September 1953Modern Mechanix
| United States | renewables: solar
Frank Tinsley compares solar to steam and atomic power and discusses solar energy experiments in Russia, France (Felix Trombe), and the US (Charles Abbot of the Smithsonian). One early CSP idea could produce 440,000 hph/acre per year. Noting that uranium is limited, he calls on Congress to find money to fund new sources of energy. (1,500 words)
April 26, 1954New York Times
| United States | renewables: solar
A 6%-efficient "solar energy battery" (solar cell) was demonstrated at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Developed by physicist G.L. Pearson, chemist C.S. Fuller, and electrical engineer D.M. Chapin, a solar cell functions via a "p-n" (positive-negative) junction with impurities introduced at the silicon surface in a similar process to transistor fabrication.
Founded in 2001 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ) is a global energy provider with over 13,000 employees and business subsidiaries in 19 countries. Canadian Solar provides solar PV modules, solar energy solutions, and offgrid applications.
April 5, 2009Las Vegas Sun
| United States | renewables: solar
In 1997, NREL’s now acting director Roland Hulstrom calculated the area of PV solar farms needed to power U.S. energy use. He included a telling picture of a 100-mile by 100-mile square in the middle of Nevada to simplify the concept: 10,000 square miles. Of course, one can easily spread out the sun instead.
George Johnson writes about solar power, including the 64-MW parabolic-trough CSP plant Nevada Solar One in the Mojave desert (online 2007), the 14.2-MW PV solar plant at nearby Nellis Air Force Base (2007), the 11-MW power-tower CSP PS10 in Andalusia, Spain, and other solar installations around the world. (3,800 words)
Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi show how wind, water, and solar can generate 100% of the world's energy by 2030, eliminating fossil fuels. Their plan includes 3.8 million wind turbines and 90,000 solar plants, as well as geothermal, tidal, and rooftop PV systems that undercut the cost per kWh of fossil fuels and nuclear power and is as cheap as coal.
Where are the 32 solar thermal panels Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House roof and Ronald Reagan ripped out? Weighing about 45 kg each, 16 went to Unity College in Maine, hoping to keep them from the dustbin of history and add lustre to its image. It pays to save as hot water heating alone consumes 17% of U.S. energy. [2,500 words]
July 7, 2011grist
| United States | renewables: solar
PV can innovate faster than other energy sectors because of easier scaling akin to IT technology. More projects are switching from CSP to PV as module prices reach $1.50/W (likely $1/W by 2013). First Solar Cd-Tel thin films are $0.70/W (15% market share) while BOS technologies will surpass 50% of a c-Si PV system in 2012. Grid parity is coming soon.
October 10, 2013Phoenix New Times
| United States | renewables: solar
The $2-billion Abengoa Solana CSP plant in Gila Bend (70 miles southwest of Phoenix) comprises over 900,000 mirrors to focus sun on liquid-filled pipes. Temperatures over 530 °F create steam to power 2 traditional turbines, while latent heat storage generates power after dark. The plant produces a max 250 MW (38% over the year, 18% after dark).
September 4, 2014CleanTechnica
| Global | renewables: solar
CleanTechnica explains a growing solar uptake in pictures, including module costs in $/watt versus time (e.g., $76.67/W in 1977 to $0.74/W in 2013, showing the Swanson effect), the cost of electricity and number of installations over time, levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for different energies, and amount of savings and return-on-investment (ROI) time.
April 20, 2015 Extreme Tech
| United States | renewables: solar
An MIT startup has designed a transparent solar cell to let visible light through yet harvest IR and UV via a transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC). Organic salts absorb non-visible IR and UV that luminesce as IR, which is then guided to edge strips to convert into electricity. The rest is transparent. 10% efficiency is expected (currently 1%).
November 6, 2015Cost of Solar
| Global | renewables: solar
A sun-facing roof is best for fixed solar panels, but not all roofs are so orientated and the sun moves. Without an adjustable tracker, the best angle is 90 degrees minus one's latitude, but parallel to a pitched roof is simplest. Sunset-facing panels are also okay as they function at high demand. Tilting panels down in winter and up in summer also helps.
February 4, 2016The Guardian
| Morocco | renewables: solar
The 160-MW CSP plant Noor 1 on the western edge of the Sahara in Ouarzazate, Morocco, is the first of 3 stages, providing 650,000 locals with electricity. When finished, Noor ("light" in Arabic) will produce 580 MW and includes heat storage to operate after sunset. Morocco plans to produce 42% of all energy with renewables by 2020.
