Renewable ENERGY

The Arizona Corporation Commission’s Line Siting Committee voted unanimously, 10 – 0, to recommend approval of a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility for the 340 MW Hualapai Valley Solar project after two days of intense hearings. Mohave Sun Power is proposing to build a parabolic trough facility in the Mohave Desert in Arizona, just south of Las Vegas. The expected cost of the project is over $2 billion.

Executive Director, Mitchell Dong, said after the approval, “We are very pleased that the Line Siting Committee recognizes the value of solar power of Arizona and specifically in Mohave County. We are especially appreciative of the committee’s support of the project using wet cooling given its primary water source from the City of Kingman’s wastewater treatment plant. This innovative combination of solar power and the use of reclaimed water will set a model for future solar thermal plants in Arizona, the Southwest and in the deserts of the world.”

Solar Energy Parabolic

The Committee also conditioned its approval on the preferential hiring of local residents given the very high unemployment in Mohave County. The project is expected to employ over 1500 workers during construction and over 100 during operations.

The project is currently negotiating a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a major utility in the Southwest for a long term offtake contract. Negotiations are also underway for an engineering, procurement and construction contract with a global contractor to construct the facility. The sponsors are in the process of arranging financing for the facility, which is expected to close before the end of 2010 in order to qualify for the US Treasury cash grant in lieu of solar investment tax credit. It is anticipated that part of the financing will come from the US Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee program.

While the argument over wind farms, ruined vistas and dead birds rages, U.S. inventor Scott Brusaw is quietly doing his own thing with the solar roadway model. The plan is to replace all that asphalt with solar panels laid under a high-strength plastic layer.

The panels may also feature LED road warnings and built-in heating elements that could prevent roads from freezing. Each Solar Road slab can develop around 7.6 kwh of power each day. Right now, the tech costs about $7,000 for a 12’ x 12’ slab, so replacing America’s highways will be a costly process. That being said, replacing the 25,000 square miles of roadways across the lower 48 with solar panels would create more energy than the U.S. consumes. If widely adopted, they could realistically wean the US off fossil fuels: a mile-long stretch of four-lane highway could take 500 homes off the grid. If the entire US Interstate system made use of the panels, energy would no longer be a concern for the country.

In addition, every Solar Road panel has its own microprocessor and energy management system, so if one gives out, the rest are not borked. Materials-wise, the top layer is described as translucent and high-strength. Inhabitat says it is glass, which seems odd, especially since Solar Roadways claims the surface provides excellent traction. The base layer under the solar panel routes the power, as well as data utilities (TV, phone, Internet) to homes and power companies.

Overviev, when multiple Solar Road Panels™ are interconnected, the intelligent Solar Roadway™ is formed. These panels replace current driveways, parking lots, and all road systems, be they interstate highways, state routes, downtown streets, residential streets, or even plain dirt or gravel country roads. Panels can also be used in amusement parks, raceways, bike paths, parking garage rooftops, remote military locations, etc. Any home or business connected to the Solar Roadway™ (via a Solar Road Panel™ driveway or parking lot) receives the power and data signals that the Solar Roadway™ provides. The Solar Roadway™ becomes an intelligent, self-healing, decentralized (secure) power grid.

The Department of Energy gave $100,000 to upstart company Solar Roadways, to develop 12’ x 12’-foot slabs, dubbed “Solar Roads,” that can be embedded into roads, pumping power into the grid.

solar roads

The engineering challenges are immense, adds materials scientist Richard Brow of the Missouri University of Science and Technology, another glass expert. But glass can be strengthened by compressing its surface using special heating techniques or, at a molecular level, swapping ions in the glass itself. Such enhanced glass is 10 times stronger than the conventional variety and is used, for example, in smart phones to withstand the pressures of texting.

Brow says: “Can you go from a teenager”s thumb to a truck? That”s a pretty big leap, but 10 years ago we didn”t think you could make a 15-micron piece of glass for what”s relatively rough handling in a PDA,”

Glass has been used to build footbridges, such as the Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, Wash. And new glass ceramic composites with increased toughness have been developed for the photovoltaics industry, Brow adds—but that might boost the price of the resulting panel.

In the meantime, Brusaw is spending $40,000 of the DoT”s money to build a prototype from chemically hardened glass panels that can be purchased today. He will experiment with various types of solar cells, from thin-film to traditional monocrystalline silicon photovoltaics, and he will try to strike the right balance between transparency—so the panel works to deliver at least several thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity each day—and road-gripping texture, which will block some of the light. “If you have perfectly clear glass, you get perfect PV efficiency. But [with] perfectly smooth glass, everybody slips off the road,” he notes. “Glass manufacturers can cut grooves into the glass in a hatch-type pattern. We”ll try various methods and see what holds up.”

The solar roadway will also offer embedded LEDs to illuminate the road and display information, whether the actual traffic directions, such as lane markers, or messages such as “SLOW DOWN.” And, should electric cars become popular, powered pavement could also offer recharging stations wherever such panels are installed.

The first test of Brusaw”s crystalline vision will be when the prototype is delivered to the DoT on February 12, 2010. And the DoT”s challenges will be followed by some durability testing by the inventor with a pickax, sledgehammer and, depending on the prototype”s fortitude, guns. Then it”s on to parking lots and perhaps fast food restaurants. “Parking lots are much better than going right out onto the highway.You have slow-moving, lightweight vehicles. We can learn all the lessons there before moving into the fast lane.” Brusaw says.

