A landmark along the Tokyo-Osaka railway, Sanyo's Solar Ark is 344 yards wide with an annual output of 530,000 kWh. (Credit: Sanyo)

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is [...]]]> Japan eyes solar panels on all new buildings
by Tim Hornyak, cnet.com
May 24, 2011

A landmark along the Tokyo-Osaka railway, Sanyo's Solar Ark is 344 yards wide with an annual output of 530,000 kWh. (Credit: Sanyo)

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is thinking of requiring that all new buildings, including homes, come equipped with rooftop solar panels by 2030, according to a recent Nikkei newspaper report.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan may announce the plan this week at a G8 summit in France, the business daily reported. Kan has pledged to review Japan’s energy policy and increase renewable sources following the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis.

Kan hopes a solar-energy requirement for new buildings, along with technological innovation, would help reduce the cost of solar-power generation.

The government’s current energy policy includes plans to increase nuclear energy to more than half of the total supply by 2030 as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Japan now gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear sources.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said today that three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant probably suffered meltdowns early into the emergency, and their inner pressure vessels may have been breached. While Units 2 and 3 experienced partial meltdowns, Unit 1 was most severely affected.

An International Atomic Energy Agency team has also begun to look into how Japan has handled the worst nuclear accident in decades, which has left parts of the Tohoku region uninhabitable.

Tepco is trying to get the reactors under control by January. Its April electricity output was down 15 percent from a year earlier and shortages are expected to continue into the summer. Since western Japan runs on a different frequency, Tepco can’t easily import large power supplies from other cities.

Japanese have been cooperating with emergency power conservation campaigns since the quake. As a result, they’ll likely be less keen to use air conditioning, so this summer may be particularly hot and sticky in Tokyo.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/japan-eyes-solar-panels-on-all-new-buildings/8301-17938_105-20065704-1.html

Seattle Seahawks President Peter McLoughlin checks out a Solyndra solar array on the roof of Qwest Field. (Credit: Solyndra/Corky Trewin)

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar [...]]]> News: Seattle Seahawks home to add Solyndra solar panels
by Candace Lombardi, cnet.com
May 18, 2011

Seattle Seahawks President Peter McLoughlin checks out a Solyndra solar array on the roof of Qwest Field. (Credit: Solyndra/Corky Trewin)

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar arrays from Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra are racks of thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells shaped like tubes. The racks will cover approximately 2.5 acres, about 80 percent, of Qwest Field, Solyndra announced yesterday.

Solyndra is known for its tube-shape solar cells that capture direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight throughout the day without the need for a rotating mechanism, the method often used to maximize the efficiency of flat solar panels.

The arrays for Qwest Field will come from Solyndra’s state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant in California, which was built in part with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The plant is a showcase for U.S. green-tech manufacturing: It employs over 1,000 people operating robotics manufacturing tools as a way to curb production costs and compete against inexpensive solar panels from China while keeping jobs in the U.S.

In this case, the arrays will also take advantage of the light reflected from the Seattle stadium’s white “cool roof,” which was originally installed to reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the building. Because Solyndra’s panels can capture reflected light, the white roof reflection should increase the system’s electricity production, according to Solyndra.

The solar system is being installed by McKinstry, an energy solutions company that has also designed and installed Qwest Field’s low-flow water fixtures and high-efficiency lighting systems.

When complete at the end of the summer, the solar installation is expected to generate enough electricity annually to power the equivalent of 95 homes, and result in a 21 percent reduction in the stadium’s utility costs. As a way to promote and educate people about solar technology, fans will also be able to track the electricity production and use at computer kiosks on the stadium grounds, according to Solyndra.

The Seattle Seahawks team is owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who recently created the Green Sports Alliance in conjunction with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Green Sports Alliance, which has the endorsement of six pro sports leagues as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, has made it its mission to persuade sports stadiums around the U.S. to upgrade their environmental efforts

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20063981-54.html

Santa Clara U. has installed 60 rooftop solar collectors. (Credit: Chromasun)

If concentrating sunlight works for utility-scale solar power plants, how about for heating and cooling a single building?

Santa Clara University, which sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, said [...]]]> Solar concentrator graces university rooftop
by Martin LaMonica, cnet.com
April 13, 2011

Santa Clara U. has installed 60 rooftop solar collectors. (Credit: Chromasun)

If concentrating sunlight works for utility-scale solar power plants, how about for heating and cooling a single building?

Santa Clara University, which sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, said yesterday that it has started using 60 rooftop solar collectors atop its student center to concentrate sunlight to generate heat, a technique typically used only for large-scale solar systems.

