Alternative Energy / Solar Energy

• Is a Solar Energy Revolution Just Around the Corner?

  India’s “Solar Mission” to install 20,000MW of solar power by 2022 has recently had a boost following the news that electricity from solar power is now cheaper than that produced by diesel generators. Making them a cost effective alternative to many people in developing countries. According to figures by market analysts Bloomberg, the price of solar panels fell by nearly 50% in 2011 alone, and they are currently just one quarter of the price they were in 2008. According to the International Energy Agency’s 2011 World Energy Outlook report, a quarter of India’s population do not have electricity, and those…

• Sunny Dubai to Make Large Investment in Solar Power

  The Middle East has two things in abundance – oil and sunshine. Seeking to capitalize on the latter, Dubai’s Supreme Council of Energy has presented plans for the 1,000 megawatt Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park at the World Future Energy Summit. The cost? A mere $3.2 billion. Started in 2007, the World Future Energy Summit is being held in neighboring Abu Dhabi’s National Exhibition Center. Supreme Council of Energy Vice Chairman Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said, “The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is an advanced model of power production, which achieves our leaders' aspirations to diversify sources of energy; specifically by…

• The Different Ways in Which Solar Energy can Power the World

  Who hasn’t enjoyed heat from the sun? Doing so represents a direct energetic transfer—via radiation—from the sun’s hot surface to your skin. One square meter can catch about 1000 W, which is comparable to the output of a portable space heater. A dark surface can capture the energy at nearly 100% efficiency, beating (heating?) the pants off of solar photovoltaic (PV) capture efficiency, for instance. We have already seen that solar PV qualifies as a super-abundant resource, requiring panels covering only about 0.5% of land to meet our entire energy demand (still huge, granted). So direct thermal energy from the…

• Investing in solar power in - Russia?

  Investing in Russia since the 1991 collapse of Communism has always attracted a different breed of financier, with the most basic requirement being a cast-iron stomach. For those brave enough to plunge in however, the rewards can be enormous - to give but one example, Troika Dialog, the oldest and largest private investment bank in the Commonwealth of Independent States, in the early 1990s was producing eye-watering annual rates of return for its subscribers of over 200 percent. That said, for every Troika Dialog there have been a dozen other ventures that crashed and burned, leaving foreign investors scorched. But…

• How the Sunflower can Revolutionise Solar Power Plants

  Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants are probably the most technologically advanced and efficient form of generating solar energy on a large scale. Currently there are only a handful in the world (although that number is expected to grow) and one of them (inventively called PS10) majestically stands in Andalucia, Spain. It is 100 metres tall and surrounded by rows of giant mirrors (heliostats), each roughly the size of half a tennis court. The heliostats reflect the sun’s energy onto the central tower where it is then converted into enough electricity to power 6,000 homes. CSP’s could potentially generate enough clean,…

• Who Will Survive the Coming Solar Energy Meltdown

  “Without these subsidies … ‘On-grid PV,’ would be virtually non-existent. It only exists because the solar industry lobbied government officials to compel citizens to purchase this otherwise non-economic energy source.” “Included in the list of failed solar companies is Solon of Germany whose corporate slogan was ‘Don’t Leave the Planet to the Stupid.’ Fortunately for taxpayers, it appears Solon will be leaving the planet.” A recent Wall Street Journal article, Dark Times Fall on Solar Sector (December 27, 2011), surveyed the latest solar industry fallout, as well as overviewed the financial condition of the surviving companies. But the article seems…

• BP Closes its Solar Business After 40 Years

  After 40 years, BP exits its solar business in the face of fierce competition. Are they to blame? If "BP" is short for Beyond Petroleum, it will have to change its name to just "P" now after it officially shut down its solar business last month, a key division in its quest to develop cleaner sources of energy. After 40 years, the final decision to shut the door on solar mostly comes from the impossible competition faced from China. With the growth of Chinese manufacturing, a global surplus of panels and the subsequent collapse in prices, many solar companies have…

• World's Largest Solar Park Comes Under Fire From Ukranian Tabloid

  Austrian solar company Activ Solar GmbH has completed the final and fifth 20 megawatt phase of the photovoltaic Perovo Solar Power Park, bringing the facility’s capacity to 100 megawatts. According to Activ Solar GmbH, the Perovo Solar Power Park installation will produce 132,500 megawatt hours of electricity per year and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 105,000 tons per year. Vienna-based Activ Solar GmbH’s founder and CEO Kaveh Ertefai commented “The completion of the Perovo project is a major achievement for Activ Solar GmbH as our largest to-date and is a testament to our structuring and execution capabilities in a challenging…

• Solar Breakthrough: Cheap Quantum Dot Solar Paint

  Researchers have reduced the preparation time of quantum dot solar cells to less than an hour by changing the form to a one-coat quantum dot solar paint.  How? Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are coated with cadmium sulfide (CdS) or cadmium selenide (CdSe.) The composite nanoparticles, when mixed with a solvent, form a paste that can be applied as one-step paint to a transparent conducting material, which creates electricity when exposed to light. Although the paint form is currently about five times less efficient than the highest recorded efficiency for the multifilm form, the researchers predict that its efficiency can be improved, which…

• Seeking to Circumvent Possible U.S. Trade Sanctions, China Buys Hawaiian Solar Company

  Chinese investment in the U.S. economy up to now has been primarily in the form of U.S. Treasury bills. But, reading the U.S. press and conservative calls for punitive trade tariffs against China, Beijing’s investors have taken a leaf out of Tokyo’s 40 year-old playbook, when similar concerns were raised about Japanese imports. Four decades ago Japan cannily began not only to establish factories in the U.S. for its major U.S. exports, primarily automobiles, but began a cautious policy of investing in struggling U.S. companies, so if and when Congress got more xenophobic Japanese manufacturers could point out that trade barriers…