Solar Cells Info

Huntington Beach, CA /April 29, 3007
Source: Sharp Solar Energy Solutions, press release
http://solar.sharpusa.com/solar/press_releases/0,2484,7-2,00.html

Sharp takes to the road to educate the public about the “What,” “Where,” and “Why” of solar power

Sharp’s Solar Energy Solutions Group, the U.S. solar arm of Sharp Corporation, the world leader in solar cell production, has launched a unique awareness campaign that will demystify solar electricity for consumers. Components of the campaign will appear in newspaper ads, internet search results, and web page banners – even a colorful traveling education trailer that will move from town to town throughout California. “Hello Sunshine” will be the tag line, and a lesson about solar electricity, not a sales pitch for Sharp products, will be the message.
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Washington, DC / 23 May 2007
Source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48624

The solar industry is poised for a rapid decline in costs that will make it a mainstream power option in the next few years, according to a new assessment by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Prometheus Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Sandia invention to make parabolic trough solar collector systems more energy efficient – Simple design of new technology excites solar industry

Albuquerque, N.M., May 15, 2007
Source: Sandia National Lab /press release
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/trough.html

A mirror alignment measurement device, invented by Rich Diver, a researcher at Sandia National Laboratories, may soon make one of the most popular solar collector systems, parabolic troughs, more affordable and energy efficient.  Diver’s new theoretical overlay photographic (TOP) technology is drawing interest from the solar industry because of its simplicity and the need to find solutions for global warming.
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Household solar systems have turned sunlight to electricity for some 100,000 rural Indians.

Ishani Mukherjee,  May 4, 2007
Source: Worldwatch.org
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5059
A solar photovoltaics (PV) pilot project in India has transformed the lives of approximately 100,000 people living in poverty-stricken rural regions by providing several hours of uninterrupted lighting every night. The goal of the $1.5 million project, led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), was to facilitate household financing for solar home systems. Its success has inspired satellite programs to improve energy access in Algeria, China, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, and Mexico.
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Aaron Glantz /OneWorld US / San Francisco, May. 24, 2007
Source: OneWorld.net
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/149624/1/

Solar power is the fastest growing source of energy in the world and likely will become much more affordable in the next few years, according to a new report out this week.  “As production costs fall, technologies continue to advance, and supply and demand come into balance,” the report reads, “[solar power] prices will fall more than 40 percent in the next three years relative to prices in late 2006. Such a decline would make solar electricity far more affordable in markets across the globe.” Additionally, China’s strong entry in the field could drive prices down even further, the report’s authors predict.
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Solar power goes portable : Energy from the sun, now in a convenient backpack size.
By Todd Woody, (Business 2.0 Magazine assistant managing editor), May 21 2007
Source: CNNMoney
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/05/01/8405651/

Consumers could be mixing margaritas at the beach this summer by plugging their blenders into boom-box-size solar-powered battery packs.   Hitting the shelves this spring is the XPower Powerpack Solar, a 10-amp battery with a 5-watt solar panel. Unlike smaller solar chargers meant to top off mobile phones and other gadgets, the $169 XPower packs enough juice to run larger consumer electronics: It can run a laptop for three hours and a TV for 45 minutes.
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Staff reporter, The Telegraph, Calcutta India /26 May 2007
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070526/asp/calcutta/story_7823724.asp

A housing estate “fully powered by solar energy”, a first in the country, is coming up in New Town, Rajarhat.   Work on Rabi Rashmi, being developed by the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA), started in February last year and is likely to be ready by November.
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by Safura Rahimi and Reuters, 23 May 2007
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13036

Solar power should become a mainstream energy choice in three or four years, according to a report by an environmental research group.  In the UAE, the use of commercial solar energy is slowly growing. According to a UAE Interact news report, renewable energy experts have been promoting the construction of solar housing in the Emirates. The houses would be fully powered by solar energy.
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Bob Hertzberg: Who needs the sun?  A venture capitalist who’s evangelical about climate change is making solar energy cells in wet, wet Wales

By Tim Webb /13 May 2007
Source: The Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2536738.ece

Selling solar power in rain-drenched Wales might seem an uphill struggle. But for Bob Hertzberg, the fast-talking co-founder of venture capital outfit Renewable Capital, that’s the whole point. He is bankrolling a company in Cardiff making solar cells that do not need direct sunlight to generate electricity.

“What better place to demonstrate solar?” asks Hertzberg, a former Californian politician and confidante of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose company is also a backer of the UK’s best-selling electric car, the G-Wiz. “When I say we are setting up a solar plant in Wales, people look at me with amazement. ‘Don’t you get it?’ I tell them. ‘It works in the rain.'”
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by Sally Williams, Western Mail / May 18 2007
Source:  http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/

A WELSH firm claims it is on the cusp of a “global energy revolution” using its innovative solar panels that even work in the rain.  American entrepreneur Bob Hertzberg plans to revolutionise household gadgets – including mobile phones, iPods and laptops – with solar cells that work in all conditions, and are soon to go into mass production at his new Cardiff factory.  The climate change campaigner, who ran for Mayor of Los Angeles in 2005, says his G24i company uses nano-sized titanium crystals that turn sunlight into electricity, with no more need for electrical chargers.
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