Japan's first solar cargo ship

THE world's first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers ship off their exports.

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/38904

Three Ways to Make Solar Cheaper than Coal

Written by Hank Green
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
EcoGeek

Solar power is magnificently exciting. Just lay down a sheet or a panel and every day, for the life of the device, you get free power. There are no fuel costs. No one is ever going to start charging $4 per gallon of sunlight. But, unfortunately, the size of the initial investment keeps the cost of solar generated power higher than the cost of coal.

It's worth noting that, if you take into account the environmental costs of burning coal, solar power is already slightly more economically sound (according to an analysis by the IPCC.) But we're not taxing carbon (yet) so we've got to make solar power cheaper.

There are thousands of people working on that right now. But here are three of the finest examples of companies that are working to bring solar power to grid parity.

Concentrate on the Silicon
The most expensive part of a traditional photovoltaic array is the silicon wafers. It's the same stuff that microchips are made out of, and it's in short supply. The solar industry eats up every ounce of the stuff that's being produced today, and so prices are skyrocketing. To solve this problem (and also the problem of the environmentally wasteful process of creating the silicon crystals) several people, including IBM and a small startup called Sunrgi are concentrating the sunlight thousands of times onto a extremely small solar panel. They decrease the amount of solar material needed by thousands of times, and produce just as much power.



The result is solar power that is nearly as cheap (if not as cheap) as coal and a VERY HOT piece of silicon. Thus the big problem with this technology. You have to keep the silicon cool, even with sunlight magnified 2000x on it. Otherwise the silicon will melt, and it's all over. Both IBM and Sunrgi are using techniques learned from the microprocessor industry to keep their silicon cells cool. Both have working prototypes already and are hoping to go commercial in the coming year.

Beyond Silicon
Another solution to the problem of limited and expensive crystalline silicon is to just not use it. Which is why there are so many solar startups right now working on solar technology using non-crystalline silicon or other thin-film solutions. The real champion of the thin-film startups is Nanosolar, which has already broken out of the lab and into manufacturing.

Nanosolar prints it's mixture of several elements in precise proportions onto a metal film. The production is fast, simple and cheap, at least for now. Some fear that shortages in indium will bring a halt to nanosolar's cheap printing days. But if that fate can be avoided, Nanosolar, and other thin film manufacturers are already pretty far down the path to grid parity. Though they make some efficiency sacrifices when compared to crystalline silicon, they are so much cheaper to produce that they might soon even beat coal in cost per watt.

The Case for Extreme Heat
While the first two options provide the most efficient path to solar electricity, but converting photons directly into electrons, a less efficient, though simpler, option might turn out to be the real coal-killer.

Simply by focusing hundreds or even thousands of mirrors onto a single point, several startups are hoping to create the kind of heat necessary to run a coal fired power plant...but without the coal. The heat would boil water which would then be used to turn turbines. The advantage of such a system is that there are already lots of steam turbines being produced for traditional power plants, and the rest of the technology just involves shiny objects and concrete.

One problem does present itself, however, when you start to try and make these things too hot. The material holding the boiler has to be able to withstand the extreme heat that these installations can produce. That kind of material, that won't melt or degrade under such extreme heat, can be quite expensive.

Nonetheless, Google-funded startup, eSolar, is saying that by modularizing the construction of these "concentrating solar thermal" power plants, they could be cheaper than coal today.

If Not Today...Then Tomorrow
As coal and gas have remained extremely cheap over the last fifty years, there's been very little pressure to innovate and move beyond that technology. But now, with natural gas prices increasing along with concerns about global warming, we're finally ready to innovate. And expansions in materials and nanotechnology are making the change even more interesting.

It's no longer a question in my mind of if we can get solar cheaper than coal, it's simply when, and whether another renewable energy, like geothermal or wind, will beat solar to the punch.

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1792/83/

Foreign Policy - The List: Solar Power’s New Megaplants

Record-breaking oil prices, soaring greenhouse-gas emissions, and the rise of carbon trading all add up to one thing: a new dawn for solar power. From New Mexico to Australia, governments and businesses are collaborating to create enormous plants that will each bring clean electricity to tens of thousands.




stirlingenergy.com Mojave Desert, Southern California

Megawatts: 500, will possibly expand to 850

Expected cost: Undisclosed

Projected completion date: 2011

Plan: California not only boasts the highest concentration of hybrid cars in the United States, but it can now also claim the world’s largest solar energy project. Phoenix-based Stirling Energy Systems, working with utilities firm Southern California Edison, is developing an enormous, 4,500-acre thermal solar generating station in southeastern California’s Mojave Desert. The station will initially encompass 20,000 40-foot-tall, dish-shaped mirrors and produce 500 MW of electricity. And the site might expand to 850 MW—making it at least 500 MW more powerful than any of the other large solar plants in the pipeline. Stirling’s dish technology uses mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on the receiver of a device called a Stirling engine. When the hydrogen inside the receiver expands, it creates enough pressure to kick the engine into gear and drive an electricity generator without any need for gasoline or water, and without producing emissions. The company claims its process is nearly twice as efficient as other solar technologies, and Stirling is also planning to construct a 300 MW site in California’s Imperial Valley. Construction of the Mojave Desert facility is due to begin in the middle of this year.