March 26, 2016USC Price
| United States | renewables: solar
Talks about renewable energy technology by Eric Heikkila (USC Price), Tom Buttgenbach (8minuteenergy Renewables), Detlof von Winterfeldt (USC), and Bonnie Reiss (Schwarznegger Institute). A joint production of the USC "Urban Growth Seminar Series" and the Schwarzenegger Institute for State & Global Policy. [1:09:06]
November 14, 2016DOE
| United States | renewables: solar
The Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) updated their SunShot Initiative from 2011 when U.S. installed solar power was 3 GW (< 0.1% of electrical supply). As of 2017, 47 GW generates 1% of U.S. electricity while the solar industry has achieved SunShot’s original 2020 goal of $0.06/kWh for utility-scale PV. The new goal is $0.03/kWh by 2030.
A trip in time to see the sun in action: from the first solar access laws (500s), solar collector (1767), discovery of the photovoltaic effect by Edmund Becquerel (1839), photoconductivity of selenium by Willoughby Smith (1873), and Charles Fritts's first solar cell at 1% efficiency (1883) to the modern solar cell of Bell Labs (1954) and beyond.
NASA released Landsat 8 satellite photos of the world’s largest solar farm, the 850-MW Longyangxia Dam Solar Park on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai, China. The site boasts 4 million panels over a 27-square-km area, roughly the size of Macau. China is the world’s top producer of solar power with an installed capacity of 77.4 GW as of 2016.
March 8, 2017EERE
| United States | renewables: solar
A solar forecasting calculator helps buyers understand energy savings in any new solar system, greatly reducing the associated "soft" costs (up to 64%). Since 2014, Genability's Switch analytics have used regional utility data in over 4 million solar proposals to help turn solar considerers into solar adopters.
May 10, 2017 The Guardian
| India | renewables: solar
Thanks to a 40% drop in solar prices at the Bhadla Solar Park (to 2.62 rupees/kWh), the world’s third-largest carbon producer is on pace to meet its renewables targets in the 2015 Paris Agreement. India is planning to generate 175 GW from solar by 2022 and 275 GW by 2027 as it hopes to reduce emissions and decrease poverty.
March 10, 2018Sciencing
| Global | renewables: solar
Like a chemical battery, a solar cell has two sides, positive (p) and negative (n), which generate electricity when the sun hits the "p-n" junction. But sunlight outside the visible range (the "viz" 400-700 nm) produces heat rather than photoelectron current, either via low-energy infrared (IR > 700 nm) or high-energy ultraviolet (UV < 400) rays.
After 7 years of optional compliance, California will mandate solar power on new homes as of 2020, where currently less than 20 percent of new single-family builds include solar. Energy storage will also be encouraged to reduce system size via "compliance credits" and discourage home solar from displacing already clean midday grid power.
November 20, 2018Bloomberg
| Buffalo | renewables: solar
Tesla's new solar-panel manufacturing plant south of Buffalo is over 1 million square feet and employs almost 1,500 workers, making roof shingles of textured glass and solar cells heated together in a “solar sandwich." Part funded by government seed money, has panel output met production goals as Tesla grapples with supply issues for its Model 3 EV?
December 19, 2018IEEE Spectrum
| United States | renewables: solar
A Stanford University machine-learning algorithm has analyzed satellite images to count the number of solar panels across the US. Correctly identifying 93% of panels in 370,000 100-square-foot images, DeepSolar counted almost 1.5 million solar installations. Tied to GPS and census data, future uptake can be predicted.
A Madrid clean-energy cooperative, La Corriente, provides electricity from only wind, solar, and hydraulic sources, more than halving monthly bills for some of its 310 members. And since a new April law, excess home-generated power can also be sold back to the grid. Even in apartments, rooftop solar is now powering elevators and communal lighting.
California set 2 renewable energy records: pushing the most solar power yet onto the grid and taking the most offline because of excess supply around noon (peak sun). Exceeding capacity but curtailing peaks (oversizing) helps flatten a variable load and can reduce customer bills. In 2018, California produced 34% of electricity from renewable sources.
