THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for September, 2010

With the addition of Hawaii; the latest state to allow SunRun solar power purchase agreements to compete with utility power, homeowners in nine states now have the option for solar that’s cheaper from the first month than dirty power and costs little or nothing to start.

In Hawaii, SunRun hits the sweet spot, because the state not only has good clean energy legislation (meaning that it allows competition from clean energy to green its grid) but it also has an almost complete dependence on fossil fuels.

Every year, Hawaii spends  over $5,000 for oil to power each homeowner. The state gets 90% of its power from dirty energy. It is about on a par with Wyoming, or Kentucky, but worse, since it is all imported. This combination (clean legislation/dirty dependence) makes Hawaii ideal.

Usually, states that are as dependent on fossil fuels as this are also very unfriendly to clean energy, with the result that solar residential PPAs are just not allowed to compete in those states. Most of the South for example, won’t allow competition with dirty energy.

The ideal states for a residential PPA are those with good clean energy legislation to encourage clean energy to compete with dirty energy, such as the states that are members of RGGI, that are already operating a kind of cap and trade to clean the grid. New Jersey and Massachusetts allows residential solar PPAs and leases.

States like California which have decoupled utilities so PG&E pushes homeowners to be more efficient – because their paycheck depends on it: they earn more when they save more – rather than sell more – power.

With the addition of Hawaii, solar leases or PPAs are now available in seven states from solar financing company SunRun (California, Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Hawaii). SolarCity, the other giant player in solar leasing also covers some of those states and Oregon and Texas. Cheap leases or PPAs are also offered by installation companies Sungevity and GroSolar in some of these states.

In these nine states, home solar can be essentially free now. With solar leasing or PPAs, you pay zero or just a few hundred down, and then pay a lower rate monthly than for your utility power. You don’t save as much in the long run as if you bought the system, but you don’t have to buy anything, and you do still save hundreds of thousands of dollars over time on electricity.

Oh, yeah. It’s also sunny in Hawaii, just like it is in California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and lots of US states. But almost any old sun will do, actually. The real determining factor is whether there is sunny energy legislation in the state.

Image: Sarah Camp
Susan Kraemer@Twitter
(Disclaimer: After I got my own solar power through the SunRun PPA, I asked SunRun if I could help other homeowners get a solar PPA too)

Yeah, that doesn’t look like your normal wind turbine, does it? But this new wind turbine by Sauer Energy is not 100% unique — it features some great new innovations, but is built on an existing wind turbine design that seems to becoming a more and more popular, a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) design.

Micro Turbine Advantages and Growth

Micro turbines like this are attractive, in general, for one of the simple reasons solar panels are so attractive — individuals can easily put them on their homes and businesses. Plus, with wind energy as a whole growing rapidly (it is actually the fastest-growing form of renewable energy), it is only inevitable that some people would like to bring traditional, large-scale turbines down to a more human or household scale.

Regarding the advantages of micro turbines that can be installed on an office building or a hospital, Sauer Energy points out:

Economically, onsite installations dramatically improve the return on investment of wind power, not to mention the rebates now in the offering. Power generated offsite, such as at wind farms, is still subject to transmission and distribution charges. Conversely, onsite solutions take a portion of the organizational power requirements “off the grid.”

While I believe that large-scale, centralized energy will always have its place, I am also one who believes that more decentralized, micro-scale electricity generation needs to and is becoming a bigger part of the electricity supply — 13% of utilities actually believe that centralized electricity will be obsolete by 2050.

Furthermore, micro turbines address “a number of [wind turbines'] known shortcomings, such as noise pollution, minimum blade speed threshold, bird endangerment and space limitation, while enhancing its advantages.”

Addressing the Limitations of Micro Turbines

The problem with micro turbines has historically been that they are not the most efficient electricity generators.

Sauer Energy’s new VAWT design is helping to address that. Our friend Timothy Hurst over at Earth & Industry writes: ”its dimpled design could make it more efficient at capturing and converting wind into usable electricity. Officials from Sauer believes its unique aerodynamics and advanced design features will distinguish its wind turbine system in the residential and micro wind-turbine market.”

Advantages of the company’s design, according to Sauer Energy, itself, are as follows:

A traditional horizontal blade design turbine of similar size requires a greater level of wind speed to generate power. The vertical axis turbines provide omni-directional wind collection. The torque produced allows it to make power while turning at slower blade speeds.

