Solar Cells Info

By THOMAS FRIEDMAN
Columnist, New York Times
©2006 New York Times News Service
source:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/16189568.htm

So here’s a little news quiz: Guess who’s the seventh-richest man in China today, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.43 billion?

Answer: Shi Zhengrong. Now guess what he does. Real estate? No. Banking? No. Manufacturing for Wal-Mart? No. Construction? No.

Shi is China’s leading maker of silicon photovoltaic solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. Yes, the seventh-richest man in China is a green entrepreneur! It should only happen in America. Only 43 years old and full of energy himself, Shi hopes to do for solar energy what China did for tennis shoes: drive down the cost so that millions of people who could not afford solar photovoltaic panels will be able to do so.

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Report by Mohammad Ezz Al Deen, Staff Reporter
source: Gulf News
http://www.gulfnews.com/business/Technology/10087866.html

Dubai: Investments in Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) exceed Dh5.8 billion, a senior DSO official said yesterday. “The Dh5.8 billion investments include infrastructure, landscaping, villas, staff accommodation, sewage treatment plant as well as the DSO headquarters, besides the approved developers’ investment in tens of towers,” Shahla Ahmad Abdul Razak, DSO Deputy CEO, told Gulf News yesterday.

DSO, the emirate’s own version of Silicon Valley, may increase or even double its investment in a few years as it receives new applications to set up businesses in the DSO zone. DSO announced yesterday that Europe’s Optical Disc Group and Solar Technologies Group will invest Dh112 million in the technology free zone. The facility, expected to open late next year, will be the Middle East’s first facility of its kind, and will generate skilled jobs for over 200 people.

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05 December 2006

Source: RSC Chemistry World
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/December/05120601.asp

Hydrogen is often touted as an environmentally-friendly fuel – but the gas is only as clean as the method used to make it. Now, however, scientists have invented a solar-powered method for splitting water which they claim is the most efficient to date. Michael Grätzel and colleagues from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne, Switzerland, hope that their method could one day provide a cheap and efficient technology to produce abundant hydrogen using the Sun’s rays.

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December 7, 2006, Dresden, Germany
source: Laser Focus World
http://lfw.pennnet.com/display_article/279197/

Novaled, a company dedicated to organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) and Heliatek (Dresden, Germany), a company dedicated to organic based photovoltaics, have entered into a licensing agreement concerning the use of Novaled PIN OLED technology for solar cell application. With this agreement, Heliatek will develop high performing organic solar cells using the power efficiency given by the Novaled PIN OLED technologies and molecular dopants. Both ompanies, in addition, will cooperate on further developing organic based photovoltaic technologies.
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Washington, Dec 08:
source: Zeenews
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=340728&ssid=365&sid=ENV

An Australian National University researcher claims to have invented a technology that could cut the cost of producing solar panels by more than 60 percent. Professor Andrew Blakers, director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at the Australian National University, has said that `sliver technology` could reduce the price of solar power to below the current retail price of electricity. This would also make it cost-effective for householders to buy solar panels rather than electricity from the grid, he said.
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By Renwick McLean
International Herald Tribune, November 28, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/28/news/solar.php

MADRID: More than 500 years after Christopher Columbus first sailed to the Americas, a Swiss catamaran is scheduled to depart from southern Spain on Wednesday in an attempt to make the first trans-Atlantic crossing in a boat powered entirely by solar energy.  The journey, conceived by Marc Wüst, a manager at a Swiss manufacturer of solar-powered boats called MW-Line, is intended to promote the commercial potential of solar energy in water travel.

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New Solar Cell Breaks the “40 Percent Efficient” Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier
source:
http://newsblaze.com/story/20061205093826tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.html

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner today announced that with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. This breakthrough may lead to systems with an installation cost of only $3 per watt, producing electricity at a cost of 8-10 cents per kilowatt/hour, making solar electricity a more cost-competitive and integral part of our nation’s energy mix.

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Free Solar Roof Is Provided by SunEdison, North America’s Largest Solar Services Provider

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.- December 05, 2006–(BUSINESS WIRE)
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20061205005945&newsLang=en

California Polytechnic State University’s (Cal Poly) Engineering West will dedicate its new solar photovoltaic energy system on December 7 at 11 a.m. The Cal Poly solar panel system, part of an extended California State pilot program, was installed in September 2006 at no cost to the university. The system, which is expected to generate 263,000 kilowatt hours per year, was built and is owned, operated and maintained by SunEdison, North America’s largest solar energy services provider. The system will reduce a portion of Cal Poly’s energy costs by delivering predictable electrical energy pricing for the university for the next 20 years. The system will eliminate 110,000 pounds of greenhouse gases per year. Excess power generated by the system is fed directly to the campus grid.

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Monday November 27, 2006
Source: The Star
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/11/27/nation/20061127150305&sec=nation

SUBANG JAYA: The public can start bidding to install a solar energy panel technology, which can generate electricity from the sunlight on the roofs of their new or existing homes and offices from Dec 1 until March 30 next year. Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said the Government had introduced the National Suria 1000 programme to equip the solar photovoltaic (PV) roofs in 1,000 houses in a move to educate the public on the potential of solar energy.

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Solar Owners and Operators Can Manage Hundreds of Remote Solar Sites From Single Webview with New Technology from Fat Spaniel Technologies and Morningstar

source: PRNewswire
http://sev.prnewswire.com/oil-energy/20061128/SFTU07628112006-1.html

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/

Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc. (FST), the leading provider of critical data communications and monitoring infrastructure for the distributed generation industry, today announced the availability of the TriStar Multi-Site Manager, a product designed to allow owner/operators of multiple remote solar power systems the ability to instantly and simultaneously evaluate the health of all off-grid sites using FST web-based technology. On the heels of the Morningstar TriStar Web View product release, the intuitive Multi-Site Manager shows the real-time status of each site via a dashboard webview, allowing the user an accurate snapshot of the health of remote systems. Sites needing attention are highlighted, and users can drill down into the webview to evaluate the fault or error conditions at each site.

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