[amor de cosmos]

It's Probably Going To Get More Expensive For Americans To Buy Solar Panels
Rob Wile
Jun. 3, 2014, 7:08 PM

It's probably going to get more expensive for Americans to buy solar panels.

The Commerce Department has made a preliminary ruling that it will impose duties ranging from 18.56% to 35.21% on solar cells and modules from China.

Shayle Kann, senior vice president for research at Greentech Media, said that while Commerce's final ruling won't come for another few months, this is a strong indication of where the department will ultimately come down.

"Even if you take these alone — average tariffs for most [Chinese and Taiwanese] manufacturers of 27% —that’s significant," he told BI. "If you take average panel prices today, which is in the low $0.70s [per watt], and increase it by 27%, you’re approaching $1 a watt, which is very significant compared to where we are today."

Utility-scale solar projects, which comprises the largest share of both new and overall PV installations in the U.S., are likely to be most affected, since they are the most price sensitive, Kann said.

"27% will certainly kill a lot of projects at margin," Kann said.

The tariffs were sought by the American unit of SolarWorld, a panel manufacturing firm based in Germany. The firm has accused the Chinese of offering illicit subsidies, and separately accused China and Taiwan of illegal dumping. Today's ruling concerns the subsidies.

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-s...-duties-2014-6
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/...at-to-industry

China News
U.S.-China Solar-Products Dispute Heats Up
Updated June 4, 2014 2:59 a.m. ET

BEIJING—China warned Wednesday that a preliminary U.S. decision to close a loophole that allowed some Chinese solar-equipment makers to avoid tariffs would worsen trade relations between the two countries.

Solar-energy products became a flashpoint in trade relations between China, the U.S. and the European Union as the global financial crisis slowed the implementation of big solar-energy projects just as production capacity for solar panels was growing sharply.

In the latest move, the U.S. Department of Commerce said Tuesday it would seek to impose antisubsidy tariffs ranging from nearly 19% to 35% on Chinese solar panels, even if the panels contained solar cells made outside of China. Solar panels are made from solar cells.

China's Ministry of Commerce said it is "strongly dissatisfied" with the U.S. decision. The move "is an abuse of trade remedies, has an obvious hint of trade protectionism and will inevitably lead to the escalation of trade disputes between China and the U.S.," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The most recent U.S. probe into Chinese solar products was prompted by a petition filed by SolarWorld Industries America Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of SolarWorld AG, German's biggest solar-panel maker. SolarWorld claimed that some Chinese solar-equipment companies avoided U.S. tariffs by shipping solar-cell components to overseas locations like Taiwan, where they were used to make solar cells that were shipped back to China for assembly into solar panels.

The panels therefore weren't subject to U.S. antisubsidy and antidumping tariffs imposed in 2012 on Chinese solar panels that contain solar cells made in China.

The new tariffs will require a final ruling by the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission. A similar ruling to close a loophole in antidumping tariffs is expected in late July, SolarWorld said in a statement.

The Chinese ministry said it hopes the U.S. will proceed cautiously as it further investigates the issue, adding that it could take actions to protect the rights of Chinese solar-equipment manufacturers if necessary.

Trina Solar Ltd. , one of China's largest solar-panel makers, said it was disappointed by the ruling and that SolarWorld's allegations were unfounded. It didn't refer to the practice of outsourcing solar-cell production. "Trina Solar's transactions with all its customers in the U.S. are in full accordance with international trade practices," it said.

Trina Solar was named in SolarWorld's petition.

Although U.S. solar-equipment manufacturers have been hit by imports of cheap solar panels from China, falling prices have created a booming business for U.S. solar installers such as SolarCity Corp. SCTY +1.00% The U.S.-based Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy described the latest decision on tariffs as a major setback for the U.S. solar industry that would raise the cost of solar power and cost jobs in "one of fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy."

The ruling may not hurt Chinese solar manufacturers that much. They are already pivoting away from the U.S., where demand is slowing, to feed a growing appetite for solar panels back home.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-c...ies-1401861818

Nature | News Feature
Solar energy: Springtime for the artificial leaf
Researchers make headway in turning photons into fuel.
Jessica Marshall
04 June 2014

On a bright spring morning in Pasadena, California, the air is rich with the smells of cut grass and flowers. Photosynthesis seems effortless here: the fronds and blooms that line the walkways of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) bask in the sunlight, quietly using its energy to store sugars, stretch their leaves, deepen their roots and tend to their cellular processes.

