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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Australian scientists announce solar energy breakthrough Yahoo... In Australia, researchers were able to convert more than 40 percent of sunlight hitting solar panels into electricity, a world first . Australian scientists said Monday they had made a breakthrough in increasing the efficiency of solar panels, which they hope could eventually lead to cheaper sources of renewable energy. In what the University of New South Wales described as a world first, the researchers were able to convert more than 40 percent of sunlight hitting the panels into electricity. "This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity," UNSW Professor Martin Green said in a statement. "We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry." While traditional methods use one solar cell, which limits the conversion of sunlight to electricity to about 33 percent, the newer technology splits the sunlight into four different cells, which boosts the conversion levels, Green told AFP. The record efficiency level was achieved in tests in Sydney and replicated at the United States government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the university said. The prototype technology is set to be harnessed by Australian company RayGen Resources for solar power towers, which use sun-tracking mirrors to focus sunlight on a tall building. Green is hopeful the technology can also eventually be used for solar panels mounted on people's roofs, which he said currently had a 15 to 18 percent efficiency rate. "The panels that you have on the roof of your home, at the moment they just have a single cell but eventually they'll have several different cells... and they'll be able to improve their efficiency to this kind of level," he told AFP. Green said strides in technology made in the solar industry such as the higher conversion levels were helping to drive down the cost of renewable energy. He was confident that in a decade solar-generated electricity would be cheaper than that produced by coal. An Engineer Look at these numbers on installed solar capacity from the Wikipedia article "Solar power in India:" 2010 161 MW 2011 461 MW 2012 1205 MW 2013 2319 MW India is on an exponential adoption curve for solar energy. If the trend keeps up, it won't be very many years before the installed solar capacity becomes sufficient to meet all of India's projected electrical power needs. The current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a big proponent of solar. Has even written a book "Convenient Action" about successful action to combat climate change taken in his home state of Gujarat when he was chief minister of that state. (He has been waffling a bit lately, thou 28-12 Rick There have been several articles lately about storing wind power. One was a Spanish island that has all wind power, and when they have excess power, they use it to pump water up a hill to a lake. When the wind stops blowing, they release some water from the lake and it powers turbines as it goes down hill. Another article they were going to use excess power to compress air underground, and use that to drive turbines when the wind stops. Batteries are not the only way to store power. Something similar would work for solar as well 57-5 David Portwood California is moving to Tesla-style electricity storage in batteries. And Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan, said recently that within a few years the LEAF will have 250 mile range due to huge battery advancements. It was not an off-the-cuff impulsive remark. GM will unveil a 200 mile EV in 2016. 200 miles sounds like a lot right now, but by 2018, 200 miles of range will no longer be impressive. A better battery will change the world, beginning with drastically reducing CO2 emissions. Big changes are right around the corner! 5-2 Derek I make solar panels for a living and efficiency is great, but its not everything. There are many other factors involved. I'd like to know how fast these 40% panels degrade. That 40% doesnt mean anything if a few months later your down to 30% or less. You want a stable module so don't be blinded by these big numbers. It's great that more research is being done, but this is just them wanting to get their names in the paper......or maybe not. Time will tell. 29-5 marketbuy2002 At current, Trina Solar (symbol TSL) has the MOST efficient panels in the world. ir.trinasolar.com/phoenix...ol-newsArticle&ID=1977326 [Derek] Trina does have the record, but keep a close eye out for TetraSun. It's only a matter of time before this First Solar acquisition will be a breakout star. First Solar invests more in its R&D then any of its competitors. 2 abc123 7 we have solar...sharp panels...would have like JASO panels are even more efficient...just 2 years in with 25 yr warranty, no appreciable degradation!!! Love saving the money and having the freedom not to worry about e-companies monopolizing and overcharging! Lrre_Of_FL It is no secret that President Obama’s and his green energy supporters foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the MSM. