Interview: Hareon CEO sees 50GW solar in China within years by Sophie Vorrath

One of the first things worth noting about Samuel Yang – president and CEO of China's Hareon Solar – is that his academic major was in economics. Not in science or technology or engineering, but economics.

Because it is the rapidly shifting economics of the global solar market that has so confounded so many companies, including industry giants like Suntech – which Yang, an Australian citizen, helped to co-found in 1999 out of Macquarie University in NSW. And it is the current economics of solar energy that so interests Yang.

In past years, he says, solar has been a sellers' market, "and when you have a seller's market, anybody can do that – it's easy." But when you turn immediately to a buyers market, which is what has happened in the solar market in the wake of the global financial crisis, "you have to ask, are you ready to compete?"

But it is not only the industry that seems to be missing the big economic picture of solar. "I always urge governments, don't ignore this," Yang said, speaking to RenewEconomyon the sidelines of the Solar 2013 Conference and Expo in Melbourne this week. "This is not an ordinary commercial business, with ordinary commercial benefits," he says. "This is our huge responsibility, to protect the environment. I don't encourage any government to ignore this."

In Australia, he adds, "I realise that there is some sort of interest conflict with the current electricity suppliers. But I think this is our mission, our responsibility, to use renewable energy. This is not about individual companies' commercial interest."

He cites the example of Germany, whose government mounted its renewable energy campaign ten years ago, pushing solar in particular. Since then, solar has managed, at certain points in 2012, to supply almost 50% of Germany's power supply.

"This was a very wise policy," Yang says. "The German government changed the structure of the energy grid." And it did this, he points out, at a time when solar PV module prices were high, at over $4. Now, says Yang, the module price is under 90c – "So why do we not do it? We should have that sort of vision as a government," he says, especially with Australia's far superior solar resource. "Why don't we do it? It is a shame."

As the founder or, co-founder of companies including Suntech, Sunergy and JA Solar, Yang also has a particular insight into the Chinese solar industry – an industry that has been responsible for 70 per cent of the world's solar product, but which itself has a meagre 1 per cent of its electricity supply coming from solar.

Yang says he believes this disparity will be redressed very fast, though, and that China could have as much as 50GW of solar capacity within just a few years. This growth, he says, will come mainly from residential rooftop solar PV – particularly in China's more developed cities, like Beijing, where is costs $1 million to buy an apartment.

"While the apartment price is so high... why do Chinese people still pay the ordinary electricity charge? It is not reasonable. I think people will realise that."

New technology to instantly convert solar energy into electricity

A Vijayawada-based solar energy equipment manufacturer, Jyothi Solar Power Projects has claimed that by using two new technologies together with the existing photo-voltaic (PV) panel system, 91 per cent of the Sun’s energy could be converted into electrical power.

At a meeting to showcase the technologies here on Saturday, P. Lakshminarayana, Director-Technical of the company said they had applied for patents.

They include ‘Twintin’, a system based on sensors that could synchronise PV panels with the Sun’s movement, thus capturing maximum heat and a Multi-Junctional Device (MJD) with Nano technology that could instantly convert solar energy into electrical power.

Asked about when the product would be available in the market, he said it would be a few more months for the necessary approvals and stamp of recognition to come. “We have already got patent approvals by the Indian Research Association,” he stated. Government of India would get royalty for 20 years for the first international research patent (Space Solar Exploratory Research). In two months, the company’s technical team would prove the technology by generating 40 megawatts of solar power in the presence of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA. A young scientist with Jyothi Solar Power Projects, Prasanna Kumar said the cost would work out to between Rs. 1 and 1.2 lakh per kilowatt of electrical power produced. Currently, he said between 14 and 16 per cent of solar energy was converted into electrical power in India.

Burning ambition: 300 GW/a

300 GW of new installed photovoltaic capacity a year by 2025: Let's make it happen! 

Supported by experts, and now set by pv magazine and Solarpraxis AG, that is our target. Corresponding to a 10-fold increase in current annual additional installations, this goal will not happen on its own. Indeed, it will only become reality if we join forces to convince policymakers and the public that renewables and photovoltaic technology are necessary, useful and affordable; and if we together ensure that renewables are given genuine, equal opportunities, by abolishing the direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power. Moreover, this goal will only be achieved if the learning curve progresses, if costs are reduced even further, and PV efficiency continues to improve.

Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/?id=562#ixzz2RISz3iyo

Why the glut in solar panels is a good thing

By Joshua Hill on 18 February 2013

There are any number of conspiracy theories and news stories looking at the oversupply of solar panels currently flooding the market, and a general negative view of the solar industry has followed.Cleantechnica

However, Director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute and Howard Hughes Professor and Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at Caltech Dr. Harry A. Atwater believes the current glut of solar panels is a good thing for the industry.

“There has never been a better time to go ‘long’ on innovative solar technology,” said Atwater.

“If we invest now, by the time the industry recovers from today’s oversupply crisis, very advanced innovations will have emerged that can fuel the next wave of solar technology. These will build on the momentum created by the current phase of the market and dramatically expand the usefulness and adoption of solar.”

Atwater shared his opinions at the VX 2013 Conference in Los Angeles, explaining how the market arrived where it is now and how it could be viewed as a good thing, in the long term.

The problem stems from the fact that the solar industry grew so fast and efficiently that it reached a worldwide module production capacity of 60 GW peak.

Sounds good, right?

Problem is, during 2012, there was only demand for 35 GW of modules, and 2013 is predicted to only require demand in the 40 GW range.

The industry is, therefore, “under water.” Some companies have gone bankrupt, while consumers are living the dream, encountering lower-than-ever prices.

“This period in the history of the solar market is like the ‘dotcom bubble’,” said Atwater. “During that era, there was a lot of financial and entrepreneurial pain, but vast amounts of infrastructure, market exposure and adoption occurred which catalyzed today’s dramatic growth in worldwide use of the Web. We believe the same is true of solar.”

Solar and wind energy catch fire

Date

February 13, 2013

Peter Hannam

Carbon economy editor

View more articles from Peter Hannam

s

Nearly one million Australian rooftops now have solar panels and 62 wind farms are generating power.

SOLAR and wind-power generation are soaring at home and abroad as falling costs combine with rising prices for fossil-fuel alternatives to reshape electricity markets.

Australians installed about 1 gigawatt of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on their roofs last year, increasing the existing capacity by more than two-thirds, according to the Australian Solar Council.

The rush to take advantage of generous feed-in tariffs before they were cut saw Queensland more than double its PV sales, adding almost 400 megawatts of capacity in 2012. Victorians also came close to doubling PV capacity, while New South Wales increased capacity by about one-third.

Wholesale prices for solar PV are now down as low as 55¢ per watt from an average of about $7 in 2008, said John Grimes, chief executive of the Australian Solar Council.

Mr Grimes said 2013 could see PV take-up close to 2012 levels. That estimate compares with the Clean Energy Council's forecast of a pull-back as government solar schemes are wound back or closed.''With the degree of competition we have, and with consolidation between manufacturers, I think we will see prices continue at this level for some time,'' he said. ''There is some prospect they will reduce slightly.''

''Following a bumper year in 2012, we still expect in excess of 500 megawatts of new solar capacity to be added in 2013, with similar figures forecast for 2014 and 2015,'' Russell Marsh, the council's policy director, said.

Ray Wills, an adjunct professor at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Western Australia, said solar installations in Australia now exceeded 955,000 rooftops and probably would pass 1 million this month. ''Anyone paying more than 25¢ per kilowatt-hour for electricity - and that is most of us - will pay back their investment in less than four years,'' he said.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/carbon-economy/solar-and-wind-energy-catch-fire-20130212-2eb13.html#ixzz2Kz1IVM6N

World’s largest solar sail headed to space next year by Cleantechnica

Solar sail technology is continuing to rapidly move towards its potentially game-changing role in the future of space flight. NASA will be launching in 2014 what is, as of now, the world’s largest solar sail ever constructed. This solar sail spacecraft, dubbed Sunjammer, will serve as a test and demonstration for the technology, and will then likely be used in the future in missions to near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and possibly in missions to objects at the edge of and beyond the solar system.

The technology stands out for its relative affordability and complete lack of fuel use. It is accelerated entirely by photons from the Sun. The somewhat different electric solar sail also possesses many of the same advantages as the conventional solar sail, but is probably further off into the future.

“Dubbed Sunjammer, the giant solar sail measures about 124 feet on a side and boasts a total surface area of nearly 13,000 square feet,” Space.com writes. “The project is under the wing of NASA’s Space Technology Program, within the agency’s Office of the Chief Technologist.”

