thousand MWh’s per year, able to feed current to approximately seven five thousand residences at its top production.

There are numerous companies out there constructing solar thermal power facilities [plants that capture sun irradiation with mirrors and lenses that focus sunlight toward a steam turbine], SolarReserve is one of a few businesses investigating the use of super heated salt to store their power. SolarReserve has licensed the use of the technology for energy stowage from United Technologies Corp, a Rocketdyne – UTC entity. NV Energy Exec’s said this storing tech capability was a large part of why they chose SolarReserve as a power purveyor.

SolarReserve has big plans and wants to construct five Gigawatts of utility type solar thermal plants globally, ranging from thirty to five hundred MWs. They have already applied for a one hundred fifty MW installation to be built in the California desert east of Palm Springs, California. Rocketdyne had demonstrated the technology as far back as ten years ago at a plant known as “Solar II,” built with the DOE in Barstow, California.

Salt is melted at 221 °C [430 °F] and it stays molten at 288 °C [550 °F] in insulated “cold” storage containers. The Liquefied salt is then forced through solar panel troughs where the temperature from the concentrated sunlight is 566 °C [1051 °F]. From here, it is transferred to a heated storage container that is insulated well enough to enable storage for upwards of a week.

When current is required, hot salt is pushed into a conventional steam generation unit to create a super hot steam for a turbine, same as would be utilized for a coal, oil or nuclear power facility. A one hundred MW turbine would require tanks roughly thirty feet high and about eighty feet around in order for it to function for four hours using this model.

SolarReserve is looking to acquire substantial financing so it can achieve its objectives. Established in early 2008, SolarReserve raised a robust one hundred forty million dollars in the autumn of ’08 in second round capital funding courtesy of Citi Alternative Investments, Sustainable Investments, Good Energy and other money partners, and they say their wallet is filled up until 2011.

SolarReserve has some competitive company examining the use of molten salt storage including SkyFuel, and their “SkyTrough” technology and the renewable power behemoth Abengoa out of Spain.

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This UVAC 2010 has been well received and is expected to generate positive sales results. The special coating prevents heat loss to a level lower than nine percent, and the size of the device creates the maximum sun exposure. 

The UVAC 2010 is a product that follows the UCAC receiver, which is a primary component that is utilized in power generation plants that use the parabolic trough.  There are over one hundred and fifty thousand UVAC’s operating in commercial use power plants. These parabolic trough power plants use the power block and a solar field that is equipped with efficient solar receivers. This one component, the UVAC 2010, has the ability to greatly improve the profitability of the solar plant.

To add strength to its market position in the solar thermal power plant business and to improve its portfolio in this segment, Siemens recently purchased Solel Solar Systems Ltd., a company that has been successful in the production of solar power.

Some of the key features of the UVAC 2010 include a larger active solar area, less heat loss, and a very great amount of solar absorption. These features mean that developers of solar fields can improve their revenues and decrease their operating costs, which significantly improves their profitability when using the UVAC 2010. The special high tech coating on the UVAC 2010 allows a greater amount of solar energy to be absorbed and then converted to heat. This heat, in turn, is used to create electricity. 
 
The UVAC 2010 is very efficient, as it provides a heat loss of less than nine percent. This is due to the technological improvements in the sputtered selective coating, and a greater ratio of active area to length, so the receiver’s solar exposure is improved and the amount of energy that is absorbed is also enhanced.
 
Over the next ten years, the solar thermal power plant market will grow annually by over ten percent, and reach a dollar volume of greater than 20 billion Euros. The countries that show the most future growth potential are the United States, North and South Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Spain, and India. 

Siemens Environmental portfolio includes companies that provide solutions and products for power plants that utilize solar power. The value of this portfolio in 2009 was approximately twenty three billion Euros in revenue, which put Siemens into the position of world leader in the supply of environmentally friendly technologies. Their products and technology allowed their customers to cut their output of carbon emissions significantly, by two hundred and ten million metric tons.

Siemens Energy Sector is a leading supplier in the world to the oil and gas industry, and supplies a complete line of products, services, and solutions to the power generation, transmission, and distribution sector. The annual revenue for Siemens Energy Sector in 2008 for the period ended September 30th, was about twenty-two billion, six hundred thousand Euros, and new orders totaled about thirty three billion, four hundred thousand Euros. Their profit was one billion, four hundred thousand Euros for this same fiscal period. Their total labor force was about eight-three thousand five hundred employees.

© Carl Joseph for Renewable Power News, 2009. | Permalink | No comment

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Reaping our power from the sun seems a natural way to go in an effort to replace the conventional fossil fuel burning mind set humanity has developed over the last century. Sunshine is plentiful, it is powerful, and it is inexpensive post installation – relatively speaking.

Solar power is a magnificent means by which we can eventually save the earth after years of carbon emission abuse and we can curb and eventually stop global warming. The quantity of power that buffets the earth’s atmosphere is 1667 watts per square meter. Solar experts are excited to state to anyone who will listen that the amount of energy that lands on the earth in only one hour is plentiful enough to more than power the entire earth for one year.

This article is about solar power technologies that are available today. The hope is that it will be a simple overview of a significant source of alternative energy that can eventually replace our current polluting conventional methods of generating power.
Concentrated Solar Power or CSP comes in three varieties.