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case. The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would've found the financial support in the private market. So far, 34 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher. The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies: Evergreen Solar ($25 million)* SpectraWatt ($500,000)* Solyndra ($535 million)* Beacon Power ($43 million)* Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million) SunPower ($1.2 billion) First Solar ($1.46 billion) Babcock and Brown ($178 million) EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)* Amonix ($5.9 million) Fisker Automotive ($529 million) Abound Solar ($400 million)* A123 Systems ($279 million)* Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)* Johnson Controls ($299 million) Brightsource ($1.6 billion) ECOtality ($126.2 million) Raser Technologies ($33 million)* Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)* Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)* Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)* Range Fuels ($80 million)* Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)* Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)* Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)* GreenVolts ($500,000) Vestas ($50 million) LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million) Nordic Windpower ($16 million)* Navistar ($39 million) Satcon ($3 million)* Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)* Mascoma Corp. ($100 million) *Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy. 6-7 Bran hay i am all for green energy i even have a small 1.1kw grid with 12 220ah cart batteries and 2 modified wave Power Inverters 1 1600w max and 1 3000w max and i run allot of stuff off of them also use small solar panels to maintain 3 batteries in my boat during winter storage and so long as solar can compete on it own 2 feet i say lets go for it and solar technology will be allot better long before we are forced to cut back on oil do to supply falling off 17-4 Jim Dandy Bran, you seem to be knowledgeable about solar energy. If you want to impress your knowledge upon others and get them to see things from your point of view it would help if you write with better language skills I think Tommy was trying to point out your use of horse feed as a greeting, (Hay instead of hey). A lot is two words, not a single word, (Allot means to assign a share or portion, such as a ration of something). If we cut back on oil it might be "due" to supply falling off, "do" is a completely different word. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or sound like a grammar disciplinarian but if you want people to take you seriously you have to present yourself as being intelligent enough to carry on an intelligent conversation, and misusing common two, three and four letter words doesn't do anything to help your credibility. (Punctuation, including commas, apostrophes and capitalization of words where needed will aid you in getting people to take you seriously too. By the way, I'm not disagreeing with anything you say, I'm just trying to help you be taken more seriously by those who are in your league. 3-4 Rob in This is not that new. I don't know what all the hype is about. US researchers achieved this efficiency on a dual cell panel about two years ago. As usual, it will all come down to cost and in all but ideal sunlight regions, the cost/benefit can be marginal. That said, it is always nice not to consume petroleum to get energy. There is a really neat technology from Bloom Energy that is not only practical but quite environmentally sound that uses either natural gas, propane or methane (methane from landfill sites) to power fuel cells that are about the size of an aver 6-6 Lrre_Of_FL The Dems love to quote Europe... Deutschland AKA Germany was a major green pioneer, especially regarding solar energy. The UK, being the windiest country in Europe, focused on wind power. In both countries, however – to mix metaphors – the wheels are fast coming off. In June, the sun finally set on Deutschland's solar sector with power companies, large and small, seeing their £21 billion investment in solar energy disappear into the ether. As one German commentator wryly observed: “the sun does send an invoice after all”. By mid-June the German company Siemens announced it was winding down its solar division with a view to shutting down completely by next spring. Siemens had entered the solar thermal systems market when it bought the Israeli company Solel, believing market growth would be rapid. The gamble failed. Siemens lost around #$%$1 billion. In March, Bosch signalled its withdrawal from the solar cell and solar module market. Bosch board chairman Franz Fehrenbach, who had been behind the company’s push into solar energy since 2008 has further admitted that the German solar sector generally is “doomed to die”. Bosch will lose even more than Siemens, probably around #$%$2.4 billion.4-7 [Lrre_Of_FL] Meanwhile, in the UK, wind power is again making the headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. A new analysis of government and industry figures revealed that every UK wind industry job is effectively subsidized to the tune of £100,000 per year. In some cases it rises to £1.3 million per job. In Scotland, with its 230 onshore wind farms, the figure is £154,000 per job. Even if the highly optimistic maximum projection of 75,000 wind industry jobs by 2020 is realised the figure would only drop to £80,000 3-2 [hooligan] hooligan 13 hours ago 4 11 As a licensed electrician I will say that alternative sources will become the norm in the future. In oil and gas rich West Texas small towns turned to wind power. Here is a story of the benefits to energy production diversification. In Windy West Texas, An Economic Boom This is the first feature in a weekly, three-part series on green jobs in various sectors of the global economy. wind turbines Photo courtesy U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Across rural America, wind development is likely to provide thousands of jobs and boost local economies. A surge in job growth can already be found in Sweetwater, Texas. Growing up in West Texas, Larry Martin became well accustomed to the challenges of living off the land. Raised on a cotton farm outside the small town of Sweetwater, he recalls defending his family's crops from sandstorms after a hard rain. More often, he hoped the region's brutal droughts would not burn the cotton to death. Cotton farming in West Texas is a constant battle against the elements. "In college, I saw a lot of farms were going broke," Martin said. "A lot of people work