At a cost of €300 million, Spanish power company Iberdrola is building Europe's largest PV solar plant at 590 MW (in Cáceres, 220 km southwest of Madrid) passing the 500-MW Núñez de Balboa (in Badajoz, 100 km southwest of Cáceres). The new installation ups Iberdrola's solar capacity to 2 GW on top of 5.8 GW wind and 15.8 GW total renewables.
Annual PV installations are expected to rise from 235 to 400 MW after regulations were changed by a new government. Prices have also dropped almost 80% in a decade. Much of the new systems are for SMEs and industry, who produce and consume simultaneously. Typical 3-kW home systems account for 10% while 25% of new systems include storage.
The 4,000-strong agricultural community of Raymond, Alberta, now runs all municipal buildings and street lights with solar power, buying and selling to the grid as needed. The $2.8-million installation (under $2/watt with a $630,000 grant) makes it the first "net zero" community in Canada's oil patch, reducing carbon emissions and avoiding any future carbon taxes.
July 14, 2019The Guardian
| Singapore | renewables: solar
Australian developers in the Northern Territory want to build a 10-GW solar farm – the world's largest by far – with battery backup for 24/7 operation and send the power from Darwin to Singapore via a 3,800-km-long HVDC submarine cable through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. The $20-billion project could take less than 10 years to build.
July 17, 2019Dutch Review
| The Netherlands | renewables: solar
Tilburg, the 6th largest city in the Netherlands, has built a futuristic-looking, state-of-the-art, solar-powered bus station. Solar panels cover 250 square metres, enough to run the lights, digital signs, staff canteen, and service desk, while the next phase will bring quick-charge stations to top up a fleet of electric buses.
September 25, 2019The Hearty Soul
| Georgia | renewables: solar
Having previously installed 32 water-heating solar panels on the White House roof in 1979, Jimmy Carter installed 3,852 single-axis solar tracker panels over 10 acres of his Plains, Georgia, farm in 2017. The 39th U.S. president signed a 25-year PPA with Georgia Power to generate 2 million kWh per year, enough to power 50% of his hometown.
February 20, 2020BBC Future
| Alaska | renewables: solar
The 10-acre, 1.35 MWh/year Willow solar farm 50 miles north of Anchorage powers 120 homes. The 3-acre GEVA farm near Fairbank is the most northern and powers 70 homes. Alaska pays almost double for grid power, making solar attractive as do low operating costs. Snow removal is essential although ground reflection increases output.
March 11, 2020RenewEconomy
| Australia | renewables: solar
Small-scale PV installations (6-8 kW segment) in Australia broke the record for monthly registered capacity at 218 MW. The national market increased 34% over 2019, with an average rooftop system size of 7.7 kW. Despite a boom time for Aussie sun, the large-scale sector shrunk because of network congestion and regulatory uncertainty.
March 29, 2020Bloomberg
| China | renewables: solar
Chinese solar-panel manufacturer GCL System Integration Technology will build the biggest module-making plant to supply half the world's annual panel capacity. At $2.5 billion, the Hefei province facility will produce 60 GW of panels/year, double 2019 Chinese installations and almost 10 times GCL output. Current number-1 supplier JinkoSolar made 16 GW.
July 11, 2020Sydney Herald
| Australia | renewables: solar
Developed at the University of Newcastle, the first large-scale printed solar cell array was installed on a covered-roof walkway in Sydney, Australia. The 0.075-mm-thick liquid organic polymer cells are laid on as sheets and affixed with simple adhesive. Lightweight and ultra-thin, efficiency (2%) and durability (2 years) is still low.
A new 5,760-panel, 2.2-MW solar farm will supply around 25% of the power to the 1,000 residents of Fort Chipewyan in northeast Alberta. The farm replaces 800,000 litres of diesel/year, which was trucked in by ice road and river barge from Fort McMurray. With global warming, the ice road is becoming unreliable as the north warms 3 times faster than average.
June 24, 2021Nature
| Cambridge | renewables: solar
Standard silicon solar cells convert a small fraction of incident light into electricity. An organic polymer film and quantum dot setup can convert wasted higher-energy photons (blue and green) via "singlet exciton fission" in a tandem construction to increase overall panel efficiency by 50% to about 35% (above the SQ limit).
A 100-square-foot transparent solar array was installed above the entryway of an MSU campus building. The unique glass panels let visible light in but convert invisible UV and near-IR to electricity. Indistinguishable from traditional windows, the glass panels were designed by Ubiquitous Energy and generate enough power to light the atrium.
