Arizona: The Best Solar Resource

[Southpark Fan]

*A solar panel 200 square miles (in Arizona - it's not that big relatively speaking+I don't live in Arizona) would power North America. Enough solar hits the Earth every second to power the world.

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A Look at Arizona and the Best Solar Resource in the Nation
Herman K. Trabish | April 6, 2012 | Green Tech Grid



Photo: Can 100 Miles of Mirrors solar thermal power the US?

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'With GTM heading to Phoenix for a Solar Summit May 1-2, it seemed only right to take a look at how sun is doing in Arizona.


Image: Researchers develop solar cells thinner than spider silk

“Arizona has the highest solar insolation in the country and we have a modest Renewable Energy Standard,” Arizona Sierra Club Director Sandy Bahr explained. “It does have a distributed carve-out, but it’s modest.” And, she added, “we’ve seen a lot happen with solar in the last five years,” ticking off growth in solar rooftops, solar power plants and community solar that has reached “even to the Sun City Recreation Centers.”



Image: Best wearable solar energy generating systems

At the end of 2010, Arizona had 128 megawatts of installed solar capacity. Its Renewable Energy Standard (RES) requires Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC)-regulated utilities, which include Arizona Public Service (APS) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP), to obtain 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025 and specifies that 30 percent of that come from distributed generation.'


Photo: Green Tech Media

[Southpark Fan]

Serbia joins renewables race, to have planet's biggest solar park
Sonia Renthlei | May 11, 2012 | Ecofriend

'The solar park will be spread over a huge 3,000 ha of land and will have an estimated peak capacity of 1,000 MWp. A couple of days ago, Serbian minister Oliver Dulic signed the agreement with Luxembourg-based Securum Equity Partners. Dulic has said that it will take around five years for the park to be built which will open up job avenues for about 3,000 workers.

The minister also said that the country has agreed to lease out the required land at no cost to Securum though it will generate income from taxes. Incidentally, the revenue is expected to touch a handsome 750 million Euros.

Once a suitable location has been found, work on the park could begin as early as next year. The decision to establish the world’s largest solar park in Serbia is due to the fact that the country receives around 40 percent more sunlight than the rest of southeast Europe. It also has a highly skilled labor force, according to an official of Securum.

Solar parks have been slowly cropping up all over the world as countries attempt to reduce their dependency on conventional fossil fuel-derived energy. India’s state of Gujarat also recently opened what is believed to be Asia’s largest solar park in a bid to gradually switch over to renewables. The going may be slow and tedious, but it appears that the tradition of generating electricity from fossil fuels is slowly being replaced by more advanced and eco friendly forms of energy.'

New Solar Tech:

1). 3D Solar Cells to revolutionize the photovoltaic industry

2). Parasite offers unique solution to lighting problems

Future Challenger: New Mexico to get world's biggest solar farm to power 240,000 homes

[Southpark Fan]

3-D nanocone solar cell technology cranks up efficiency
Apr 29, 2012 | PhysOrg


Photo: Nanocone-based solar cell consisting of n-type nanocones, p-type matrix, transparent
conductive oxide (TCO) and glass substrate.

'With the creation of a 3-D nanocone-based solar cell platform, a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jun Xu has boosted the light-to-power conversion efficiency of photovoltaics by nearly 80 percent.

The technology substantially overcomes the problem of poor transport of charges generated by solar photons. These charges -- negative electrons and positive holes -- typically become trapped by defects in bulk materials and their interfaces and degrade performance.

"To solve the entrapment problems that reduce solar cell efficiency, we created a nanocone-based solar cell, invented methods to synthesize these cells and demonstrated improved charge collection efficiency," said Xu, a member of ORNL's Chemical Sciences Division.

The new solar structure consists of n-type nanocones surrounded by a p-type semiconductor. The n-type nanoncones are made of zinc oxide and serve as the junction framework and the electron conductor. The p-type matrix is made of polycrystalline cadmium telluride and serves as the primary photon absorber medium and hole conductor. '

[Peter]

Nice. 80% increase over 25% means 45% conversion of solar photons to electrical potential?
Not bad but it still needs to get into the 70s (IIRC) to be competitive, no?

[Southpark Fan]

I agree Peter

Home Solar Power Storage — Another Option
Zachary Shahan | June 15, 2012 | CleanTechnica

'As a part of the Franco-German Sol-Ion research project, scientists at Baden-Württemberg’s Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) in Stuttgart have come up with a new storage system for solar power. In a test building, they were able to increase “own consumption” – solar power used directly within the household without being exported to the grid – by 26%. The ZSW says the amount of energy stored in the new system covers the average power demand in a single-family home of four people in the evening. In other words, the system turns fluctuating, intermittent solar power into a source of energy that can be consumed as need be.