Recently a company based in Tel Aviv, presented their latest invention – a specialized colored panel, resembling a colored plexiglass which is able to produce power from diffused light using a solar cell.

According to GreenSun Energy, their latest invention is glass made with fluorescent dyes and nanoparticle metals. Besides being more efficient, the new solar cells could also have a lower cost compared to traditional solar cells. Another advantage of the new solar cells is that they require approximately 80% less silicon than the traditional ones (less silicon means a lower cost of production). When sunlight (be it direct or indirect) touches the panels, it disperses across and the metal nanoparticles bring the sunlight to the sphere where the silicon is placed.

This latest invention costs 2.05$/W and is 13% more efficient than traditional solar panel, which costs around approximately 4.54$/W. In addition, CleanTechnica informs that the conventional solar panels have efficiency loss because of the heat does not turn into energy. In the new solar panels, the sunlight is diffused across the entire panel, thus nanoparticles are able to bring light to the edges of the panel where the light is transforms into energy.

Scientists at GreenSun look forward towards increasing the efficiency of their new solar cell from 13% to 20%. They also hope to reduce the costs of producing the new panels to approximately 1$/W.

You can read more about new renewable energy source, electric cars, ecological problems and solutions about keeping our Earth green in our site http://www.icentrus.com/

Wind Power

Wind can generate electricity for homeowners. Wind is created by unequal heating of the earth”s surface and can be used to directly produce electricity. A wind turbine captures the energy of the wind and converts it into rotary motion that drives a generator to produce electricity.

Much like home PV solar systems, small wind systems can be eitheroff the grid or grid connected. With grid connected wind systems, the homeowner can sell excess electricity to the utility or purchase electricity from the utility if necessary during low wind or no wind conditions.

The ability to use wind systems to produce electricity is more limited than opportunities of solar systems. While solar systems can be used in many U.S. locations, careful study is required to ensure there is adequate wind to allow wind systems to function efficiently. Zoning requirements in residential areas may also limit use of wind power systems.

Hybrid of Wind & Solar Systems

There are advantages to considering an on-site electric system that rally wind and solar. This hybrid approach is common for homes that are in steading. By mixing wind and solar, the weakness of each approach (lack of wind or sunlight) can be offset. In the United States, wind speeds are often lowest in the summer when the solar energy from the sun is strongest, while wind tends to be stronger in the winter when less sunlight is available. A wind/solar hybrid system offers a more reliable approach to year-round electricity production than either approach alone. Typically, these off-the-grid hybrid systems utilize a battery system to store electricity when household energy demands are low and to supplement the system”s output when household needs exceed the electricity being produced. It is a stave off brown outs.

The solar power plant generates approximately 10MW of power, enough to buffer it from fluctuations in the grid which result in frequent brown outs, from state power provider. More importantly for the company, they are able to achieve savings of up to 80% in good weather & 50% in cloudy times, considering that electricity doubled in price last year, significant savings indeed. It”s Ecological, Economical, Effectively working power system on your property.

Enough solar energy falls on the earth”s surface in twenty minutes to meet our needs for a year. Exploiting this resource is essential in light of our growing energy use and continued battle against man-made global warming.

We can harness the sun”s energy directly for domestic space and water heating, or a proportion of its energy can be converted into electricity using photovoltaic technology.

Solar power

Europe has invested heavily in solar power in the past decade. The data below shows that over the period 1996-2007, the amount of energy generated using the sun”s rays has quadrupled within the European Union.

Although not in the EU, Turkey has always been a believer in the power of the sun. It topped the table in 1996, generating nearly twice as much energy as its nearest rival, Greece. The majority of the energy exploited in Turkey was used for domestic hot water.

Recognising the need to secure future energy supplies, Germany has picked up the baton as the solar energy leaders of not only Europe, but the world. Heavy investment in manufacturing and a scheme paying solar panel owners a premium for their electricity has seen its solar energy generation increase by over 800% in 11 years.

President Obama announced the awardees of the program, worth $2.3 billion in tax credits. The White House says “the tax credit program will help build a robust high technology, U.S. manufacturing capacity to supply clean energy projects with U.S. made parts and equipment. These manufacturing facilities should also support significant growth in U.S. exports of U.S. manufactured clean energy products.”

Renewable Energy Wind

Commercial viability, domestic job creation, technological innovation, speed to project completion, and potential for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are some of the criteria used to assess how the tax credits are allocated. The White House says the program was oversubscribed by a ratio of more than 3 to 1, “reflecting a deep pipeline of high quality clean energy manufacturing opportunities in the U.S.”

There’s a revolution being tested in Europe right now, one that promises to change not only the roads, but also our relationship with our personal gadgets. Bolzano-based entrepreneur Valentin Runggaldier’s new roadside charging station is a solar-powered juice bar for everything from electric cars to Segways to iPods.

Solar station

The prototype station is equipped with mono-crystalline photovoltaic panels and can power up to eight vehicles at once. Once the kinks are ironed out, you can expect to see these stations sprouting up throughout Europe and hopefully North America.