Wind News
Towers are getting taller, controls more intelligent, and ultrasound
can now be used to measure wind velocity while we wait for laser
technology to become more cost-competitive.
The entire wind sector now seems to have a common goal for onshore
turbines. The latest ones in the pipeline have rotor diameters of 127 to
140 meters with generators of 3.0 to 4.2 megawatts. This design will
allow the turbines to start power production from lower wind velocities.
A French website has published the probable cost of the plastic tree
that will generate electricity. The cost is astonishingly high.
Today, Bernard Chabot documents the shift in wind turbines towards
Class 3, with far greater capacity factors, which have risen from 22
percent in 2001 to 33 percent.
Bernard Chabot is back today with a forecast for Germany: Wind power production will triple thanks to repowering.
Solar News
Following in the wake of a respectable Q3 financial earnings report,
US solar manufacturer SunPower has revealed a new line of solar panels
and low-key financial guidance for 2016. SunPower announced its third
quarter earnings late-October, revealing the continuing efforts of its
new business focus, that of retaining assets rather than selling them.
“We’re back to growth,” proclaimed SunPower CEO Tom Werner at the
solar company’s annual analyst day. Analyst days at any company tend to
be optimistic affairs — and last week’s SunPower briefing was no
exception. But this episode was actually chock full of news. (Here’s the
presentation [PDF] and a link to an audio
archive.) “We are a technology company,” said the CEO, with “new
technologies across the supply chain.” He cited 30 years of holding the
title of the world’s highest-efficiency solar cell.
America’s solar industry is hoping for an attractive post-2016 economic outlook by pushing to extend the federal Investment Tax Credit while strengthening state-level regulations and policies.
But our regulatory priorities shouldn’t overlook an equally important
economic issue: properly assessing the value of solar generation.
Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries
Association, is spending this week meeting with Republican members of
Congress to champion an extension of the federal solar Investment Tax
Credit (ITC).
The solar industry is talking about the federal solar Investment Tax
Credit in the wrong way, according to Lynn Jurich, CEO of Sunrun. “I
don’t think we should be saying it’s not going to be renewed. I really
don’t,” she said Tuesday at GTM’s U.S. Solar Market Insight conference.
Shayle Kann, GTM’s VP of research, kicks of US Solar Market Insight conference.
Peter Rive, SolarCity’s chief technical officer and co-founder, says
that the company is preparing itself for the loss of the 30 percent
federal tax credit. “We’re planning for it to happen. The worst time to
align the company around that reality is in 2017,” said Rive, speaking
at GTM’s Solar Market Insight conference in San Diego.
Earlier this year, SunEdison set a course to become the first renewable energy supermajor. In mid-July, the project developer’s stock was up ahead of the initial public offering of its YieldCo, TerraForm Global. SunEdison had also made several billion-dollar acquisitions of wind and solar companies, and had just announced plans to enter the residential solar market with the acquisition of Vivint Solar for $2.2 billion. At the time, SunEdison had a $9 billion market capitalization. Things have changed dramatically.
Israeli-based solar PV inverter manufacturer SolarEdge reported
record quarter revenue this week, taking in $115.1 million. In the
company’s first quarter-2016 financial earnings report (Q1’16),
SolarEdge reported record revenue of $115.1 million, up $16.9% on the
quarter-previous, and up 71.8% year-over-year.
Energy storage is the key to making concentrating solar power plants
an economical, reliable alternative to coal for electricity generation,
and the US is determined to lead the field into new levels of
efficiency. In the latest development, the Energy Department’s SunShot
initiative is behind a new energy storage system based on chemical bonds
that transfer heat as they store and release energy.
Germany is the country with the most photovoltaics installed
worldwide. A new study now says that solar in combination with batteries
would allow a lot more PV to be installed. Craig Morris says the
investigation confirms his worst fears.
David Vitter is running for governor of Louisiana. He calls for
eliminating tax credits for solar panels while taking donations from oil
and gas interests.
Judge Peter Anderson reversed a decision made in 2014 by the
Wisconsin Public Service Commission to add a fee for distributed solar
generation, one that was passed on to customers in the area served by We
Energies, a utility.
We talk plenty today about solar panels, but not many really grasp how they work — how they create electricity. In his book, Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy, author John Perlin takes readers back to Albert Einstein
in 1905 for perspective on the matter of light: “Einstein showed that
light possesses an attribute that earlier scientists had not recognized.
Light, he discovered, contains packets of energy, which he called light
quanta (now called photons).”
A home solar array is only as useful as it is appropriately sized,
oriented, and installed. A poorly-matched system installed in a
suboptimal location can be a big disappointment, so it’s important to
pay attention to a lot of little details when planning to go solar.
Teams from the Netherlands won the top prizes in
the 2015 World Solar Challenge in Australia. The cars run primarily on
solar power during the competition.
Chile’s Ministry of Energy wants to have 19% of the
country’s electricity generated by solar in 35 years. Hydro, oil, gas,
and coal generate most of it currently. Wind and solar have a very small
presence but are growing.
SunEdison has completed the construction of New Hampshire’s largest
solar power plant, a 942 KW project located in the town of
Peterborough. The world’s largest renewable energy development company
made the announcement last Friday upon completion of the 942 kilowatt DC
solar power plant, which will now generate solar power for the town
over the next 20 years, and save local taxpayers an estimated $250,000
on energy.
InnoLas Solutions GmbH (InnoLas) is supplying five additional ILS-TT
high throughput laser machines for Passivated Emitter Rear Cell (PERC)
technology to Sino-American Silicon Products Inc. (SAS) with its
subsidiary Sunrise Global Solar Energy Co. Ltd. The new laser machines
are for Sunrise’s high efficiency cell factory with 800 MW of yearly
production.
Wind + Solar
Transitioning to a low carbon economy will add 2 million jobs in
America by 2050 says climate activist Tom Steyer. His goal is 80% fewer
emissions by 2050.
7 years ago, my state of Michigan was looking at possibly as many as 9
new coal plants in planning stages. Two of them within 25 miles of my
home. Today, all those plans have gone away – we have a landscape
increasingly dotted with wind turbines – which are producing more power, more cheaply, than was imagined back then – new wind purchase agreements in this state are coming in at less than 5 cents/kwh.
Germany wasn’t the most likely birthplace for a revolution in
renewable energy. Today, the country remains a leader in renewables and
in efforts to combat climate change. Sara Peach went to rural Germany to
talk to some of the citizens who started the revolution forty years
ago.
The German company Renewables Academy (RENAC)
works to make knowledge on renewable energy available worldwide. After 7
years offering online trainings in English, RENAC will launch its
e-learning platform RENAC Online
in Spanish on April 2016. The objective of this initiative is to enable
professionals in Latin America to access an industry which provides
great opportunities in the region.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/11/28/wind-solar-news/
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