The Sol-Ion storage system is about the size of a normal household freezer. It contains the power inverters needed for the solar array as well as a battery charge rectifier, both of which have a nominal output of five kilowatts. The system also contains electronics for device controls, which the researchers optimized. They then collected data during various long-term tests over six months. Lithium-ion batteries with a useful storage capacity of 6 kilowatt-hours are the centerpiece of the system.'

Check out Renewables International

[Southpark Fan]

US Identifies Zones for Solar Development on Public Lands
July 26th, 2012 | Yale Environment 360

'The Obama administration has identified 17 sites on public lands across six Southwestern states that officials say are most suitable for utility-scale solar projects.'

See: Renewable Energy Potential in Every US State

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US to make solar energy development on public land easier
John Timmer | July 27 2012 | Ars Technica

285,000 acres will host fast-tracked development of up to 24GW of peak power.


Photo: The west's Solar Energy Zones, highlighted in blue
Credit: DOE/BLM

'In the US, some of the best locations for generating solar power have been off-limits to development because they happen to be on federally owned land. Although the Department of the Interior has approved a number of utility-scale solar projects (17 since 2009), the permitting process remained cumbersome, and there was no way of judging whether these projects represented the best use of federal lands. To help foster the development of solar power, the DOI instituted a full review of both the lands it manages and the permitting process; the results of this review were released earlier this week.'

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Solar Bag Cleans Water While Walking
Chelsea | July 25, 2012 | TreeHugger

'Clean water is hard to come by, but a solar-enhanced bag has combined portability and potability. The Solar Bag, designed by Ryan Lynch and Marcus Triest, is exactly what it sounds like: an over-the-shoulder messenger style bag that can be filled with water and lugged around while the sun’s UV rays purify. The Solar Bag can decontaminate about 2.5 liters of water in as little as six hours. Lynch said the bag was designed to be used by families in sub-saharan Africa.'

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Related: Oriental Hornet: Expert Solar Power Harvester


Photo: Oriental Hornet
Credit: Altrenative Energy

[Southpark Fan]

University of Arizona's Breakthrough Telescope Solar Panel Doubles Efficiency
Mathias Aarre Mæhlum | 08/17/12 | Inhabitat

'Inspired by old telescope technology and high-efficiency solar panels used in space, a small research team at the University of Arizona (UA) has developed a new “telescope solar panel” that doubles efficiency compared to standard photovoltaics. At the foundation of the design is a dish-shaped mirror (similar to those widely used in concentrated solar power plants), which increases the intensity of sunlight. The device concentrates photons (light particles), making more of them available for conversion into electricity in the solar cells.'

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Japan to Create a Nationwide Super Solar Array to Replace Push for Nuclear Power
Brit Liggett| 05/23/11 | Inhabitat

'The Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, is about to announce to the G8 Summit in France his country’s plans to mandate that all buildings come equipped with solar panels by 2030. The announcement of this mandate comes in the wake of the March 11th earthquake and ensuing tsunami that caused a major nuclear crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This national solar array could help wean the country off of nuclear power and push them into a cleaner, safer future.'

[Southpark Fan]

89-Year-Old Man Develops Bladeless Bird-Friendly Wind Turbine
Beth Buczynski | 08/31/12 | Inhabitat


Photo: Eighty-nine-year-old military veteran Raymond Green with his Catching Wind Power (CWP) device
Credit: Inhabitat

'Green’s CWP Compressed Air Enclosed Wind Turbine completely eliminates the three massive blades seen on most wind turbines. Rather than waiting for the wind to turn a blade, Green’s device features a patented Inner Compression Cone Technology, which he claims will squeeze and compress the incoming air in order to create more power at the turbine.

“Our design does not have any external moving parts to hit the birds,” writes Green on his website. “Our unit is easy to see so the birds can avoid it, and all moving parts are internal. The blades are mounted behind the windsock and inner compression cone, therefore making them nonaccessible to birds. Also, our turbines make virtually no noise.”

According to Green, his design can be scaled up for commercial power production, or down for residential use. The CWP will soon be tested, improved upon, and manufactured by Sigma Design, so final judgement will have to be reserved for the birds themselves.'

[Southpark Fan]

Whitehorse gets machine to convert plastic into oil
Sep 11, 2012 | CBC News

Machine is the first of its kind to operate in North America


Photo: From left to right, Andy Lera, the project manager, checks out the new machine with Pat McInroy, who owns P&M
Recycling and Jason Tanne, with E.N.ERG - the North American distributor of the machine
Credit: Dave Croft/CBC

'A machine that converts waste plastic into crude oil is operating at a recycling depot in Whitehorse. The machine is the first of its kind in North America.

Project manager Andy Lera first read about what he calls the "amazing" machine more than a year ago. He read that a Japanese man who was tired of seeing so much waste plastic being burned had found a relatively inexpensive way of converting plastic to crude oil.

Lera pitched the idea to Cold Climate Innovation at Yukon College’s research centre. The centre convinced the federal government to share in the cost, which is around $200,000.

