[amor de cosmos]

Japan Asia Group Moving Ahead With 500 MW Solar Plan in Japan
16 May 2013

May 16 (Bloomberg) — Japan Asia Group Ltd., a developer of clean energy projects, said plans to develop 500 megawatts of solar projects in Japan are moving ahead while it considers trimming European operations.

The Tokyo-based company plans 110 megawatts for the year ending March 31, Tetsuo Yamashita, chairman of the company, said at a meeting with analysts today. About 190 megawatts are proposed for fiscal 2014 and about 200 megawatts the following year, he said.

“Our plan is going very well,” Yamashita said, adding that the company intends to announce large-size projects at the end of June. The 500-megawatt plan includes about 100 megawatts to be developed for clients, according to the company.

http://about.bnef.com/bnef-news/japa...plan-in-japan/

• Video Link
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/su...r-poor-farmers
http://inhabitat.com/sunwater-gives-...g-solar-power/

The Future Of Solar Is Brighter Than Ever
May 16, 2013
By Richard Swanson, IEEE Fellow; Co-founder and President Retired of SunPower Corporation

In 1973, I was a young man just out of graduate school. That was the year of the oil crisis. I remember standing in the gas lines along with everyone else wondering, how in the world did we ever get into this mess?

That’s when I came to the realization that we had to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Personally, I was very eager to do something about it. I earned my degree in the field of microelectronics, but that was already a maturing field. My chances of making a significant impact were small. By contrast, the renewable energy field was new and exciting. I felt I could get in early and help bring about real change.

I chose photovoltaics (PV) over other forms of renewable energy because I was trained as a solid state physicist. I thought it was an area where my background was well suited. Solar cells were being used on satellites, a concept I found extremely intriguing. The challenge was to figure out how to make the cells — which were extremely expensive to produce — more cost-effective.

Now that the price of generating solar power is, in some cases, on par with the price of electricity generated from fossil fuels, I can say with confidence that all these years of hard work have paid off. PV has gone mainstream. On an annual installation basis, the global solar industry has grown 10-fold in the past five years. Over the past 10 years, its grown 60-fold.

Frankly, I always knew this day would come. I also knew it would be a long-term commitment – I just didn’t know it would take quite as long as it did. The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the years is that you have to stick with it through thick and thin. Since 1975, the PV industry has been through many ups and downs. There have been periods where PV was touted as the next big thing. There have been other periods where no one seemed to care at all.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/16/...ter-than-ever/

USC 2013 insights: illuminating key utility solar issues
May 15th, 2013
Written by Jeff Ressler

The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) Utility Solar Conference (USC) was held last month in Portland, Ore. This was convenient for our Kirkland, Wash., software team, so we sent four people down to join Tom Hoff from our Napa, Calif., office at the event. It was also refreshing to see Pacific Northwest utilities well represented by Puget Sound Energy, Snohomish County PUD, Seattle City Light and Portland General Electric (PGE being the “host” utility, of course).



Clean Power Research participated in sessions on solar forecasting and the inaugural PowerClerk® Users’ Group. Some takeaways from the conference include:

• Value of Solar discussions are focused on consistency and transparency.
• Utilities are investigating methods of integrating distributed solar onto the grid.
• Administrators of new solar incentive programs are reaping the benefits of early program successes.

http://www.cleanpower.com/2013/usc-solar/

2.6 MW solar plant for NY factory
15. May 2013 | Applications & Installations, Industry & Suppliers | By: Max Hall

Power company Constellation expects to complete a 2.6 MW solar installation at fiberglass manufacturer Owens Corning’s Delmar, New York factory, by the end of the year.

Constellation, a subsidiary of Chicago-based power giant Exelon Corp., will finance, construct, own and maintain the nine-acre installation and will sell the power generated to Owens Corning under a 20-year PPA.

The facility, part funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), is expected to generate 3.3 million kWh per year, around 6% of the thermal and acoustic installation equipment factory's energy needs, from 9,000 ground-mounted panels.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...ory_100011307/

Rooftop solar eats away at network business models
By Giles Parkinson on 16 May 2013

SP Ausnet, one of the few listed energy network operators in Australia, has given a small but revelatory insight into how rooftop solar and changing consumer patterns are turning the business of delivering electricity on its head.

The Victorian-based company, majority-owned by Singapore interests, has three main businesses: a state-wide network transmission business, an electricity distribution division based in the eastern part of the state, and a gas distribution business.

It’s the electricity distribution business that we’re interested in. Increases in costs of distribution have been behind the bulk of electricity price rises in recent years, leading to accusation that the industry has been “gold-plating” the network; based on the fact the network operators receive regulated returns on their investment – so the more they invest, the more they earn.

