Solar Cells Info

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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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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Dr Mohammad Al Assoumi, Special to Gulf News
Source: Gulf News / 29 march 2007
http://www.gulfnews.com/business/Comment_and_Analysis/10114313.html

Scientific developments in the field of solar energy emerged more than twenty years ago, leading to many questions about the future of the oil era and the emergence of a solar energy era. Views concerning oil exporting countries benefiting from the new solar energy and its relation to hydrocarbon energy varied. The answer came from Abu Dhabi, where oil was used to build up alternate energy sources, especially solar power.

The government of Abu Dhabi decided to construct a huge electricity generating station utilising solar power costing Dh350 million. This station will be the first of its kind in the world’s largest oil exporting region. In principal, the station is expected to start operation in 2009, to produce 500 megawatts, and power 10,000 residential units in the UAE capital.

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source:
http://www.enf.cn/news/070319/1632.html
http://www.enf.cn/magazine/issue9/brand.html

SunPower make the best solar panels in the world, Kaco make the best inverters in the world and Direct Power and Water make the best mounting systems in the world.  These are findings from new research conducted by ENF among directors of photovoltaic installation companies in 45 different countries.

The directors were asked to name which brands of photovoltaic components they have purchased in the last 12 months, and rate the products for their quality and value for money.  An average of these two scores has been used to find the companies whose customers thought most highly of their products.
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source: Photonics.com
http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2007/March/8/86858.aspx

GOLDEN, Colo., March 8, 2007 — Two scientists at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) who pioneered the multijunction solar cell have been named Dan David Prize laureates for 2007. Jerry Olson and Sarah Kurtz received their award and two-thirds of the $1 million prize in a ceremony today in Paris.   Olson and Kurtz share the Dan David Prize, endowed by the Dan David Foundation and located at Tel Aviv University in Israel, with NASA climate scientist James Hansen. Olson and Kurtz were selected for their “exceptional and profound contributions to the field of photovoltaic energy,” the prize committee said. Solar cells based on the scientists’ work “have the potential to alleviate the world’s impending energy crisis,” according to the committee.
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By JACOB GREBER, Bloomberg News, March 20, 2007
source: The New York Sun
http://www.nysun.com/article/50810

ZURICH, Switzerland — Bertrand Piccard, who along with his co-pilot became the first to fly around the world in a hot-air balloon, won financial support from Germany’s biggest bank to build a solar-powered aircraft that can fly around the globe. The aircraft, with a wing span of 264 feet, will be able to take off and fly using energy from the sun. Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executiv e Officer Joseph Ackermann said his bank will contribute $12 million of the project’s estimated $82.5 million cost.
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By IAN ROSS /March 17, 2007
Source: Northern Ontario Business
http://www.nob.on.ca/industry/energy/03-07-remote.asp

Outfitters and remote lodge owners are slowly gaining a measure of energy independence from their fuel-hogging diesel generators.  Off-grid fly-in lodges have depended almost exclusively on generators to power every aspect of their back country operations.

Remote outfitters are switching to a government assistance program for solar energy.But with high fuel prices, combined with tough times in tourism and tight budgets for camp operators have made the switch from diesel to solar power almost too risky to try, says Doug Reynolds, executive director for the Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters Association (NOTO).
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By LARRY RULISON, Business writer /February 24, 2007
Source: Timesunion.com
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=566162

ALBANY — Solar energy experts gathered at the University at Albany this week to create a business and technology “road map” for the solar industry in New York state. Pradeep Haldar, director of the Energy and Environmental Technology Applications Center, said the goal will be to make New York state a leader again in solar energy — as it was 10 to 15 years ago.  “We need to get our act together because the opportunities are substantial,” he said at the gathering hosted by Haldar’s center, which is at UAlbany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. “It’s the largest growing energy business out there today.”
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By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard / 18 Feb 2007
Source: Telegraph – UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml

Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels.   Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day – not so far off – when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid.
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Article by Neil Thomas  / Feb. 16, 2007-
source: Univ Delaware Daily
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2007/feb/boer021607.html

Lawrence L. Kazmerski, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Center for Photovoltaics (NCPV) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo., will receive the 2007 Karl Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit during a ceremony to be held at 3 p.m., Thursday, April 5, in Gore Recital Hall of the Center for the Arts at the University of Delaware. The medal and a cash award of $40,000, funded by the Karl W. Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit Trust, is given every two years to an individual who has made significant pioneering contributions to the promotion of solar energy as an alternate source of energy through research, development or economic enterprise or to an individual who has made extraordinarily valuable and enduring contributions to the field of solar energy in other ways.
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