The solar collectors were developed by start-up Chromasun, which was formed to adapt solar concentrators for commercial rooftops. By heating water to as high as 400 degrees, the solar thermal system can be used for both hot water and to fuel air conditioners for commercial buildings.

The collectors use optics to concentrate sunlight 25 times, allowing them to heat water to 200 degrees. Santa Clara University, which installed the collectors for student center dining services, estimates it will reduce the building’s natural gas heating load by 70 percent and offset 34 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The collectors concentrate sunlight 25 times. (Credit: Chromasun)

With a California solar rebate program, the return on the initial investment is six years. The university will pay a fixed price for energy from the collectors under a 10-year lease and then own them afterward. The components were manufactured in nearby San Jose.

“The [collector] is visually stunning, is ideal for commercial-scale solar heating and cooling applications, and has an ingenious mounting system that ensures even large-scale systems go in quickly and easily,” Justin Weil, the president of SunWater Solar, a solar thermal installation company, said yesterday in a statement.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20053462-54.html

The Blythe plant will use parabolic trough technology, in which heat from mirrors generates steam that passes through turbines to create electricity. (Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

The world’s largest solar power plant cleared an important hurdle [...]]]> Calif. solar plant, to be world’s largest, wins key approval
by Reuters
September 16, 2010

The Blythe plant will use parabolic trough technology, in which heat from mirrors generates steam that passes through turbines to create electricity. (Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

The world’s largest solar power plant cleared an important hurdle on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for a dramatic expansion in solar energy generation in the United States and around the world.

The proposed $6 billion-plus Blythe, Calif., plant, originally proposed by Chevron and Solar Millennium, won clearance to build from the California Energy Commission.

The plant has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. By comparison, for all of last year, the U.S. installed about 481 megawatts of solar energy, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. The largest solar plants to date are in the 200- to 350-megawatt range.

The Blythe plant essentially groups four 250MW plants, with the first slated to start generating electricity in 2013. The total price tag is estimated at north of $6 billion.

On Wednesday, Solar Millennium said it and Ferrostaal were the sole two co-developers, working through a U.S. joint venture, Solar Trust of America. Chevron maintained it was still a co-developer through Chevron Energy Solutions.

The commission said it had received no word that Chevron had dropped out. Although Chevron is still listed as a developer on the commission’s Web site, it didn’t mention Chevron in its press release about the approval.

The developers have already struck an agreement with Southern California Edison, which has said it will purchase the full capacity of the first two plants.

The plant will make electricity by using mirrors to heat a fluid that generates steam, which expands through steam turbine generators. The technique is known as parabolic trough technology.

It is one of nine proposed California solar plants that federal and state regulators are trying to evaluate by the end of the year.

Solar plants that begin construction before December 31 qualify for a Treasury Department grant totaling 30 percent of a project’s cost, as part of last year’s economic stimulus package.

Building Blythe would create up to 1,004 construction jobs, a spokeswoman for Solar Millennium says. Unemployment in the area slated for the plant is above the state average of 12.35 percent, commissioners said during a meeting Wednesday.

If all nine fast-tracked plants win approval and are constructed, they will create an additional 4,300MW of solar power. But the bulk of the plants won’t start generating energy until 2013.

For Blythe, the developers still need final approval from the Bureau of Land Management for use of public lands. The BLM is scheduled to rule on the matter toward the end of next month.

To win the most favorable financing from outside investors, the developers must also secure a Department of Energy loan.

The DOE is currently evaluating the Blythe plant’s proposal, including its engineering and financial models.

Having the DOE approval “really lowers the risk to the eventual lender,” says Burt Chao, an analyst at Simmons & Co. “The government’s pretty thorough in vetting these projects.”

The DOE, which has a large backlog of applications, is reviewing them “as quickly and efficiently as possible,” says Julie Offner, a DOE loan-guarantee analyst.

Story Copyright (c) 2010 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20016635-54.html#ixzz0zv1ABnaS

At Abengoa Solar's facility in Spain, mirrors heat a liquid in a tower, on right, that produces steam to make up to 20 megawatts of electricity. (Credit: Abengoa)

At Abengoa Solar’s facility in Spain, mirrors heat [...]]]> News: Spain plugs in largest solar-tower power plant
by Martin LaMonica, CNET News
April 28, 2009

At Abengoa Solar's facility in Spain, mirrors heat a liquid in a tower, on right, that produces steam to make up to 20 megawatts of electricity. (Credit: Abengoa)

At Abengoa Solar’s facility in Spain, mirrors heat a liquid in a tower, on right, that produces steam to make up to 20 megawatts of electricity.