The machine is now running at P & M Recycling.'

[Southpark Fan]

The Reign of Residential PV in Japan
Scott Burger | September 27, 2012 | Green tech Media

GTM Research analyzes the world’s largest residential solar market and its evolution.


'The Japanese solar PV market is in a state of flux; since the market's inception, the ‘Big Four’ module suppliers -- Kyocera, Sharp, Sanyo (now owned by Panasonic), and Mitsubishi -- shaped PV in Japan while serving their primary suppliers. Now, foreign entrants such as Suntech, Canadian Solar, Yingli, Trina, and JA Solar, as well as Japanese newcomers such as Solar Frontier, threaten to dethrone the incumbents. While the country's new feed-in tariff (FIT), intended to develop the large-scale solar market, has positioned Japan as a center of global PV demand, the market's main driver is and will continue to be the residential sector.'

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Related: Utility Scale Solar

[Southpark Fan]

Interior Announces First-Ever Renewable Energy Lease Sales on the Outer Continental Shelf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOEM Proposes Leasing Nearly 278,000 Acres Offshore Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia for Wind Energy

11/30/2012

Contact: Blake Androff (DOI) 202-208-6416
Tracey Moriarty (BOEM) 703-787-1571


'Despite criticism about the lack of action on climate change policy, the Obama Administration is moving forward with further expanding renewable energy policy. Case in point, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) is opening up bids for offshore wind farming off the Atlantic Coast.

US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Tom Beaudreau, and Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes announced on Friday a proposal to open bids for 278,000 acres of offshore wind energy in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia, the release said.'

[Southpark Fan]

Moroccan Solar Streetlighting
Bill Sweet | February 22, 2013 | IEEE


Photo: ECOlite.ma device

'...
According to the company's website each lamp is a 33 Watt LED, capable of producing 3000 lumens and with an operating lifetime of 50,000 hours; the pole-mounted energy storage system is a 12 Volt, 75 amp-hour battery; enough energy can be stored during the day to light streets for two nights, with a 50 percent discharge

A quick Google search reveals that Ecolite.ma is not the only company out there with a battery-equipped solar streetlighting system. But it is the first one I have ever noticed. How much potential is there for such systems? could Ecolite.ma some day be a household word in, say, Arizona or Andalusia? Well, remember this: Daytime temperatures on the edge of the Sahara can exceed 55 degrees Celsius (135 degrees F). It is not your usual environment.'

[Southpark Fan]

The All-Electric Car You Never Plug In
Seungyoung Ahn, Nam Pyo Suh & Dong-Ho Cho | April 2013 | IEEE Spectrum

'Here’s a big reason: Picture the driver of that same car getting a call from a relative living far away who needs immediate help. Suddenly, the driver’s eyes become riveted on the most important indicator on the dashboard: the estimated number of kilometers that the car can go on the remaining battery charge. Will he make it to his relative’s house? Even if he does, will he find a charging station so he can get back home?


There’s a name for this modern misgiving: range anxiety, a new form of disquiet experienced by drivers of all-electric cars. The Nissan Leaf, for example, can be driven on the highway for only about 120 kilometers on a single charge, and fully charging up its batteries takes 8 hours or more.


But maybe there’s a way to relieve this fear forever and make drivers’ lives much easier as well. If we embed transmitting coils in roadways, electric cars carrying receiving coils could charge themselves as they zoom down the road. An e-car owner would never have to search for a charging station or plug in the car. That is the goal of our research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), in Daejeon, which has developed what we call the on-line electric vehicle (OLEV) system.


Wireless power transmission isn’t a new idea: Nikola Tesla built a 57-meter-tall tower behind his lab in Shoreham, N.Y., in the first years of the 20th century, partly to beam power to remote equipment. But only in the past decade have researchers begun to make the breakthroughs that can allow for commercially practical wireless charging, not only for portable electronic products like smartphones but even for industrial robots and electric cars. 


The technology depends on the same principle of electromagnetic induction that enables a transformer to change the voltage of an alternating current. This current flows through one coil of wire, creating a magnetic field whose polarity reverses with each cycle and inducing a corresponding alternating field in a secondary coil. The ratio of the number of turns in the two coils determines whether the transformer steps voltage up or down. Transformers usually include an iron-rich core, which links the coils and increases the field strength, but you don’t really need it. If the two coils are separated by air, current flowing through the first coil will still create a magnetic field, which will still be picked up by the second coil—it just won’t be picked up as well. The greater the air gap, the less efficient the transfer of power will be.

...'

[Southpark Fan]

Solar-Powered Plane Breaks World Record for Distance
Jason Paur | 05.23.13 | Wired


Photo: Pilot André Borschberg touches down in Dallas after more than 18 hours in the air
Credit: Solar Impulse/Revillard/Revo.ch

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