Inside Caltech's Jorgensen Laboratory, however, more than 80 researchers are putting a lot of effort into doing the leaf's job using silicon, nickel, iron and any number of other materials that would be more at home inside a cell phone than a plant cell. Their gleaming new labs are the headquarters of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), a 190-person research programme funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) with US$116 million over five years. The centre's goal is to use sunlight to make hydrogen and other fuels much more efficiently than real leaves ever made biomass.

The researchers are pursuing this goal with a certain urgency. Roughly 13% of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide come from transportation, so phasing out polluting fuels is a key environmental target. One approach is to replace cars and light trucks with electric vehicles charged by solar cells or wind — but that cannot tackle the whole problem. Nathan Lewis, an inorganic chemist at Caltech and JCAP's scientific director, says that some 40% of current global transportation cannot be electrified. For example, barring a major breakthrough, there will never be a plug-in hybrid plane: no craft could hold enough batteries. Liquid fuels are unbeatable when it comes to convenience combined with compact energy storage.

That is why funding agencies around the world — and at least a few private companies — are putting unprecedented resources into making fuels using power from the Sun, which is not only carbon-free but effectively inexhaustible. JCAP stands out not only for its scale, but also for its ambition. It is one of five Energy Innovation Hubs created by the DOE beginning in 2010 to focus on specific problems using basic research, applied research and engineering. JCAP has promised to deliver a working prototype of an artificial leaf by the time its initial grant runs out in 2015.

http://www.nature.com/news/solar-ene...l-leaf-1.15341

Cumulative Global Solar PV Demand Surpasses 150 GW in 1H’14
Posted by Michael Barker in Solarbuzz, Authors (post by authors), Solar on June 3, 2014 | 0 Comments

The global solar PV industry continues to show strong growth, with over 150 GW of solar PV installed across the world. The industry has steadily grown over the past several years, increasing from an installed base of only 5 GW in 2005 to almost 200 GW forecast by the end of 2014.

This growth was led originally by European countries, which between 2005 and 2011 accounted for 60-85% of annual global demand. The last few years have seen steadily declining demand shares in Europe however, and in 2014 annual European demand is forecast to account for less than 25% of global demand while demand from the major Asian countries (China, India, Australia, Thailand, and Japan) is projected to account for over half of worldwide solar PV demand (up from 10% demand share in 2010).

http://www.displaysearchblog.com/201...50-gw-in-1h14/

I guess because they don't have established, politically-powerful fossil-fuel industries:

Developing countries outpacing leading industrial nations in global renewable energy capacity
04. June 2014 | Global PV markets, Industry & Suppliers, Markets & Trends | By: Edgar Meza

Of the 144 countries with renewable energy support policies and targets in place, 95 are developing nations. The rise of developing world support contrasts with declining incentives and growing uncertainty in Europe and the U.S., says REN21.

The number of emerging economy nations with policies in place to support the expansion of renewable energy has surged more than six-fold in just eight years, from 15 developing countries in 2005 to 95 early this year, according to REN21's Renewables 2014 Global Status Report.

Those 95 developing nations now make up the vast majority of the 144 countries with renewable energy support policies and targets in place, the report says, adding that the rise of developing world support contrasts with declining support and renewables policy uncertainty and even retroactive support reductions in some European countries and the United States.

Launched at the UN-hosted Sustainable Energy for All in New York, the 2014 report credits support policies with a central role in driving global renewable energy capacity to a new record level last year — more than 1,560 GW, up more than 8% from 2012. More than 22% of the world's power production now comes from renewable sources.

"Markets, manufacturing, and investment expanded further across the developing world, clearly illustrating that renewables are no longer dependent upon a small handful of countries," REN21 reports.

*snip*

"Global perceptions of renewable energy have shifted considerably," says Arthouros Zervos, REN21 chair.

"Over the last 10 years, continuing technology advances and rapid deployment of many renewable energy technologies have demonstrated that the question is no longer whether renewables have a role to play in the provision of energy services, but rather how we can best increase the current pace to achieve a 100% renewables future with full energy access for all.

"For this to be become reality, current thinking needs to change: continuing the status quo of a patchwork of policies and actions is no longer sufficient. Instead, technology developments, finance models as well as stable and predictable renewable energy policies need to be systematically linked across the public and private sectors in order to support and drive the transition process."

Christine Lins, REN21's executive secretary, adds: "The past decade has set the wheels in motion for a global transition to renewables, but a concerted and sustained effort is needed to achieve it. With increasingly ambitious targets and innovative policies, renewables can continue to surpass expectations and create a clean energy future."

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...ity_100015303/

Brazil's first PV auction set for October
04. June 2014 | Global PV markets, Industry & Suppliers, Markets & Trends | By: Blanca Díaz López

For the first time ever, PV projects will be included in a specific category in a national auction in Brazil. Winning projects are to start operation on October 1, 2017.