That was all good while demand was increasing, as everyone supposed it would. But SP Ausnet’s results for 2013 show how the game is starting to change. Over the last five years its electricity distribution business has grown its customer base by around 8 per cent, as this first graph shows. That is to be expected given the population and economic growth.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/roof...s-models-87458

NIST Demonstrates Significant Improvement in the Performance of Solar-Powered Hydrogen Generation
From NIST Tech Beat: May 14, 2013

Using a powerful combination of microanalytic techniques that simultaneously image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight.*

Their quarry is a potentially efficient, cost-effective, photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell—essentially a solar cell that produces hydrogen gas instead of electric current. "A major challenge with solar energy is dealing with solar intermittency," says NIST chemical engineer Daniel Esposito. "We demand energy constantly, but the sun's not always going to be shining, so there's an important need to convert solar energy into a form we can use when the sun's not out. For large-scale energy storage or transportation, hydrogen has a lot of benefits."

At its simplest, a PEC cell contains a semiconducting photoelectrode that absorbs photons and converts them into energetic electrons, which are used to facilitate chemical reactions that split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gases. It's not that easy. The best PEC cell has been demonstrated with an efficiency around 12.5 percent,** says Esposito. But, "it's been estimated that such a cell would be extremely expensive—thousands of dollars per square meter—and they also had issues with stability," he says. One big problem is that the semiconductors used to achieve the best conversion efficiency also tend to be highly susceptible to corrosion by the cell's water-based electrolyte. A PEC electrode that is efficient, stable and economical to produce has been elusive.

The NIST team's proposed solution is a silicon-based device using a metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) design that can overcome the efficiency/stability trade-off. The key is to deposit a very thin, but very uniform, layer of silicon dioxide—an insulator—on top of the semiconductor—silicon—that is well-suited for doing the photon-gathering work. On top of that is a polka-dot array of tiny electrodes consisting of platinum-covered titanium. The stable oxide layer protects the semiconductor from the electrolyte, but it's thin enough and transparent enough that the photons will travel through it to the semiconductor, and the photo-generated electrons will "tunnel" in the opposite direction to reach the electrodes, where the platinum catalyzes the reaction that produces hydrogen.

http://www.nist.gov/mml/msed/pec-051413.cfm

COLUMN-Solar power costs closing in on wind: Wynn
Thu May 16, 2013 8:40am EDT
By Gerard Wynn

May 16 (Reuters) - Solar panels were cheaper than wind turbines for the first time last year in certain markets, per unit of capacity, and are rapidly closing a remaining gap in the full cost of power generation.

Until now, wind power has been the leading low-carbon alternative to oil, coal and gas, outside large niche markets such as Germany, which has seen a huge ramp-up in installed solar.

But that could change, with deep implications for the health of both industries if one substitutes the other.

As soon as this year, solar could for the first time surpass wind in annual global installed capacity, given an expected contraction in the wind market.

The full costs of wind power generation remain less than solar because of higher productivity and lower installation costs, but those advantages are eroding rapidly given current trends in equipment prices, with a glut of Chinese-made solar panels sending prices tumbling.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...0DV3M120130516

Comedian Griff Rhys Jones rages over proposed Suffolk solar farm
By Julia Chan
16 May 2013, 10:27

British actor and comedian Griff Rhys Jones has strongly opposed plans to build a 38.4 hectare solar farm in Tattingstone, Suffolk.

The comedian, who is a patron of the Stour and Orwell Society (SOS), lives close to the proposed site and described the plans as being “part of a mad series of schemes introduced by a government struggling with an energy policy”, media reports cited.

Plans for the solar farm, which may house up to 80,000 solar panels, have been submitted by the developers Hive Energy to the planning committee at Babergh District Council with a decision yet to be made.

In a letter to the planning committee, SOS called for the committee to reject the application. It described the project as an “industrial-type development” which would disturb the visual impact of the landscape and countryside and highlighted that it would result in the loss of almost 40 hectares of “the very best agricultural land, which has been farmed productively for centuries”.

SOS concluded: “Whilst SOS is not opposed in principle to renewable energy developments, we feel that careful site selection is imperative to ensure that the positive benefits of low carbon forms of energy generation are not outweighed by the negative impacts on the local environment. In this instance, we feel strongly that the site is inappropriate for an industrial-type development and we would therefore urge the council to reject this application.”



In response to the body's criticism, Tim Purbrick, commercial director at Hive Energy, told Solar Power Portal: “We’re making a substantial investment on and off the site, for example, in new hedging. A lot of people have also been talking about the wood to the north of the solar site which is an ancient woodland. The oak trees there are over mature and we need to replenish the wood stock and we are planting at our own expense a significant number of oaks which will form a part of our investment in the solar park.

“Within five to seven years, once the plants have been given time to grow, the majority of the solar park will be hidden from view and that’s just the nature of the way that land lies. Most of it will be screened from view and, of course, agriculture can continue under the panels with sheep grazing or hay taken from between the panels.”

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/ne...one_solar_farm