The Sunjammer was built by L’Garde Inc. of Tustin, California, after being contracted by NASA to build the spacecraft. They have worked previously with NASA on several projects. The name ‘Sunjammer’ apparently comes from a fictional story about a ‘yacht race’ in space done using solar sails, written by the author Arthur C. Clarke.

Interestingly, the Sunjammer will be launched by SpaceX (the rocket and spacecraft company started by Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and Paypal), on top of one of its Falcon 9 rockets. The solar sail technology itself seems as though it will be very attractive to many private space companies, potentially allowing for the cheap harvesting of resources from asteroids.

“NASA is keen to infuse solar sail technology into other potential game-changing mission capabilities. Possibilities (that) include the collection and removal of orbital debris, deorbiting spent satellites, providing a direct communications link to Earth’s south pole, as well as for deep space propulsion.”

Using Solar Energy to Create Wind Power

Derek Markham
Technology / Wind Technology
February 4, 2013

© Clean Wind Energy Tower
A new type of wind power plant is in the works, and it is claimed to be able to produce clean energy from the sun and the wind with virtually no carbon footprint, fuel consumption, or waste production. And not only that, it purportedly uses heat from the sun to produce its own wind, which would make this new type of plant desirable in areas with low or inconsistent winds.

The Clean Wind Energy Downdraft Tower is a skyscraper-sized hollow cylinder that uses the natural downdraft tendencies of air by spraying water (as a fine mist) across the top opening of the tower to cool the hot dry incoming air. As the water evaporates and cools the air, it becomes denser and heavier than the outside air, and then falls through the tower at speeds up to (and above) 50 mph. Once the faster moving air reaches the bottom of the tower, it is channeled through wind turbines in the base of the tower, generating electricity.

READ MORE: The Future of Wind Power: 9 Cool Innovations

In addition, if the Tower is located in areas conducive to direct wind harvesting, the exterior of the Tower could be covered with "vertical wind vanes" to help capture prevailing winds to produce supplemental power.

According to an article about the towers on KMPH,

"One tower is equivalent is to at least one nuclear power plant. But here's the big difference of course. You don't have nuclear issues, you don't have the safety issues, you don't have spent nuclear rods, you don't have the storage issue. These towers apparently they last forever. All you're using is water, evaporation, wind gradients and presto! You do have the energy that's produced through turbines and generators. So what we're talking about is water and wind at free will." - George Elliott, scientist and consultant for the Wind Energy Tower

The company is in the running as a semi-finalist for the Future Energy Pitching Event at the upcoming ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington D.C., which could potentially jumpstart the implementation of their new clean energy technology.

Floating solar islands to test viability of offshore CSP plants by Nicholas Brown

CleanTechnica

In lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland, three solar-powered floating laboratories are to be constructed by the Swiss energy company Viteos SA and project developer Nolaris.

The laboratories are intended to act as research facilities that demonstrate the efficacy of floating concentrated solar power plants, and also whether this concept can be applied to typical PV solar panels. (For a super quick primer: concentrated solar power (CSP) plants concentrate hot sunlight onto boilers to produce steam, which is then used to drive steam turbines.)

Each of the laboratories will be 25 metres in diameter and will be equipped with 100 PV panels. Each panel will be set up back-to-back on a 45° incline. These islands will rotate 220° to track the sun so that they always achieve optimal performance.

These laboratories will also be anchored to the floor of the lake using concrete blocks, and they will be located 150 metres away from shore, near a water purification plant. The power plants will supply power to the electricity grid on land via cables using Viteous inverters. The islands are supposed to be recyclable and sustainable for 25 years.

Viteos plans to invest more than 100 million CHF ($108 million) to increase its own power output to more than 80 million kWh within 10 years, as part of its renewable energy development initiative.

The completion of the photovoltaic systems is expected by August 2013.

Solar power: we ain’t seen nothing yet by Giles Parkinson

When Mark Twidell was a senior executive at BP Solar in the mid 2000s, his team put together a forecast for Australian PV deployment of 200MW by 2010. “We thought we were dreaming,” he says. And it may have appeared so, because BP Solar was later to close what was then the country’s only PV manufacturing facility, only for it to be reopened and then closed again by another party.