Abengoa Solar of Spain on Monday reported successful tests of its second solar tower in operation, in which the sun’s heat is used to make electricity.

The 531-foot solar tower, located near Seville, Spain, features a number of improvements on the first design and has exceeded the anticipated output. Called PS20, the installation is the largest in the world with a capacity of 20 megawatts, enough electricity to supply 10,000 homes, according to the company.

A solar tower configuration uses a field of heliostats, or mirrors, to concentrate sunlight onto a receiver held in the tower. The heat creates steam which turns a turbine to make electricity. The PS20 project has 1,255 of these heliostats, with each heliostat having a surface area of 1,291 square feet.

Concentrating solar thermal technology has been used in desert areas in Spain and the southwest U.S. for decades and is seeing a resurgence as utilities seek out cost-effective solar power.

The traditional solar concentrating power uses rows of mirrored troughs that follow the sun over the course of the day.

Solar tower technology is considered the successor technology to mirrored troughs and is being pursued by a number of solar companies, including renewable energy powerhouse Abengoa and California start-ups BrightSource Energy and eSolar.

Abengoa Solar said that this installation improved on the first solar tower in Spain with better control systems and solar thermal energy storage system.

From a technology perspective, things have changed a lot since the first Earth Days of the 1970s.

After barely moving for decades, there’s been a surge in innovation in energy the past five years, fueled both by society’s growing interest in clean [...]]]> Green technologies to watch
by Martin LaMonica, CNET News
April 21, 2009

From a technology perspective, things have changed a lot since the first Earth Days of the 1970s.

After barely moving for decades, there’s been a surge in innovation in energy the past five years, fueled both by society’s growing interest in clean energy and by the technology revolutions in other industries, like IT and biotech. That has expanded the definition of clean energy from solar and wind to many other areas.

“We are in a new era of energy innovation,” declared Daniel Yergin last week at a forum on clean-energy policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yergin is someone who should know. As the author of “The Prize,” a book about the history of the oil industry, and co-founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, he advises CEOs of giant oil and gas firms on energy strategy. Like many people in green tech, he’s not a typical 1970s-era tree hugger but a hard-boiled business man who sees technology change driven by economic, environmental, and national security reasons.

Innovation “runs across all sectors and it has a very strong climate change focus,” Yergin said. “Clearly, one of the areas of major innovation is the nexus of transportation, smart grid, and renewable and alternative” energy.

Which technologies specifically have a good shot at making the biggest impact? As part of our Earth Day 2009 coverage, we try to handicap technologies that bear watching.

The list:
Utility-scale solar. Despite all the press around solar energy, its contribution to national electricity generation is barely a blip. But after a multi-decade hiatus, utility-scale solar power is back on the agenda, led in the U.S. by sun-blessed California’s renewable energy mandates.

Over the past five years, several start-ups have designed concentrating solar thermal systems that generate heat by focusing the sun’s light to make steam. The steam then turns a traditional turbine to make electricity. Desert areas like the Southwest region of the U.S. are tailor-made for this technology.
eSolar demonstration plant

Sign of more to come? eSolar’s demonstration plant in Lancaster, Calif.
(Credit: eSolar)

After racing forward for the last few years, concentrating solar upstarts have had to hit the brakes or change plans because of the cost and complexity–from environmental permitting, building transmission lines and the like–of these projects.

eSolar and BrightSource Energy stand out for having announced programs to move ahead with their solar tower technologies. Other relevant technologies in utility-scale solar are flat solar panels mounted on racks that follow the sun and concentrating photovoltaics from companies like Cool Earth Solar and SolFocus.

Energy storage. If solar was the technology that venture capitalists loved in 2007, last year and this year it’s energy storage. For investors and entrepreneurs who like a tough problem, they picked a good area.

Why are electric vehicles so expensive? The batteries. What will transform wind and solar power from variable to reliable sources? Storage. How do we make our power-hungry electronic gadgets last all day? You get the picture.

There are a dizzying number of technologies to store electrical energy but they just can’t seem to be too cheap, light, or environmentally benign.

The breakthrough for electric vehicles has roots in consumer electronics where lithium ion batteries have become the standard. U.S. companies on the forefront of making lithium ion batteries for cars and other portable electronics, like power tools, are Ener1 and A123 Systems, which signed a deal to supply Chrysler earlier this month.