November 28, 2021AP News
| United States | renewables: solar
Generating about 3.4 GW or 3% of U.S. solar, NREL lists almost 1,600 community solar projects (a.k.a. solar gardens) that power 650,000 homes. With more than 4.3 GW coming online in the next 5 years, the US hopes to power 5 million homes with community solar by 2025, saving customers $1 billion. The opposition and competition is increasing.
November 29, 2021Dutch News
| The Netherlands | renewables: solar
Lighter, flexible solar panels that bend in challenging sea conditions use less material than conventional solar panels and are thus cheaper to install. A TNO project is testing 3 different 50-kW setups to study the effects of wind and waves and will install a commercial system by 2024 in the North Sea, ideally as part of an existing wind farm.
February 8, 2022Cision
| California | renewables: solar
Starting in the fall, TID will install solar canopies over a portion of its 4,000 miles of canals in the Central Valley of California. The $20-million project, the first of its kind in the US, could lead to an annual savings of 63 billion gallons of water and supply 13 GW of power (1/6 of current installed state solar) if expanded to the whole canal system.
February 16, 2022InceptiveMind
| UK | renewables: solar
Bismuth-based nanocrystals engineered via cation disorder have been integrated into an "ultrathin" solar cell that increases the absorption coefficient up to 10 times across a wider spectral range. A joint research project at UCL, ICFO, and Imperial achieved a conversion efficiency of 9% for a device only 100 nm thick, much less than current "thin-film" cells.
March 23, 2022Energy Post
| Global | renewables: solar
Many solar farms are located in the desert where collected sand reduces output. Water is a standard cleaning solution but non-contact electrostatic repulsion can also be applied robotically to recover up to 95% of lost output and reduce a global freshwater footprint of 30 billion gallons per year.
April 21, 2022PV Magazine
| The Netherlands | renewables: solar
Two prototype mobile agrivoltaic solar systems are being piloted for a year in South Holland to improve soil quality and biodiversity in farm fields. One system comprises 4 solar cars with 168 panels and an irrigation system. The effect on yield will be measured, while the system could be combined with an electrolyzer to produce hydrogen.
April 27, 2022InceptiveMind
| United States | renewables: solar
A microgrid was installed in the remote village of Shungnak, Alaska, to replace an expensive and polluting diesel generator power plant. The solar-plus-storage system consists of a 225-kW solar array with 12, 32-kWh Blue Ion LX cabinet batteries. The setup will save 25,000 gallons of fuel ($200,000) a year and serve as a model for other remote communities.
May 16, 2022PV Magazine
| Switzerland | renewables: solar
A Swiss company has designed its new conference center in Basel with building-integrated photovoltaics, using organic solar modules and LEDs. The zero-energy facade displays art and generates 36 kW from 10,680 diamond-shaped modules over a 1,333-m2 area. Low-light indoor objects are powered, such as temperature sensors and geolocation trackers.
July 8, 2022PV Magazine
| Global | renewables: solar
A prototype Tesla solar trailer provides a fold-out array of solar panels and satellite internet system. The 9, 300-W panels (2.7 kW) add about 50 miles of range. Bus trailers with 20 semi-flexible solar panels and a scalable system with 12 retractable solar panels (4.4 kW) are in the works. A solar trailer is great for backup power or a home solar micro farm.
July 28, 2022Freethink
| Japan | renewables: solar
Developed at Tohoku University in Japan, an ITO-based solar cell coated with a thin metal has produced a light-conversion efficiency 1000 times previous devices with 79% transparency. The new technology will help to integrate solar panels into the everyday built environment.
Solar Philippines will add 3.5 GW to a 500-MW system being built in Luzon near Manila, surpassing India's 2.25-GW Bhadla Solar Park as the current largest solar installation in the world. The PV site will sit on 2,500 hectares and be part financed by stock offerings and private investment to raise $195 million.
October 6, 2022PV Magazine
| Germany | renewables: solar
The BIPV company Autarq has designed an attractive solar tile, based on the Domino black tile by Creaton. The smooth, flat brick uses small monocrystalline PV elements covered by a 3.2-mm hardened single pane of safety glass. The weather-resistant tiles connect to each other with plugs hidden under the bricks and function from -40 to 85 °C.