Mark Twidell this week steps down as head of the Australian Solar Institute – which is being absorbed into the Australian Renewable Energy Agency - after an extraordinary three years of industry development. Already, more than 2,000MW of solar PV has been installed in Australia – mostly on household rooftops. That has engaged the public, and their wallets, but the more significant work has been occurring away from the public eye.

The ASI was originally formed to provide $100 million of government funding support for R&D in Australian solar technologies. But, alongside ARENA, it has actually deployed $180 million and leveraged a total R&D solar portfolio of more than $450 million, supported by more than 100 local and leading international organisations.

This includes two crucial announcements made just last week that will lock in eight years of funding in two key streams – solar PV and concentrated solar power (CSP) – that will pool the efforts of Australia’s best research institutions.

Twidell ends his tenure at the ASI this week. We caught up with him to discuss some of the highs and lows of the Australian solar industry in the last few years, where the opportunities lie, and which technology developments should we watch out for in the future:

Australian R&D leadership

Twidell says Australian solar R&D remains among the best in the world, and it is without doubt a leader in solar PV. But he argues that one of the best ways to leverage this R&D is to create what he describes as an “industrial-scale pilot production line” in Australia.  This means that Australian IP will not have to chase production lines overseas, where Australia may have less control over its IP. Instead, Australia should encourage international groups to beat a path to Australia’s institutions to trial and keep up with the latest research and developments.  A line equivalent to a 50MW plant should do the trick – and he says this will be something for  ARENA to consider if the right partnership structure can be arranged with industry and research players.

The highs

Unexpectedly, Twidell cites the much criticised, and ultimately disbanded, Solar Flagships program as one of the highs. The ASI was charged as the knowledge sharing agent for that program, and despite the inability of the flagships program to actually get anything built, Twidell says it still produced a huge amount of unseen value in discoverable data on the decline in PV costs, for instance, which in turn was crucial in helping form views in the Energy White Paper, which finally recognized the potential of solar’s contribution to the country’s energy mix.

Hot solar tips for 2013: Middle East rising, PV leasing, CSP by Sophie Vorrath

Everyone loves solar power. Except maybe Australia's energy utilities... and some of itsstate governments... Anyway, we know our readers love hearing about what's happening in the solar industry, so we thought we'd put together a list of things to look out for in the solar year ahead. Enjoy.

Hot global markets

The Middle East: With Abu Dhabi's 100MW Shams 1 solar plant – the largest single-unit solar power plant in the world, which aims to providing 20,000 homes in the region with renewable electricity – set to switch on in the first quarter of 2013 (to be followed shortly thereafter by Shams 2 & 3, which will aim to generate similar levels of electricity) the Middle Eastern nations are looking like the ones to watch in 2013 – especially for concentrated solar power. As we wrote earlier this month, both Saudi Arabia and COP18 host country Qatar reinforced their intentions to invest tens of billions of dollars into large-scale CSP – including solar thermal and concentrated solar PV technologies – at the Doha climate talks.

Saudi Arabia intends to spend $110 billion on installing more than 41GW of solar over the coming two decades, including 25GW of CSP, while Qatar intends to build 1.8GW of large-scale solar by 2020 and has a 30 per cent renewables target by 2030. Much of this will come from CSP – with the first pilot plants featuring parabolic trough technologies opened in December to coincide with Doha. Dubai is also building a 1GW solar park, and Kuwait, which already has a 50MW CSP facility, is aiming for 15 per cent renewables (almost all CSP) by 2030.

As Giles Parkinson wrote, "the strategy is significant because the sheer weight of investment and deployment will almost certainly spark the slump down the cost curve which did not occur after the initial deployment of CSP petered out in Spain. ...CSP is considered critical if any of the 100 per cent renewable energy scenarios are to be implemented, because it has the ability to add storage and provide 'dispatchable' energy – allowing it to smooth over and fill in the gaps between intermittent sources such as wind and solar."

And just this week comes the news that Megalim Solar Power Limited, a special purpose vehicle of BrightSource Energy and Alstom, has won the tender for the construction of a 121MW solar thermal power plant in Israel that is expected to come online in 2017. It is one of the three projects selected under Israel’s Ashalim 250MW tender announced in 2008. The project will be located in the Ramat Negev Regional Council 3.15 square kilometer site in Nagev Desert of Israel.