all their life and didn't have much to show for it." So instead, Martin joined TXU Energy, a regional utility company, and traveled across Sweetwater and greater Nolan County fixing power outages. After nearly 20 years on the job, he took notice when the county's first wind turbines were installed in 2001. By 2006, Texas surpassed California as the U.S. state with the most installed wind energy capacity - West Texas alone produces enough electricity to power 1 million homes. In a region suffering from economic decline, Martin realized the wind was beginning to blow in a new direction. Martin left TXU and joined three friends to start an energy services company, Wind Energy Turbine Services (WETS), in 2006. Their staff has since grown to include 26 employees, nearly all of whom are Sweetwater locals. "In the future, as we expand, as we get more jobs, we'll need more manpower," Martin said. In Sweetwater, Martin and seemingly every other business owner is benefiting from the wind energy boom. The population is growing. Unemployment is down. The tax base has swelled so much that Nolan County actually cut taxes last year. As wind energy continues to expand across the U.S. heartland, rural America is likely to experience a revitalization not experienced since the homestead land grabs of the 19th century. Green jobs - high-quality employment for environmentally sustainable industries - and related spin-off opportunities are proliferating across West Texas. Local leaders predict that the economic growth has only just begun. The West's Wind Workers Billions of investment dollars are now being spent on wind energy development across rural America, and the areas with the most wind have yet to be developed. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 300 gigawatts of wind energy capacity can be installed throughout the country by 2030. If investments continue to spread, and necessary infrastructure such as new transmission lines are built, wind energy alone could create thousands of jobs, while providing a clean source of electricity. Nolan County, first populated with the arrival of railway lines in 1881, prospered until the Great Depression devastated the area's cotton economy in the 1930s. While the area was revived during World War II, farm consolidation during the 1950s led to steady population decline across the county and most of West Texas. Even the discovery of oil in 1939 did little to help the local economy - most petroleum industry employees came from other parts of the country, and they left when the oil dried up in the 1990s. In 2004, 20 percent of the population was living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That same year, the rising unemployment rate reversed itself and began a steady decline. Attracted by a windy climate, high-capacity transmission lines, favorable rules for siting turbines, and a statewide renewable energy standard, wind energy companies, such as General Electric and AES, set up operations in Sweetwater. Today, workers are pouring in from across Texas to manufacture, transport, maintain, and repair wind turbines. Of Nolan County's estimated 14,878 residents, an estimated 1,124 have jobs directly related to wind energy, according to a study released earlier this week by the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium. Sweetwater's Economic Revival The growth in wind energy jobs has been greater than expected, based on industry trends. According to traditional industry estimates, for every 10 or 12 wind turbines, one job is created. But in Nolan County, where 1,572 turbines are projected to be operational by 2009, 480 permanent workers will be required - a ratio of one permanent operations job for roughly every three turbines, or 0.13 jobs per megawatt, the consortium study said. The wind industry boom has stimulated job growth across the entire local economy. Some 1,500 construction workers are engaged in Nolan County's five major wind energy projects. Building permit values shot up 192 percent in 2007 over 2001 values. Sales tax revenues increased 40 percent between 2002 and 2007. The county's total property tax base expanded from $500 million in 1999 to $2.4 billion this year. The added revenues are being spent on new roads and several school renovations. One schoolhouse had been in operation since the arrival of the Texas & Pacific Railway in 1881. A new school replaced it in 2005, at a cost of $4.5 million. To provide training for the growing wind energy industries, the first community college wind energy program in the state began last year. Texas State Technical College-West Texas had rarely attracted many students from beyond Sweetwater before. The 130 students who have enrolled since the program began - ranging from fresh high-school graduates to older transitional workers - come from as far as Corpus Christi, some 400 miles (644 kilometers) away, said Mike Reeser, the college president. "Typically a program will struggle while word gets out that training is available. This kind of start is extraordinary," Reeser said. "There's a certain cache in West Texas to work in this field.... It is a noble industry." The majority of U.S. wind projects are being established on privately owned farmland, which has yielded farmers annual compensations between $2,000 and $5,000 per megawatt of installed capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. In Nolan County, such royalties have amounted to an estimated $12.3 million into the pockets of private landowners, according to the consortium report. "I've seen us in good times and not so good times," said Jacque McCoy, the Sweetwater Chamber of Commerce's executive director. "The wind energy has just revitalized Sweetwater, Texas, and really all of Nolan County." Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org. For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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