November 4, 2022Public Senat
| France | renewables: solar
The French senate passed a bill mandating that all parking lots of at least 80 spaces be covered with PV solar panels by 2028 (over 400 spaces by 2026). The new law is expected to stimulate solar energy production in France, especially in the commercial sector and will amount to a power saving of 11 GW, equivalent to 10 nuclear power plants.
November 5, 2022euronews
| Switzerland | renewables: solar
Swiss scientists have increased the efficiency of transparent dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) to 15% for direct light and 30% for ambient light. DSCs are flexible, low cost, and come in various colours, perfect for skylights, greenhouses, and glass-clad buildings. Windows in Lausanne, Copenhagen, and Lansing now employ solar cells to generate power.
November 7, 2022El País
| Chile | renewables: solar
Chile has passed 20% renewables before its 2025 goal, helped by the 110-MW CSP Cerro Dominador plant with storage. High in the Atacama Desert, Latin America’s first solar thermal plant with 10,600 heliostats enjoys an average solar irradiation about double Spain’s. Solar plants in the north are partly idle because of limited transmission capacity.
August 7, 2023PV Magazine
| Spain | renewables: solar
Cement is produced via high temperatures at a concentrated solar power plant instead of coal. The solar tower was built at a cement plant in Móstoles, southwest of Madrid, to make clinker cement in a rotary kiln at almost 1,500 °C and store excess heat for thermal storage. The process also produces CO and hydrogen gas to make jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel.
September 4, 2023PV Magazine
| Australia | renewables: solar
An Australian company announces a scalable solar window made on regular manufacturing lines, mass-produced for smart buildings. The integrated glazing units maintain 70% transparency and generate ~ 100 Wp/m2. The optically clear IGUs use a nanoparticle interlayer and tuned rear coating to pass the viz but direct IR/UV to PV cells at the edges.
October 6, 2023PV Magazine
| United States | renewables: solar
10.4 GW US utility solar was installed in 2022, although 2023 may double to over 24 GW (LBNL). Texas led with 2.5 GW, then California (2.1 GW), Virginia (0.6 GW), and Georgia (0.5 GW), 94% single-axis tracking and 6% fixed tilt. Since 2010, costs have dropped by 78% or 10%/year to $1.32/W. Cumulative installed capacity is now 62 GW (1 TW in queue).
Roughly 5% of US homes have rooftop solar because power is cheaper than in Germany (20%) and Australia (30%). As rates rise > 15 c/kWh ($130/month), PV adoption saves money. 16 states are over 15, led by Hawaii (43, imported diesel) and California (26) while Utah, Nebraska, N. Dakota, Idaho, and Washington are under 11. Sustainability is cost effective.
A solar-thermal rooftop water-heating system was installed at Creighton University, Nebraska. The carbon-free system uses vacuum-sealed glass tubes to convert sunlight to heat rather than electricity, providing hot water for 400 students. Global heating/cooling is 50% of all energy consumption. In 2021, only 373,000 operated in the US, 1/10th PV.
March 5, 2024PV Magazine
| Austria | renewables: solar
Researchers in Austria compared vertical bifacial to stilted agrivoltaics systems, using sugar beet, winter wheat, and soybean crops. Vertical bifacial panels (produce between modules) has lower environmental impacts than a stilted system (produce underneath), because of less mounting material and glass-glass versus glass-foil modules.
June 14, 2024 Canary Media
| Global | renewables: solar
Renewable energy investment is now about double that of fossil fuels at almost $2 trillion, thanks to lower costs and increased global reach. Most funding is for solar, but also includes storage ($50 billion) and grid enhancement. Nonetheless, most investment is still in China, the US, and the EU with only 15% in developing countries.
Asturian company SolReina won a Spanish patent award for a solar shutter made of glass/thermal-acoustic insulating BIPV C-Si cells. The adjustable photovoltaic solar shutter is resistant to hail and heat, generates up to 225 W/m2, and can produce 15% more PV power than a rooftop solar panel and decrease aircon 80%.
Solar power is the world’s fastest-growing electricity source at 8.2% (up from 6.7% in 2023), with China installing 1.5 times 2023. On the northern summer solstice, peak solar power was 20% (up from 16% in 2023). 89% of all installations are north of the equator (China 36%, EU 20%, US 7%, India 7%, but < 5% in 2/3rds of countries).
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