Other markets to watch include India, with its newly set interim target of 9GW of grid connected solar by 2017; China – of course – with speculation arising earlier this month that it is ready to lift its target for the deployment of solar to 40GW by 2015, just weeks after the official target was raised to 21GW. This includes 3,000MW of solar thermal. South Africa is another to watch as it continues to roll out its auction system. Andaccording to First Solar's James Hughes, Latin America is another potentially exciting market that's already showing signs of growth, including subsidy free plants in Chile, which has high electricity costs, plenty of sun, and a lack of alternatives.

Hot technology

Concentrated solar power: We know that the Gulf nations are planning to pour billions into CSP technology as part of their plan to replace oil-based power plants. Indeed Qatar's first pilot plants featuring parabolic trough technologies were opened at the start of the month to coincide with COP18 in Doha. Outgoing Australian Solar Institute chief Mark Twidell – who listed the slow pace of CSP growth as the biggest industry low of 2012 – is encouraged by this fact, and describes it as the "missing link" in high renewable penetration scenarios. As French energy giant Alstom has also recognised, the dispatchable nature of solar thermal with storage will make it a particularly valuable form of energy in most future scenarios.

In Australia, says Twidell, several local groups are doing important work in high temperature storage – using graphite blocks, and novel liquids and metals to store high temperature fluids which can then be converted into electricity. And he says the potential for hybrids is also exciting, like pre-heating water for use in coal-fired plants and work alongside gas-fired units. But some of the most exciting local work in CSP technology is being carried out by the CSIRO, which is leading a major new research initiative in that aims to reduce the cost of the technology to between 9c and 12c a kilowatt hour, so that it will be able to compete with fossil fuels – possibly as early as 2016.

The Australian Solar Thermal Research Initiative (ASTRI) was unveiled just last week, delivering $35 million of funding from the Australian Solar Institute and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, as part of an $87 million research program that will also draw on money from the private sector. The program brings together Australian and US research institutions, with United States research collaborators and with leading international and Australian CSP companies.

Hot Prices: Will 2013 be the year of grid parity?

First Large-scale Solar Plants Without Subsidies Seen in Spain

By Mark Roca, Bloomberg
December 21, 2012  

 

LONDON -- Solar developers in Spain are trying to build Europe's first large-scale plants to sell electricity at market prices, taking advantage of a crash in equipment costs and some of the continent's highest levels of sunlight.

Builders have sought permits to connect 37.5 gigawatts of utility-sized projects to Red Electrica Corp. SA’s transmission grid, company spokeswoman Susana Moreno said. While demand studies show that’s far more new generation than the country needs, the first few plants could set a commercial precedent.

The companies include Gestamp Renewables Corp. and Solaria Energia Medio Ambiente SA, which only five years ago could earn about nine times more than fossil-fuel plants under one of the world’s most generous subsidy programs. As photovoltaic-panel prices tumbled, the aid was cut several times and altogether killed in January amid criticism in Parliament for adding more than 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion) a year to consumer bills.

“Spain is probably set to have Europe’s first utility- scale solar parks without subsidies” according to Jenny Chase, the Zurich-based head of solar energyanalysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Solar cell prices have plunged about 67 percent in the past two years as Chinese manufacturers led by Suntech Power Holdings Co. ramped up production quicker than demand. The top five makers of traditional silicon-based solar cells expanded output by 55 percent on average last year, according to data compiled by New Energy Finance, an affiliate of Bloomberg News.

Solar Pioneers

Solar could transform office blocks into power producers

By Justin Norrie on 21 March 2012

By Justin Norrie, The Conversation on 21 March, 2012 

Cheap carbon nanotubes could be sprayed onto the windows of high-rise buildings, creating solar cells that generate power. Freefoto/Ian Britton

Skyscrapers could one day generate enough power to offset much of their energy consumption, thanks to a breakthrough by Australian researchers who have moved a step closer to creating solar-cell windows.

For his recently completed PhD, Mark Bissett, from Flinders University’s School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, has developed a solar cell using transparent carbon nanotubes that can be sprayed onto windows.

Carbon nanotubes are cheaper and more efficient than their energy-sapping, silicon-based solar cells, Dr Bissett said. The nanotubes can be applied to windows without blocking light, and are also flexible enough to be weaved into a range of materials.

But the technology was 10 years away from becoming a commercial reality, Dr Bissett said.

