By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2010-09-07 05:30
Has solar PV become cheaper than nuclear?
This past month, both The New York Times and CleanTechnica.com reported on a paper from Duke University in North Carolina claiming that the costs of solar energy and nuclear energy have passed an historical crossover point at 16 dollar cents per kilowatthour. Solar photovoltaics are now supposed to be a lower-cost alternative to new nuclear plants. How accurate is this claim? Why are the figures on the cost of nuclear energy so divergent? And to what extent are solar photovoltaic energy and nuclear energy competitors?
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Mon, 2010-09-06 09:17
Mastering Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) - understand today’s most accurate LCOE calculation methods that can help you deliver on PPA expectations and win more projects
Optimal Plant Layout - PV project construction experts reveal the design lessons learned from existing plants in the US & Europe that will help you maximize your plant’s performance
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Thu, 2010-08-26 09:52
The Conferencia de la Industria Solar - España 2010 is one of most relevant conferences in the calendar of the Spanish solar sector. The event has been very well attended over the past three years, attracting around 300 participants each year, underlining the importance of the meeting to the sector. It brings together the industry's experts with the financial world, the media and political representatives.
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Tue, 2010-07-27 12:25
A free series of six webinars will be delivered to provide the required knowledge to design a high performance photovoltaic (PV) installation, entering into economic evaluation and project cash-flow. Additionally, very practical aspects such as the construction, start-up, quality management and testing will be reviewed. Plant operation is described in detail, with special attention paid to control systems, monitoring and information management.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Wed, 2010-07-07 05:30
American scientists capture lost energy
The solar energy falling onto the earth is incredibly abundant, but the majority gets lost anyway. So what is the big deal about improving the efficiency of solar cells? Well, for starters, highly efficient PV cells could create a complete sea change on the cost, material use, and the amount of land presently employed in harvesting the sun’s energy.
Today, the efficiency limit of photovoltaic cells is approximately 30 percent. For a long time, this was thought to be a physical border, as certain high-energy photons in sunlight exceed the band-gap energy in a PV cell. That energy, in the form of so-called 'hot electrons', is too high to be turned into usable electricity and is lost as heat in conventional solar cells.
Well, it seems we had better start referring to that physical border in the past tense. The 'hot electrons' could not be captured — until now.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Wed, 2010-06-30 05:30
What is the best use of small plots of urban land?
Gardening is presently a hot topic in many metropolitan areas around the world. Small open spaces — from rooftops and patios to unused parking spaces and disused building sites — are actively being turned into vegetable, herb, and decorative gardens. Terms like 'square meter gardening', 'parking space gardening', and 'micro-gardening' seem to be blooming everywhere. Self-styled 'guerrilla gardeners' even occupy public and private strips of land to plant their greenery and vegetables.
The advantages of small city gardens are obvious: they bring more green into the city, it is a pleasurable pastime for many individuals, and often provides a cheap source of produce. It is surprising in fact how much food a small urban garden can produce. Proponents argue that a single 30m2 piece of land is enough to feed one person for one year. In Singapore, for example, one quarter of all of the vegetables consumed are products of inner-city gardens.
Now suppose you are living in a large city and take the decision to stop using a privately owned vehicle and rely instead upon a shared car, public transport, or bicycling. Assuming you had off-street parking, what is the best use of your former parking space: gardening or solar electricity?
If your point of view is more heavily oriented towards aesthetics and leisure activities, then the garden will probably be your preferred option. But what is the economic and ecological balance between these two options?
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2010-06-01 05:30
Only very small amounts in terms of percentage
Last April, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo published a story on PV farms that claimed to have produced solar electricity between midnight and 7 a.m. The newspaper suspected the operators of running diesel-burning generators at night to cash in on the high feed-in tariffs for photovoltaic electricity in that country. A number of foreign media channels, including the influential Bloomsberg Businessweek, picked up the story.
The reaction of the Spanish PV industry association, Asociación de la Industria Fotovoltaica, regretted the fact that vague and sometimes unsubstantiated accusations of photovoltaic fraud get into the press with relative frequency. Not all of these stories translate into a valid legal case. Concerned about the public image of the sector, they asked the government to investigate the newspaper’s claims.
Such messages do indeed harm the image of solar energy. Moreover, they fuel questions regarding the usefulness of government incentives. Is the potential for fraud an argument against the system of feed-in tariffs?
Before jumping to any conclusions, it is worthwhile to put the figures into perspective. The total amount of energy that was allegedly produced fraudulently was 4,500 MWh, according to El Mundo. This is 0.05% of the total PV production in Spain in 2009 (Sources: Energyportal.eu and IEA). In the same period, the European retail sector lost 1.33% of their turnover to theft and the American retail sector even more at 1.61% (Source: CRR Centre for Retail Research).
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Wed, 2010-05-19 05:30
Side effects turned into advantages
History is full of stories of men feverishly searching for the magic trick that will solve all of our energy problems. Those quests have generally been whistled back by the laws of physics. These laws are what they are and we have to cope with them; our energy future will not be built by revolutionary solutions plucked out of the blue.
Perhaps the most intelligent solutions are not those that try to breech the limits of nature, but those that make maximal use of what nature has on offer. These are the stories of side effects turned into advantages, resulting in efficient combined techniques.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2010-05-11 05:30
Facilitating individuals and companies in going solar
Photovoltaic (PV) energy is probably the simplest technology available for producing electricity. As a result, many green energy-minded individuals and companies have assumed a pioneering role and installed PV panels on their rooftop or site. However, not everybody is a pioneer. For the majority of individuals and companies, the financing, developing, and operating of PV panels are not at the top of their list of priorities. They do not — or no doubt in some cases cannot — expend precious time and resources on the effort that planning and installing PV initially entails. Yet, they may feel positively regarding renewable electricity and own a suitable site for harvesting solar energy. For those people, specialised renewable energy companies provide Solar Energy as a Service (SEaaS). The SEaaS company takes on a large part of the work and investment, in return for part of the benefits.