It only takes a 6 mph wind to turn the blade. One benefit of this feature is obvious: It can work at locations with lower average wind speeds. Therefore, the geographic option for using wind energy is greatly expanded; a company may not need to be located on a hilltop or in coastal locations to reap the benefits. Plus, it reduces wind direction limitations, because it can collect wind power on a 360-degree basis. Horizontal blade technology must spend time and energy turning into the wind when the wind changes direction.

This new technology looks like a promising step forward in the micro wind turbine market, and in the wind energy market in general.

Any more comments or information on this technology? Comment below.

Image Credit: Earth & Industry

Rumors of thin-film PV technology's demise are exaggerated, writes Paula Mints from Navigant Consulting -- despite an uphill competitive battle with crystalline silicon, it does have a place in the future of multi-GW deployments.

According to IMS Research, global solar photovoltaic modules shipments are likely to exceed to 16 GW this year up from an earlier estimate of 14.6 GW. While Europe would continue to be the leader in solar PV capacity addition, new and developing markets would also see rapid growth. With more than 8 GW of solar PV modules already shipped out the 16 GW mark seems quite likely.

While Europe constitutes 80 percent of the demand it is likely to grow at a slower pace as compared to Asia. Several European nations have, quite surprisingly, rolled back financial incentives for solar PV consumers. Germany offers consumers to sell suplus power generated from solar PV modules to the grid at premium rates. However, the German Parliament recently passed a legislation to reduce the subsidies to as much as 16 percent. Similar financial cut backs have been announced by Italy, Spain, France and the Czech Republic.

The developing markets like the United States, China and India are likely to grow at much rapid pace as compared to Europe. According to an Interstate Renewable Energy Council report there was significant capacity addition across North America.

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council …… concluded that 435 mw of solar PV were installed in the United States in 2009, bringing total installed photovoltaic capacity to 1,250 mw. The residential market accounted for about 36 percent of new U.S. solar PV capacity in 2009. The utility market accounted for 16 percent of capacity. There are now 104,000 solar PV installations in the United States, the study determined.

In addition to several state-level clean energy programs supporting new solar PV installations, President Obama announced $2 billion support for solar energy firms Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing which plan to set up large-scale power plants across the United States. This is only one of the several clean energy projects being funded through the economic stimulus package.

The Chinese government, too, is supporting solar PV in a major way. China already has a law in place which mandates the industries to buy all the power generated from renewable energy sources. In addition to the new solar power projects announced almost every month, the government is supporting small-scale power plants by offering a subsidy of $2.93 per watt.

India’s ambitious National Solar Mission could make it the world’s largest solar energy producing nation by 2022. The first phase of the Mission has already been commenced and aims at installing 500 MW of solar PV capacity by 2013. The government is offering several financial incentives to the project developers like tax breaks, premium tariff rates, easy bank loans, subsidies on electrical and other equipment and assurance of returns on investments. Several state governments and even some private companies are considering off-grid solar PV installations to provide electricity to far-off villages.

The IMS Research does, however, warn that not all of the 16 GW of solar modules would be installed by the end of this year leading to significant accumulation and subsequent decline in demand by as much as 65 percent.

Image: Waynenf at Flickr (Creative Commons)

The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.

Follow Mridul Chadha on Twitter and Facebook

“Peak oil” is a term that has hardly reached into the mainstream media. Yet, a new leaked report by a German military think tank says world-changing peak oil may be this year.

To start off, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, here is a concise explanation of peak oil from Investopedia:

Because oil is a non-replenishing resource, there is a limit to how much the world can extract and refine. Peak oil is the day that oil production reaches a maximum and will subsequently begin to decline until full depletion is ultimately reached.

Why is Peak Oil a Big Deal?

The reason peak oil is such a big deal, of course, is that society as it is built today relies on oil for many of its basic needs, as well as a great number of its non-essentials. Even though 71% of oil use is for transportation in the US, oil is also used in the production of fertilizers, shoes, some medicines, carpets and rugs, paint, detergent, canned food, makeup, nail polish, candles, lipstick, plastic, and more.

Oil is actually used, either directly or indirectly, in 95% of our industrial goods.

Governments generally avoid bringing this term up, probably because of the great threats we face from peak oil and the potential public backlash to curtailing our use of oil. This makes the simple existence of this German military think tank’s new report a bit shocking, even before you read the dramatic potential future the report paints.

Continue reading about the German military’s report on peak oil on the next page…