While the amount of power generated by solar windows would not be enough to completely offset the energy consumption of a standard office building, Dr Bissett said they still had many financial and environmental advantages.

Gulf riches could supercharge concentrated solar

By Giles Parkinson on 10 December 2012

At the climate change talks in Doha, both Saudi Arabia and the host country Qatar reinforced their intentions to invest tens of billions of dollars into large-scale CSP – which includes solar thermal and concentrated solar PV technologies. The biggest oil and gas exporters in the world want to become, well, the Saudi Arabia and Qatar of the solar industry too.The concentrated solar power (CSP) sector is expected to finally spring to life – and begin its long-awaited journey down the cost curve – as the oil and gas-rich Gulf nations deploy their massive sovereign wealth in solar technologies.

Saudi Arabia intends to spend $110 billion on installing more than 41GW of solar over the coming two decades, including 25GW of CSP – aware that replacing its oil-based power plants will free up more crude to be exported into the international market. Qatar intends to build 1.8GW of large-scale solar by 2020 and has a 30 per cent renewables target by 2030. Much of this will come from CSP – and the first pilot plants featuring parabolic trough technologies were opened last week to coincide with Doha.

They are not alone in the Gulf region. Abu Dhabi was the first mover in this space, taking $15 billion out of its sovereign fund to invest in solar. It recently opened its 100MW Shams 1 CSP plant, has built the futuristic Masdar clean energy city, and is the home of the International Renewable Energy Agency. Dubai is building a 1GW solar park, and Kuwait, which already has a 50MW CSP facility, is aiming for 15 per cent renewables (almost all CSP) by 2030.

“The Gulf has oil and gas, and it has the sun,” one UAE official told me this week in the Gulf pavilion at Doha. “And oil and gas are finite.”

Indeed, in the final days of the conference, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain, said they had pledged to reduce their carbon emissions, as part of a plan to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels.

Japan to build massive solar energy system in Oita Prefecture

BY

TAMI HOOD

 – OCTOBER 29, 2012POSTED IN: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, FEATURED NEWS, INDUSTRY, INTERNATIONAL, SOLAR ENERGY

New solar energy system will help country move away from fossil-fuels

Japan has been showing more interest in the prospects of solar energy since theFukushima disaster of 2011. In the wake of the disaster, the country has been pulling away from nuclear power, which once served as its primary energy source. Unwilling to replace nuclear energy with fossil-fuels, the Japanese government has taken steps to become more aggressive with its adoption of alternative energies, such as solar, wind, and hydrogen power. Now, Japan’s solar energy plans are beginning to produce results, with the country’s largest solar energy system to be installed in the Oita Prefecture.

System will produce 81MW of solar energy

The Oita Prefecture will serve as home for the country’s largest solar energy system to date. The system will be comprised of more than 350,000 solar panels that will occupy 105 hectares of space. Marubeni Corp. is responsible for the new solar energy system and will be selling the electricity generated by the expansive power plant, which is expected to be more than 81 megawatts, to the Kyushu Electric Power Company. The new solar energy system is expected to be completed within 18 months.

Japan continues to show interest in alternative energy

Japan has taken the issue of alternative energy quite seriously. The Fukushima disaster showed how volatile nuclear energy can be in countries that are exposed to frequent natural disasters, such as those bordering the Pacific Ring of Fire. The 2011 earthquake-tsunami disaster triggered a serious nuclear crisis in Japan that threatened to be worse than Chernobyl. Though the crisis was averted, the country’s love of nuclear energy was all but completely dismantled. Since then, the Japanese government has introduced aggressive feed-in tariffs for solar energy that has helped the solar industry in the country thrive.

Asian Energy Inc in Large Scale CSP Production

 Showing 1 of 3 

Asian Energy Inc (owned by Heffernan Holdings/Ebeling Heffernan and local Thai interests) is now in full production of CSP Panels and associated products. Asian Energy Inc completed a factory and staffing upgrade that allows the company to be competitive in large scale commercial solar installations. Asian Energy commercial solar offers the finest high performance commercial grade solar equipment built in the Asian energy factory and shipped worldwide with a team of engineers available for installation anywhere.

Asian Energy can customize their own patented CSP or conventional solar technology to create a clean sustainable energy supply for factories, buildings, estates, suburbs and even cities.