Companies to watch in electric vehicles are, once again, high-profile Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive, which will release its plug-in electric later this year, and Bright Automotive, a company founded by the former head of General Motors’ EV1 program.

Meanwhile, a handful of progressive utilities are quietly dipping their toes into grid storage, installing one or two megawatt banks of batteries the size of tractor trailers or a small building. Although the lithium ion battery makers tend to get most of the attention, this is an area where alternative chemistries, such as zinc, or even stationary fuel cells are creeping in.

Efficiency. Ask nearly any clean-energy expert about the best way to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the most economical way and they’ll say efficiency. An investment in efficiency, whether it’s your home or your data center, will typically be the quickest payback when it comes to energy.

From a technology perspective, efficiency takes many forms, from Ford’s EcoBoost to deliver better mileage on gasoline engines to LED lighting. For the power grid, efficiency means smart-grid technologies that help utilities better match the supply of electricity with demand and give homeowners ways to cut their monthly bills.

Although the grid will get a major upgrade from the stimulus plan, it’s still unclear how many utilities can successfully make the financial case for investing in smart-grid technologies or how much consumers are willing to pay for home energy monitoring.

Carbon capture and storage. Even if there were massive uptake of efficiency technologies and renewable energy in the next 10 years, the world’s economy would still rely heavily on fossil fuels.

During a speech at last week’s MIT forum on clean-energy policy, John Holdren, the director of the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, said carbon capture and sequestration is a technology that deserves more research as a way to mitigate climate change.

Right now, though, technology for pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide underground is still not commercial. There are some companies, including GreatPoint Energy and Tenaska Energy, devising ways to make cleaner-burning natural gas from coal and to store carbon dioxide from that process underground.

The Department of Energy’s budget–which has not yet been passed–calls for $3.4 billion in research for “low-carbon coal technologies” to study whether it can be done safely and economically.

Disappointments and a reality check
Looking back at our coverage of Earth Day 2008, perhaps the biggest disappointment, economically and environmentally, was the biofuels area. Because of fluctuating commodity prices, corn ethanol providers got clobbered last year with at least two declaring bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, cellulosic ethanol made from wood chips or prairie grasses hasn’t yet been done at commercial scale as some in the industry had hoped. It’s still a goal worth pursuing because cellulosic ethanol has a better environmental profile than corn ethanol, but the economic turmoil has slowed progress.

The great hope–and perhaps the sleeper–for the biofuels industry remains the lowly algae, although even the most optimistic say that it will be three years before it can be produced at large scale.

Another disappointment on my list is roof-mounted small wind turbines for homes. It’s not that the technology doesn’t work, but two studies in the U.K. and Massachusetts have shown that the available wind on people’s homes is typically below manufacturers’ minimum requirements.

Finally, water technologies attract very little investment even though awareness of water problems continues to rise, fed by high-profile droughts in California and Australia.

Sum it all up and it’s clear there’s a flowering of innovation in energy and environmental products, from people’s homes to businesses. At the same time, we shouldn’t fool ourselves: technology alone won’t magically create a low-carbon economy and more sustainable lifestyles.

A healthy green-tech industry requires a healthy financial system and supportive policies. Many people are aiming for technology breakthroughs and, no doubt, there will be surprises along the way. But given the scope of the problem, it’s clear the road to a greener economy will be long, expensive, and will need a different set of rules.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. plans to buy solar energy from panels orbiting the earth.

The company has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with Solaren Corp. for 200 megawatts of solar power produced by [...]]]> PG&E Looks to Solar Panels in Space for Power
by Celia Lamb, Sacramento Business Journal
Monday, April 13, 2009

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. plans to buy solar energy from panels orbiting the earth.

The company has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with Solaren Corp. for 200 megawatts of solar power produced by panels in space. The power would be converted into radio frequency energy, transmitted to a receiving station to Fresno County, converted back into electrical power and fed into the power grid.

Jonathan Marshall, PG&E’s chief of external communications, announced the deal on the utility’s NEXT100 blog. Solaren is a startup based in Manhattan Beach in Southern California.
Producing solar power in space is appealing because it would not be shaded by atmospheric layers and clouds, Marshall said in the blog. If approved by the state Public Utilities Commission, the contract would start in 2016.

Marshall said in a telephone call that customers would bear no risk because the utility would only pay for power as it is generated. The utility is not making an equity investment, and it would not have to pay a penalty to cancel the contract if the technology doesn’t pan out, he added.

“There’s always a spectrum of proposals in terms of risk and reward,” Marshall said. “This project is a first-of-a-kind technology.”