There are parabolic troughs that are bowed in an angular fashion. Think of a feeding trough for animals and you will get an idea of the general shape. The sunlight is concentrated or focused into a collector or receiver that will heat up a transfer liquid then in turn operates a generator.

Power Tower

This solar technique is for generating steam that is utilized as a force to energize a generator that creates electrical current. The system can generate anywhere from fifty to two hundred Megawatts of energy. An array of mirrored or reflecting plates or dishes are placed so the capture and focus the suns irradiated energy toward a tower that concentrates the power from the array.

Stirling Solar Dish Engine

This method of solar power concentrates the sun’s rays straight into electrical current. It uses a capture dish that looks much like a satellite receiver dish with a reflective surface.
 
Photovoltaic Units [PV]

A photovoltaic system converts the sun’s energy to electrical current with the aid of a semi conductor. It is probably the most common form of solar power in use and it relies heavily on silicon, which is always in short supply and high demand to manufacture the semi conductors.

The PV’s are available in various forms and dimensions but all have the same mechanism of action. Singular photovoltaic cells are linked so they form a photovoltaic module and they are then joined to design an array. These PV arrays then work together as a photovoltaic system or unit.

Solar Tracker
 
Not a form of solar power but an advancement in technology to make solar power more efficient and productive. This device is used to orient the various sun capture devices discussed above – solar photovoltaic panels, concentrated solar reflectors and stirling solar dishes into the sun. The position of the sun obviously moves during the day and according t the season and the solar tracker positions the unit where it will generate sunrays most effectively.

Solar trackers come in different dimensions and varieties, levels of complexity and capability. A familiar type of solar tracker is the heliostat comprised of a mobile mirror that reflects the sun as it moves, toward a predetermined location but there are other methods of operation as well.

The disparity between concentrated solar power and photovoltaics is the CSP is utilized in a plant installation to provide larger amounts of electricity for a utility scale producer. CSP’s are engineered to work in a solar power facility.

The photovoltaics are utilized in smaller installations and for things like calculators, various charging apparatus for tech gadgets, highway emergency phones, solar lighting units, satellites, and the rooftops of homes to provide residential power supplies and free electrical current. In many cases, homeowners will generate an excess of power and sell it back to the power utility grid from PV powered backyard and roof top units.

© Carl Joseph for Renewable Power News, 2009. | Permalink | No comment

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As far as natural forms of energy go, ones that we will never run out of, solar energy, wind power and water energy lead the pack. It is essential that we find every possible viable way to utilize these potential energy resources as a priority for aggressive environmentally focused companies and forward thinking governments.

From a utility perspective, solar thermal power can be used as a source for heating but this energy can be used as a source of electrical power as well. It has the capacity to be stored to a large extent, which means it can be used after sunlight hours. By heating substances underground, like special sand for example, the power can be captured for later use. Solar parabolic troughs can be used to heat various liquids and air. Pumps can then transfer the liquid and the air later to where it is needed via piping.

Solar thermal power as a renewable and consistent source of thermal power in an inexpensive manner is one method of this form of energy is being utilized now in some commercial settings and eco-inventive residences and companies. Using solar concentrators and collectors to capture the sunlight, this form of solar energy can be used to power enormous turbines that will generate electricity for the masses via the grid.

When fossil fuel and bio fuel extraction takes over land that would otherwise be used for agricultural reasons the result can mean trouble for future food consumption worldwide. Installing solar thermal power plants would not have these consequences at all. With just a couple acres of land, it is possible to install a fully operational yet hassle free power generation plant for electrical use for heating and lighting and will continue to generate that power for as long as the sun is shining.

The world is waiting for investors, be they private or government, to take a more serious look at commercializing solar thermal power generation and realize the clean benefits to using this form of power over dirty energy producers. Why there is not more interest in utilizing solar thermal power generation in a mass format remains a mystery.

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We have talked about photovoltaic energy, and more concentrated solar thermal power ideas. However, there are other ideas too, other technologies for people to pick up on. One of these is the concept of using parabolic troughs. These are deceptively simple looking devices, the clue to their usefulness lying in their name. Think of a farmyard and think of the trough that many animals feed from. These are deep, and have a lot of capacity. The same goes for parabolic troughs. Lots of energy, lots of capacity to store it.

The troughs concentrate the sun’s energy through long and rectangular u-shaped mirrors. One thing to help you understand why these things are so exciting is the sheer size of the installations. They are absolutely gigantic, huge mirrors, which dwarf anyone who happens to be standing next to them. These mirrors are tilted so that they face the sun’s rays directly. This is the key to their power. The sunlight that is brought in by the mirrors is fed straight into a long pipe that runs down the length of the installation.

Flowing through the trough is some oil, or other such thermal fluid. This fluid is then heated up by the concentrated rays of the sun to a massive 400 degrees centigrade.  This fluid then goes through a series of special heat exchangers, which has the effect of producing steam that is incredibly hot, superheated in fact. And this, amazingly, is the secret.   Steam power.

The steam that is generated is used to power an electricity generator. California has nine of these beasts, and the power that they generate is fed into the Californian grid, which goes some way to show how it is very much possible to use this source of energy to produce electricity for very large surface areas and the cities that reside in them.

This is yet another source of renewable power. It has massive potential, just like much of the other renewable sources that are out there. What is different with this particular source is that it is highly reliable, and very cost effective.

© Sal for Renewable Power News, 2009. | Permalink | No comment

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