Asian Energy has 2 1MW power stations under construction in Thailand, these will supply electricity for the next 10 years under contract to the provincial electric authority.

Initial production is for the local requirements of the Asian Energy Solar plant in Thailand and to build stock for export and local sales.

Preparing for ‘cheaper than grid’ solar electricity by John Farrell

It started with off-grid locations, places where electricity was either carried in or generated on-site. Then it beat expensive diesel generators. In 2010, unsubsidized solar electricity could best on-grid retail electricity prices of major utilities in Hawaii. In the next decade, residents in metropolitan areas representing 100 million people will watch the biggest solar barrier yet – economics – fall by the wayside.

But cost isn’t the only barrier to solar, and US states should carefully consider the lessons learned in Hawaii as solar creeps toward cost parity with the grid.

For one, utilities adhere to archaic limits on local power generation that can severely curtail the expansion of residential and commercial rooftop solar power. For another, local permit authorities can be overwhelmed when cost-effective solar means that as many has half of local building permit applications are for solar installations. And costly electrical upgrades and grid interconnection studies can add thousands to the cost of solar arrays.

Then there are the 3 out of 4 residential and commercial buildings that aren’t suitable for solar because of the orientation or shading or because the occupant is a renter, but who could “go solar” by sharing in a community project.

Construction to begin on Japan’s largest solar power and wind energy plant located in Tahara City

08/11/2012

A groundbreaking ceremony is to be hosted this week in celebration of the start of construction of Japan’s largest solar and wind power plant, located in Tahara City.

The major project will be spread over 800,000 sq m and is estimated to generate 67,500 megawatt hours of electricity each year which would be enough to power 90% of the homes in Tahara City with green energy.

It is also thought that the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions each year will be approximately 32,000 tonnes.

The solar and wind power plant is part of a collaboration of seven firms who initiated the project last October, with permission granted in September 2012.

Design and construction on the plant is 18bn Yen with the majority of the money being sourced through loans from the Development Bank of Japan.

German solar power generation up 50% in 2012 by Staff Reporter

Germany's solar power production has risen by more than 50 per cent over the first nine months of 2012, say the nation's utilities, amid a boom in installations of photovoltaic panels.

As Reuters reported last month, Germany's solar market continued to grow strongly in the month of September – with nearly 1GW of new solar power generating capacity installed, despite tariff cuts – putting Europe's biggest economy on track for a new installation record this year.

German utilities' industry association BDEW said on Monday that the nation's solar power output rose to 25,000GWh in the January to September period, from 16,500GWh a year earlier, reports AP. Solar's share in German electricity production rose from 4.1 percent to 6.1 percent, while wind power gained slightly to 8.6 percent from 8.0 percent and biomass accounted for almost 6 per cent. Renewables combined accounted for about 26 per cent of Germany's electricity production over the first nine months on 2012.

Case Study: Zero Net Energy Building in India

WRITTEN BY ASHIM BOSE | 06 SEPTEMBER 2012

At the Net-Zero Energy Building (SOPL-NZEB) in Bhopal in central India, energy generated by a solar PV system installed by SunCarrier feeds the lighting and air-conditioning load for the building, while also charging the large capacityCellcube vanadium redox flow battery and energy management system. The Cellcube provides adequate power at nights and on days when the solar power generation is inadequate. The facility does not draw any power from the grid, nor does it depend upon the traditional diesel generators for its electrical needs.

Beginning with efficiency

The building with giant 248 metres square PV panels that track the movement of the sun has become a showplace for eco-responsible behaviour and sustainability.

This off-grid facility uses net-zero energy and has near-zero carbon emissions in part because it incorporates demand-side energy efficiency measures, including daylighting for high utilisation of natural lighting; LED lighting and occupancy monitoring sensors. The air conditioning system has an ozone friendly refrigerant and carbon dioxide monitoring sensor system with low noise inverters. It also features a water harvesting system, controlled water discharge toilets and sewage treatment with zero discharge, all of which ensure efficient usage of water. The furniture is also 95% recyclable.

The installation includes giant 248 metre-square PV panels that track the movement of the sun.  The system has an overall rating of 67 kWp, for a planned yield of over 130,000 kWh a year. Three Cellcube FB 10-100 batteries are connected, each with a maximum power rating of 15 kW, and a storage capacity of 100 kWh. And an SMA Multicluster Boxcompleted the configuration (see schematic below).