Solar Cells Info

11 April 2007
source: BBC News
http://www.newbuilder.co.uk/news/NewsFullStory.asp?ID=1925

Bus shelters in Manchester, UK are to be revamped and fitted with solar-powered panels in order to improve passenger safety and energy efficiency. Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA) has agreed to spend £100,000 on 49 bus shelters. Roof-mounted solar panels will generate electricity during the day which is then stored in batteries to light up the bus shelter at night-time. The new shelters were first trialled at two bus stops last year.
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Energy from the sun, long touted by green activists, has found a more potent patron: business

By Robb Mandelbaum
Source: IEEE Spectrum Online /April 9, 2007
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr07/5036

Rhone Resch stood at the microphone in a conference room in Cambridge, Mass., and asked for a show of hands. “How many people here,“ he demanded, “have a solar system on the roof of their house or their business?” Not more than a dozen people responded. “Now, how many people want to have a solar system on the roof of your house or your business?” This time every hand went up, accompanied by some sheepish chuckling.  “People want to have solar,” explained Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, based in Washington, D.C. “There’s an incredible untapped demand here.”
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By Danstan Kaunda, Lusaka, 22 March 2007
source: Voice of America News
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-22-voa44.cfm

A project in Southern Africa is helping promote the use of renewable energy sources. It’s called INSABA — The Integrated Southern Africa Business Advisory and is funded by a German NGO called IN-Went. Voice of America’s Kaunda Danstan reports from Lusaka, Zambia, that the Integrated Southern Africa Business Advisory project (INSABA) is being implemented in Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. It aims to improve the use of renewable energy technologies from the sun, wind, water and biomass – that is, materials including animal wastes that can be used to produce energy.
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source:
http://www.nitzana.org.il/1SOLAR%20PARK.htm

Touted as being the crowning jewel of Nitzana, a new solar park is  under development with stage one finished and stage two commencing.  This solar park will educate the young and old alike about the sun,  how it affects our lives and the phenomenal possibilities of capturing  and utilizing the energy of the sun to be used as a main energy source.
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14 March 2007
http://www.spectrawatermakers.com/
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/productstory?id=47756

If a natural disaster strikes, clean drinking water and emergency electricity can now be made readily available through the Solar Cube. Completely portable and easily assembled on site, the Solar Cube is powered by sunlight and wind, and can provide up to 3,500 gallons of clean drinking water per day from polluted water or salt water – enough to sustain hundreds of families during a disaster.  It can also provide enough energy for emergency disaster officials to power refrigeration for emergency medical supplies, keep a laptop on-line, or ensure that crisis communications equipment remains operational.
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Source: Reuters /April 4, 2007
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/04/05/10116002.html

London: The British government published plans yesterday to rip the red tape out of home electricity generation such as wind and solar power to help householders play their part in the fight against global warming.  The Department for Communities and Local Government’s consultation document proposed changes to short circuit planning regulations that currently make actions like installing a rooftop wind turbine a bureaucratic quagmire.
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Geneva, April 2, 2007
Source: Powerlight Crop/ Press Release
http://www.powerlight.com/about/press2006_page.php?id=60

PowerLight, a leading global provider of large scale solar power systems and a subsidiary of SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR), announced today that its Swiss subsidiary, PowerLight Systems S.A., has entered into an agreement with Agrupacion Solar Llerena-Badajoz 1, A.I.E. and Solarpack Corporacion Tecnologica, S.L., to design and build a solar electric power plant in Llerena, Spain. The plant is expected to generate approximately 4.8 megawatts of peak power.
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By Michael R. Fox Ph.D., April 4, 2007
source: Hawaii Reporter
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?80ac913f-6520-43f4-934b-b2c7534b4bf0

In response to a recent article I wrote about nuclear energy – “Why Not Nuclear Energy in Hawaii?” – an advocate with a United Kingdom (UK) email address pushed his preference for a solar facility as an energy source for Hawaii.

One of the areas he questioned was: “If there is space and flat land in Hawaii sufficient to build nuclear power stations, (given that you probably wouldn’t want to put them too close to human habitation) isn’t there probably enough space and flat land to build a CSP plant (Concentrating Solar Power) to harvest the rays of the sun and turn them into carbon free electricity?”

What this fellow was discussing was an old and decommissioned solar technology which I knew something about. As any chemical engineering student can attest there is a great deal of effort required to bring a new technology into production.
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source: Azobuildnews /April 2, 2007
http://www.azobuild.com/news.asp?newsID=3344

Spread across a hillside pasture amid olive trees, 52,000 shimmering photovoltaic modules in one of the world’s largest solar power plants have begun generating enough electricity for 8,000 homes, GE, PowerLight Corp. and Catavento SA announced today.  After eight months of construction and testing, GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of General Electric, PowerLight, a subsidiary of SunPower Corporation and Catavento dedicated the 11-megawatt Serpa solar power plant today, on schedule. The facility — a model of clean power generation integrated with agriculture — is in one of Europe’s sunniest areas, in Portugal’s Alentejo agricultural region in the town of Serpa, 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of Lisbon.
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Peter Marsh, London /April 05, 2007
Source: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21506195-36375,00.html

HIGHER demand for solar energy, triggered by concerns about global warming, will drive a fourfold increase in the annual revenues of the global solar equipment industry, from $US20 billion last year to $US90 billion in 2010, according to new projections.  Profit growth is expected to accelerate even faster, as costs are contained, pushing margins up to nearly 60 per cent.
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