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Thu, 2010-03-04 18:21
Now in its fourth year, the Spanish Solar Industry conference will take place on 7-8 October 2010 in Madrid. This annual event will, among other topics, cover legislative developments, national and international market trends, look at how close Spain is to grid parity and bring in finance experts to show how to reduce costs for PV installations.
Solarpraxis invites all companies, associations, institutes, public-sector bodies and professionals to submit contributions related to the broad field of solar energy.
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Sat, 2010-01-16 22:25
Over-sizing the cross section of a cable beyond the result of voltage and current theoretical calculations is, in most of cases, a worthwhile investment that is easily amortised by the electricity bill savings (reduction of Joule losses). In the case of a photovoltaic (PV) installation, the allocated price for energy (feed-in tariff) is much higher than the market price, getting amortised much faster.
Together with an improved profitability of the project, there are additional advantages when using bigger cable sections:
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By HDK / Published on Fri, 2010-01-15 16:35
This paper describes the performance of the network of a typical future residential concept area, as has been studied in the Intelligent E-Transportation Management project. Several scenarios have been elaborated by load flow simulations. The study investigated what level of introduction of electric vehicles, heat pumps, photovoltaic systems and micro combined heat and power plants is feasible in this network. Possible overload situations are examined and the opportunities of demand side management for the power grid are investigated.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-10-06 05:30
Focus on PV, CCS, nuclear, hydrogen, biomass, and energy storage
In August, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the delivery of $377 million in funding for 46 new Energy Frontier Research Centres. The centres will be hosted by universities, national laboratories, non-profit organisations, and private companies. The research domains that were chosen offer a good sampling of those technologies the US Department of Energy (DOE) sees as potentially important in the energy landscape of the future. The funded projects are focussed on:
- Improving the efficiency of photovoltaic systems; with particular projects dedicated to hybrid inorganic/organic PV cells and nanometre-sized PV cells
- Advanced nuclear techniques
- Carbon capture and geological storage (CCS)
- Hydrogen, including the production of hydrogen as well as hydrogen fuel cells
- Biomass, including energy-rich plants and the conversion of biomass into chemicals and fuels
- Energy storage systems
- Superconductivity (1 project)
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-09-15 05:30
Integrating road networks and power networks
The US Department of Transportation has awarded funding for building a 'solar highway' prototype. A solar highway contains photovoltaic (PV) modules covered with bulletproof glass as a road surface. The surface also contains a grid of LEDs that can light the roadway, draw lines, and flash warnings that react to traffic sensors. Apart from supplying power for the LEDs and sensors, the energy generated by the PV modules will also be used to heat the highway when required. The remaining energy can be used for houses and businesses alongside the road. If this systems works as projected, it could well make power stations and power lines superfluous. According to an article on Matter Network, covering all American roads with this system would produce an annual yield of energy three times as large as the entire U.S. energy consumption in 2006.
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By HDK / Published on Tue, 2009-08-25 11:12
In order to meet the requirements of Australia’s Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET), energy providers in the state of Queensland have agreed to purchase green energy for State Government Buildings by supporting a program to install solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in schools. The objective of the Queensland Solar Schools initiative is to provide schools with an educational resource that raises awareness about green energy technologies while reducing school electricity usage costs.
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By HDK / Published on Mon, 2009-07-27 11:25
[In partnership with VEI]
Various energy sources generate electrical energy in a form that cannot simply be injected into the electricity network, including photovoltaic panels, microturbines, batteries and fuel cells. These sources generate either DC voltage or AC voltage with variable frequency and/or an amplitude or voltage not compliant with the electricity network. To connect such sources to the electricity network nevertheless, a power electronic inverter or transformer must be used.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-07-14 05:30
Some renewable energy systems rely on scarce resources
In the quest for alternatives to fossil fuels, renewable energy systems are being rapidly developed across a wide spectrum. However, the fact that these new systems replace depletable fossil fuels with renewable sources is in itself not a guarantee of high sustainability. The article 'Why sustainable power is unsustainable' in New Scientist draws attention to this often under-appreciated fact. In our growing focus on energy and climate change, we have a tendency to applaud every renewable energy technology that is being developed and without considering its other sustainability aspects.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-06-16 05:30
Diversification complicates price predictions
In regards to PV energy, we will focus on grid connected systems only, since they represent the large majority of the market. The cost of a grid connected PV system is composed of the PV module cost and the 'BOS' cost (Balance of System). The BOS consists of the structures for mounting the PV modules and of the power-conditioning equipment that converts the DC power of the modules into the AC grid power.
Prediction not straightforward
Three difficulties arise when trying to predict the future cost development of PV energy starting from existing experience curves.
- The cost decrease over the past four decades was not at all linear. It alternated periods of sharp decline with periods in which it stayed more or less constant. As a result, experience cost curves that do not represent large time spans can result in a distorted perspective.
- Various PV technologies exist and are difficult to represent with a single experience curve. New types of PV systems may break through in the near future that completely change the average cost of PV modules.
- Even if the future cost of individual PV modules can be predicted, this does not mean the cost of electricity generated by those PV systems can be easily determined. Factors such as geographical location, local support mechanisms, and the size of systems will have a major influence on the average PV electricity cost.
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