[amor de cosmos]

China Drives Record Solar Growth Becoming Biggest Market
8 March 2013

March 8 (Bloomberg) — The $77 billion solar-energy industry is forecast to expand the most since 2011, as China becomes the biggest market for the first time and drives annual global installations to a record.

New generation capacity will rise about 14 percent this year to 34.1 gigawatts, equal to about eight atomic reactors, according to the average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That would beat the 4.4 percent growth in 2012, when demand shrank in Italy and France after subsidies were cut.

China, after building scores of factories that helped cut panel prices 20 percent in the past year, is poised to become the biggest consumer of the devices after doubling its 2013 target for new projects in January. Tumbling prices are benefiting installers including Solarcity Corp. and SunPower Corp. of California while hurting manufacturers such as LDK Solar Co. of China and Norway’s Renewable Energy Corp. ASA.

“Solar demand is proving very resilient and will keep growing this year even as European markets slump,” said Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Zurich. “A further increase in installations driven by record- low prices, however, won’t do much to help manufacturers’ margins.”

http://about.bnef.com/bnef-news/chin...iggest-market/

Energy Project Developers See Solar as Easier Than Wind
Surprisingly, the biggest difference is mineral rights.
Herman K. Trabish: March 7, 2013

Some developers have moved back and forth between wind and solar in response to shifting and uncertain policies and incentives. OwnEnergy VP and former Baker Botts attorney Steve Krebs asked two developers and a banker, all of who have played in both sectors, to compare.

“The solar comes a bit easier,” said multinational energy giant Macquarie Group’s (NYSE:MIC) Managing Director Thomas Houle at the Texas Renewable Energy Industry Association (TREIA) Renewable Energy Finance Forum. “But it does present unique challenges. One is land rights and producing a clean title.”

In markets where developers are unfamiliar with commercial and utility-scale solar, he said, “there can be a view that issues like mineral rights will sort themselves out. But when you get to financing, there is nothing more important than having a clean title and good title insurance.”

With a wind project, it is less crucial, he said, “because you are not covering the vast majority of the land area with equipment. You’re only using 2 percent to 5 percent of your land area for all the roads and foundations and the rest.”

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...sier-Than-Wind

AT LAST another story from Canada...

New Technique Promises More Efficient Solar Cells, Say U of T Engineering Researchers
March 7, 2013

A new technique developed by Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Professor Ted Sargent, Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology, and his research group could lead to significantly more efficient solar cells, according to a recent paper published in the journal Nano Letters.

The paper, “Jointly-tuned plasmonic-excitonic photovoltaics using nanoshells,” describes a new technique to improve efficiency in colloidal quantum dot photovoltaics, a technology which already promises inexpensive, more efficient solar cell technology. Quantum dot photovoltaics offers the potential for low-cost, large-area solar power – however these devices are not yet highly efficient in the infrared portion of the sun’s spectrum, which is responsible for half of the sun’s power that reaches the Earth.

The solution? Spectrally tuned, solution-processed plasmonic nanoparticles. These particles, the researchers say, provide unprecedented control over light’s propagation and absorption.

The new technique developed by Sargent’s group shows a possible 35 per cent increase in the technology’s efficiency in the near-infrared spectral region, says co-author Dr. Susanna Thon. Overall, this could translate to an 11 per cent solar power conversion efficiency increase, she says, making quantum dot photovoltaics even more attractive as an alternative to current solar cell technologies.

http://www.engineering.utoronto.ca/A...esearchers.htm