[amor de cosmos]

A Major Advance in Solar Module Testing?
A first-of-its-kind climate chamber does continuous real-time readings under light.
Herman K. Trabish: April 16, 2013

Eternal Sun’s Large Area Steady State Simulators (LASSs) appear to represent a major advance in solar panel testing because they allow test labs to do a combination of things that they have not been able to do before.

First, explained Eternal Sun Business Development Manager Clemens Bauer, they allow climate-variable testing while the modules are exposed to light.

And, added CTO Stefan Roest, they are designed to allow continuous readings of the module’s performance in real time.

According to PV Evolution Labs CEO Jenya Meydbray, this would be the first test chamber on the market with both of these capabilities. Some test chambers, he added, offer a wiring option that makes continuous real-time climate variable readings possible, but only in a dark test chamber.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...Module-Testing

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French developer proposes 250 MW Spanish PV project
16. April 2013 | Global PV markets, Markets & Trends, Applications & Installations | By: Vera von Kreutzbruck

French photovoltaic developer Dhamma Energy is planning to install a 250 MW photovoltaic plant in Extremadura, Spain, according to Spanish newspaper El Periódico de Extremadura.

The project is at an early stage. The company has solicited the municipality of the city of Mérida to lease between 200 and 300 hectares state-owned land for the photovoltaic project.

The total amount of investment expected is €270 million (US$ 352 million) and the project will initially generate a profit of around €10 million, according to Mérida city’s mayor Pedro Acedo.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...ect_100010912/

ADB makes $85 million available for Thai PV projects
16. April 2013 | Applications & Installations, Industry & Suppliers | By: Becky Beetz

The Asian Development Bank has announced it will make US$85 million available for the construction of three photovoltaic projects in Thailand, worth 57 MW.

The plants, to be located in Thailand’s Nakhonpathom and Suphanburi provinces, will be developed under the country’s very small power producer program. The generated electricity is expected to be sold to Provincial Electricity Authority.

According to the initial environmental examination submitted in February, construction is scheduled to take around 11 months to complete. Polycrystalline photovoltaic technology will be employed, with REC expected to deliver the necessary modules. Meanwhile, the inverters will come from SMA.

In addition to providing an around $52 million loan to Solarco Solar Co. Ltd, ADB has said it will make a further $33 million available to the special-purpose company, owned by Yanhee EGCO Holding Co., Ltd, under its Clean Technology Fund.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...cts_100010911/

Rajasthan is second state to cross 500MW capacity mark
By Nilima Choudhury - 16 April 2013, 11:27
In News, Power Generation

Total installed PV capacity in the Indian state of Rajasthan has passed 500MW, reaching 510.25MW at the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year.

According to Rajasthan Renewable Energy (RREC), the agency responsible for implementing solar policy in Rajasthan, the state added 5MW of grid-connected PV in fiscal year 2010-2011, 191MW in 2011-2012 and then jumped by 314MW in the most recent fiscal year (see image 2).

Hari Manoharan, analyst at Indian consultancy RESolve, attributes this “boom” phase beginning in late 2011 to early 2013 to projects commissioned under phase 1 of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), India's national solar programme.

Fewer than 50% of projects were completed under phase I of JNNSM. Bids for Phase II have been delayed up to the end of April or beginning of May.

Manoharan said additional installed capacity this year would be driven predominantly by Rajasthan’s Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) programme. Approximately 70MW has been added under REC so far in 2013.

“It is likely that this trend will continue into 2013, with additional projects coming up under the REC mechanism and further capacity additions coming up under the recently announced state solar policy,” said Manoharan.

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/rajastha..._capacity_mark

Italy’s total installed capacity reaches 16.7GW
By Nilima Choudhury - 16 April 2013, 10:07
In News, Power Generation

Italy has completed 214MW of new PV capacity this March.

This compares to approximately 126MW registered in February and 232MW for January.

The Italian energy agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici SpA states this brings Italy’s total solar PV installed capacity to 16.7GW.

However, state support for PV will come to an end when the Conto Energia V programme hits its cap of €6.7 billion (US$8.7 billion), which the industry fears could negatively impact future installation figures.

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/italys_t...reaches_16.7gw

New findings on hydrogen production in green algae
[Published 2013-04-16]

New research results from Uppsala University instil hope of efficient hydrogen production with green algae being possible in the future, despite the prevailing scepticism based on previous research. The study, which is published today in the esteemed journal PNAS, changes the view on the ability of green algae – which is good news.

The world must find a way of producing fuel from renewable energy sources to replace the fossil fuels. Hydrogen is today considered one of the most promising fuels for the future and if hydrogen can be produced directly from sunlight you have a renewable and environmentally friendly energy source.

One biological way of producing hydrogen from solar energy is using photosynthetic microorganisms. Photosynthesis splits water into hydrogen ions (H+) and electrons (e-). These can later be combined into hydrogen gas, (H2) with the use of special enzymes called hydrogenases. This occurs in cyanobacteria and green algae, which have the ability to use energy from the sun through photosynthesis and produce hydrogen through their own metabolism.

That green algae can produce hydrogen under certain conditions has been known and studied for about 15 years, but low efficiency has been a problem, i.e. the amount of energy absorbed by the algae that is transformed into hydrogen. One enzyme that has the ability to use sunlight to split water into electrons, hydrogen ions and oxygen is Photosystem II. Several studies have shown that some of the electrons from the enzyme are used to produce hydrogen gas under special conditions. But some have stated that most of the hydrogen gas gets its energy from other paths in the metabolism of the green algae. This would entail that it is not a matter of actual direct production of hydrogen from sunlight, and that green algae are no more efficient as energy crops than plants.

http://www.uu.se/en/news/news-docume...el&na=&lang=en

Research uses mirrors to make solar energy cost competitive
Blacksburg, VA , April 12, 2013
Virginia Tech College of Engineering

If the current national challenge to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of this decade is met, Ranga Pitchumani, the John R. Jones III Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, will have played a significant role in the process.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative in February 2011. Its objective was to reduce the installed cost of solar energy systems by about 75 percent in order to allow widespread, large-scale adoption of this renewable clean energy technology.

Following the announcement, Pitchumani was invited to direct the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) program for the SunShot Initiative towards its ambitious goals.

“The SunShot goal is to get solar energy technologies to achieve cost-parity with other energy generation sources on the grid without subsidy by the year 2020. That’s an aggressive mission which calls for several subcomponent innovations and ingenious system designs to drive costs down, while improving efficiencies,” said Pitchumani.

“Concentrating solar power technologies use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight to produce heat, which can then be used to produce electricity,” Pitchumani explained. These technologies present a distinct advantage over photovoltaic (PV) cells in their ability to store the sun’s energy as thermal energy, and represent a subset of the SunShot Initiative.

http://www.eng.vt.edu/news/research-...st-competitive