The Brazilian Ministry of Energy and Mines has set the date of the first auction that will have a specific category for PV projectson for October 10.

This reserve energy auction, in which there is also a category for wind and a category for biomass, is open to projects with over 5 MW in the PV category.

According to a resolution from the ministry published on Monday, winning projects are to start operations October 1, 2017. The contracts that are closed for PV projects as part of the auction will last for 20 years.

The government has set July 10 as the deadline for the projects that will participate in the auction to apply for the authorization with the Brazilian federal energy planning company Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (EPE). Projects that are already registered to obtain technical authorizations for the A-3 and A-5 auctions this year -- the A-5 auction that takes place in September is open to solar projects -- can apply for an easier registration with the EPE.

The Brazilian government has not yet set the maximum price for PV in the auction. The number of projects that can win tenders at the auction has also not been defined. Last week EPE official José Carlos de Miranda Farias indicated during a Brazilian Electrical and Electronics Industry Association (Abinee) event that around 500 MW in solar projects could be awarded in the reserve energy auction. Recently, EPE President Mauricio Tolmasquim said that between 2014 and 2018 about 3.5 GW in solar projects could be awarded through national auctions in Brazil.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...er-_100015317/
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/brazil_e...ional_auctions

IKEA installs 1,178kW PV array atop Miami-Dade area store
By Conor Ryan - 03 June 2014, 22:20
In News, Power Generation, Project Focus

Home furnishing retailer IKEA announced Tuesday that is has successfully installed a 1,178kW PV array on top of the future Miami-Dade IKEA store in Sweetwater, Florida.

The array, which consists of 4,640 panels, is expected to generate around 1,738,876kWh of electricity annually for the sore, which would be the equivalent of reducing 1,227 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. Once operational, the array will harness enough energy to power 169 homes yearly.

The plant was designed, developed and installed by REC Solar, who have constructed more than 350 PV systems throughout the US.

Selwyn Crittendon, IKEA Miami store manager, said: “Completing this solar array is an exciting milestone as we prepare to open IKEA Miami this summer. IKEA strives to create a sustainable life for communities where we operate, so we are proud this new store will generate solar power while offering our unique selection of affordable home furnishings.”

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/ikea_ins...de_area_store1

Press Release 068/2014
Enhancing Safety of Domestic Solar Power Storage
At the Intersolar, Munich, KIT Researchers Will Present Results Relating to the Safety and Service Life of Battery-based Domestic Storage Systems for Private Photovoltaics Facilities

Lithium-ion battery-based energy storage systems have already demonstrated how efficient, reliable, and safe they can be in commercial electric vehicles. These high safety standards now also have to be transferred to battery-based storage systems for private photovoltaics facilities. At the Intersolar leading trade fair in Munich that will start on June 04, 2014, KIT will present solutions for the design of safe and long-lived PV domestic storage systems.

“Lithium-ion batteries can reach a very high operational reliability, if the manufacturer possesses the necessary know-how and observes some “golden rules”,” explains Dr. Olaf Wollersheim of the Competence E project of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He and his team analyzed the transport safety and operational reliability of stationary batteries and formulated corresponding guidelines. “These guidelines may serve as a checklist to help laymen separate the wheat from the chaff.” Stationary batteries store solar power and, in this way, eliminate the production peak at noon. This power is then released again in the evening, during the night or in the morning when it is needed. Area-wide balancing of power production and power demand would be an important element for the energy turnaround.

http://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2014_15187.php
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0603092206.htm

Solar-Powered Water Wheel Contraption Cleans up Baltimore Harbor
Architecture, East, Sustainability
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Habin Kwak.
(Courtesy Baltimore Office of Sustainability)

The Water Wheel Powered Trash Inceptor, an apparatus first introduced to the city of Baltimore back in 2008, has been reinstated in Baltimore Harbor with a sleek new design. The floating machine is a sort of vacuum cleaner for the harbor, scooping up trash floating through the water. This new iteration is projected to collect an estimated 50,000 pounds of trash every day.

The wheel is powered chiefly by the water’s current but switches to solar power when the water flow is not powerful enough to turn the wheel. Clearwater Mills, the company responsible for designing the trash collector, has stated the wheel is built to withstand the weight of large, heavy debris frequently found in the harbor.

“The wheel is just the engine, and the fuel is the river current or solar power charging batteries and pumping water,” said Daniel Chase, a wheel operator for Clearwater Mills, in an interview with CBS Baltimore.

http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/archives/85746

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