Solar happenings

[RubberToe]

California Utility SCE signs contracts for 1.3GW of new renewable power (nearly all solar PV):

Solar Project Growth in California | The Energy Collective)

 

[JRP3]

Unintended consequences, birds getting fried by concentrated solar thermal plant http://news.yahoo.com/emerging-solar-plants-scorch-birds-mid-air-054013072.html

 

[Robert.Boston]

Ouch, and not just a few -- one estimate places the toll at 28,000/year. That's a small number in absolute terms (compared, say, to the bird death toll from domestic cats), but it must be a noticeable fraction of the birds that live in the Mojave.

 

[liuping]

Unintended consequences, birds getting fried by concentrated solar thermal plant http://news.yahoo.com/emerging-solar-plants-scorch-birds-mid-air-054013072.html

They need to put a giant snake on top of the collector to scare them off

In all seriousness, they really do need to find some what to reduce the impact. Could be sounds, false magnet fields, or something else, but as solar plants become more common this will be a bigger issue.

 

[Chipper]

I have never heard of a "false magnet field"??? Can you elaborate?

 

[Robert.Boston]

They need to put a giant snake on top of the collector to scare them off

In all seriousness, they really do need to find some what to reduce the impact. Could be sounds, false magnet fields, or something else, but as solar plants become more common this will be a bigger issue.

It's not obvious why we need more concentrated solar plants. At $2.2bn for 140MW, it's not markedly cheaper than rooftop PV.

 

[ggies07]

This is a nice article. Just like one of the comments says, they were doing so well until the last sentence......hahahaha.

“The shale revolution represents a step change in terms of supply, while inter-fuel substitution transforms the demand side of the equation; renewables replace coal and gas in power generation and this frees up natural gas to substitute for oil in transportation.”

Citigroup Thinks Solars Global Outlook Has Improved

 

[ggies07]

Excellent article: Would You Rather Own or Lease Your Rooftop Solar?

 

[Robert.Boston]

Construction to begin on world's largest floating solar power plant

Things you have to do when land is scarce, I guess. Must be vastly expensive, though, compared to using more rooftop solar (which seemed to have very low penetration rate, based on my recent travels in Japan).

 

[Reykjavik]

It's not obvious why we need more concentrated solar plants. At $2.2bn for 140MW, it's not markedly cheaper than rooftop PV.

It has the benefit of continuing to generate power after the sun goes down. With some designs at least, it takes longer to get going in the morning, but continues into the night. The morning isn't a particularly high demand time anyway, and electricity use continues from the mid afternoon peak well into the evening. Definitely something to keep an eye on, along with grid storage, and wind, which picks up more at night.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It has the benefit of continuing to generate power after the sun goes down. With some designs at least, it takes longer to get going in the morning, but continues into the night. The morning isn't a particularly high demand time anyway, and electricity use continues from the mid afternoon peak well into the evening. Definitely something to keep an eye on, along with grid storage, and wind, which picks up more at night.

Although the plant mentioned in this thread actually doesn't have that capability.

 

[swaltner]

I've had solar panels on my roof since Jul 2012. They covered 99% of my electricity usage until adding the Leaf in Jul 2013, but still cover most of my usage. My parents invited me to the local Sierra Club meeting on Friday where Cromwell Solar from Lawrence, KS was announcing a new leasing program.

Residential | Cromwell Environmental

I believe this is the first leasing program available in Kasnas and it has very favorable terms. They worked with a small town bank to provide the financing. Basic details are no money down, 15 year lease with payments approximately what the savings on your electricity bill are, buyout at the end of the term is just another year's worth of payments.

Obviously, anyone interested would need to look at the nitty gritty details, but this sounded like a fantastic lease agreement. In addition to providing the name of the local installer that I used (King Solar), I'll definitely be pointing anyone that asks about my solar system to them, even though Cromwell solar is located 160 miles away. They said this program would be supported anywhere in the state of Kansas.

Forgot to mention that the major tie-in to Sierra Club was a per-install donation to the local Sierra club chapter. Additionally, they were giving out some LED bulbs and energy audit, but unclear on the length of that part of the offer. Mention the Sierra Club if you contact them about their leasing program.

 

[tigerade]

This is awesome!

IBM’s solar concentrator can produce energy, clean water and AC | Computerworld

IBM Research and Switzerland-based Airlight Energy today announced a new parabolic dish that increases the sun's radiation by 2,000 times while also producing fresh water and air conditioning.
The new Concentrator PhotoVoltaics (CPV) system uses a dense array of water-cooled solar chips that can convert 80% of the sun's radiation into useful energy.

IBM, Airlight A smaller version of a CPV system.
The CPV, which looks like a 33-foot-high sunflower, can generate 12 kilowatts of electrical power and 20 kilowatts of heat on a sunny day — enough to power several average homes, according to Bruno Michel, the project's lead scientists at IBM Research in Switzerland.
The mirrors concentrate the sun on the chips to produce electricity. Normally, the chips would ignite, since they reach temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius. But IBM scientists are taking a page from the supercomputer playbook to keep them at a relatively cool 105 degrees with a water radiator system.
The dense array of multi-junction photovoltaic (PV) chips, mirrors and the electrical receiver are encased in a large inflated transparent plastic enclosure to protect the system from rain or hail.
IBM and Airlight Energy are currently piloting the technology and expect to begin selling it by 2017.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

Cool!

Hope that this solar concentrator will be produced and commercialized soon.

 

[JRP3]

I always wondered why no one seemed to make a liquid cooled solar panel which kept the chips operating at more efficient temperatures and also provided hot water.

 

[lolachampcar]

JRP3,
My pool is usually too cold for my wife. I seriously considered adding one small panel to my roof system to power a DC pump that would pump water though cooling tubes on my panels. The pool would get some much needed heat (if you believe my wife) and the panel harvest would increase for no additional cost (apart from pump and tubes). Now if I weren't so lazy and would just get off my butt and do it

 

[JRP3]

I wonder about getting good heat transfer with a retrofit. I suppose you could try a small loop under one panel to see if it's worth pursuing. What were you thinking for tubing?

 

[lolachampcar]

My brief flirtation with the idea focused on home built hot water heat exchangers. There is a lot of information out there about tubing and the best methods to achieve heat transfer to tubing. I was surprised to learn that silicone calking the tube to the black substrate seemed to work very well. Again, I only toyed with the idea and passed as I had other projects to work on. I was also facing installing 10 KWdc of PV on my roof and did not want to add to that already large project. It turned out to be a good decision as it was quite a bit of work to get the PV up and running.

One somewhat crazy idea I had was to use a waterfall type approach to periodically pour water from the top of the panel, let it work its way to the bottom and then use a small gutter system to allow gravity to collect it back to the pool (which is next to my PV array). Some heat and water would be lost to evaporation but it would be dead simple to supply the water to the top of the panels using weeper line, add small side rails to keep the water on the panel then do a small gutter system to return it to the pool.

 

[ggies07]

Interesting article: Why the Net Energy Metering Debate Misses the Point

Thus bundled, volumetric block pricing—more so than NEM—is where we should be focused. If we want to truly unleash DER innovation to provide more and better value to both customers and the grid, we need to shift toward more sophisticated retail electricity pricing.

 

[nwdiver]

Thus bundled, volumetric block pricing—more so than NEM—is where we should be focused. If we want to truly unleash DER innovation to provide more and better value to both customers and the grid, we need to shift toward more sophisticated retail electricity pricing.[/COLOR]

I could not agree more...