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bp.com Tres Cantos, Spain

Megawatts: 300, an expansion from its current 55

Expected cost: $390 million - $470 million

Projected completion date: 2010

Plan: BP Solar, a division of energy company BP, announced a year ago that it has begun construction of a mega solar plant at its European headquarters in Tres Cantos, at a site it acquired in 2002. The project will employ innovative photovoltaic technology that utilizes high-quality antireflective materials coated on solar cells and silver paste screen-printed on the back and front of the cells to improve the efficiency of its panels. It helps that BP Solar will reportedly be able to sell its energy to the national grid at 575 percent of the cost of production—and the company has entered a 25-year contract with the Spanish government that obliges utilities to purchase the plant’s electricity. Tata BP Solar (a joint venture between India’s Tata Power Company and BP Solar) is also undertaking the construction of a similar facility in Bangalore, India, which is also set to produce 300 MW.


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iStockPhoto.com Deming, New Mexico

Megawatts: 300

Expected cost: $1.6 billion

Projected completion date: 2011

Plan: With help from a 30 percent federal tax credit for renewable energy, Governor Bill Richardson has vowed to make sun-drenched New Mexico the “Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.” That would make New Solar Ventures’ Deming plant, which began construction in 2006, the equivalent of the famous Ghawar oil field. Located 230 miles southwest of Albuquerque, the plant will incorporate a $650 million solar-panel-producing factory as well as a massive $950 million solar farm. The potential 3,200-acre site will take advantage of its 350 days of sunshine a year to power 240,000 homes using special patented photovoltaic technology.


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aps.com Gila Bend, Arizona

Number of megawatts: 280

Expected cost: $1 billion

Projected completion date: 2011

Plan: “Solana,” meaning “a sunny place” in Spanish, is an apt name for the nascent solar farm situated about 70 miles outside Phoenix, where summer temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Specialty solar technology firm Abengoa Solar, supported by Arizona Public Service Company (APS), is developing a solar farm spanning 1,900 acres. Abengoa Solar will make use of something called “solar power trough technology.” The secret? Parabolic mirrors track the sun’s path and concentrate its energy to heat a fluid to more than 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which in turn converts water into steam that spins turbines to generate electricity. The electricity can then be stored and used even after the sun sets. The farm is expected to have 2,700 parabolic trough collectors and power about 70,000 homes. APS has already contracted to buy Solana’s power for 30 years, which will move APS a third of the way by 2011 toward achieving the state’s mandate of having 15 percent of the company’s electricity derived from renewable sources by 2025.


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CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP/Getty Images Ashalim, Israel

Megawatts: 250

Expected cost: $600 - $700 million

Projected completion date: Not set

Plan: The Israeli government is currently seeking bids from companies around the globe to build and operate two solar thermal plants at a 1,000-acre site in the central Negev Desert. Australian, Spanish, and Israeli companies have already expressed interest, and a final deal is expected to be reached by the end of the year. The government envisages that the plants will produce 3 percent of Israel’s electricity, and the project is part of the government’s drive to ensure that 5 percent of Israel’s electricity comes from the sun by 2016. In light of security concerns, the plant will be located about 19 miles from the Egyptian border and about 34 miles southeast of Gaza, out of range of the Qassam rocket attacks employed by Palestinian fighters.


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solarsystems.com.au Mildura, Australia

Megawatts: 154

Expected cost: $270 million

Projected completion date: Power generation to begin in 2010, plant completion by 2013

Plan: In the largest solar project in Australia to date, Hong Kong-owned TRUenergy is set to construct a major solar plant in southeastern Australia, near Mildura. Using technology developed by Melbourne firm Solar Systems, the project will utilize mirror arrays that concentrate light onto advanced high-efficiency photovoltaic cells, lowering the required size of cells—and therefore the cost. The plant is expected to generate emission-free power for 45,000 homes (avoiding the 437,000 tons of annual greenhouse-gas emissions that a coal-fired plant with a similar power output would produce). The project has secured about $120 million in funding from the federal and state governments, along with private investment through TRUenergy’s parent company. Construction on the plant will begin next year and continue to 2013, but don’t be fooled by the size of the project: It would account for just 0.1 percent of Australia’s electricity generation in 2006.


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4239

The Solar Sailor

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Inhabitat

October 9, 2007
TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY: The Solar Sailor
by Jorge


One of the coolest sights in the Sydney Harbour (aside from the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the Pirate Ship) is the fully solar-powered ferry known as The Solar Sailor. This rather unique boat, designed by Robert Dane, uses both solar power and wind to reduce its emissions by half compared to standard ferries. What better way to travel?

The super green ferry uses a rather innovative flexible wing sail covered in solar panels, a design inspired by the evolution of insects. The steel and plastic structure is thus able to use solar and wind power to move, weather permitting. The wings move automatically, tracking the sun for optimal solar collection and the wind for optimal sail power. In extreme wind situations, they fold down against boat. When there is not enough sun or wind, the boat is powered by regular fuel and even biodiesel. The first boat, which was capable of moving 100 persons, began operation more than 5 years ago during the Sydney Olympics.

We have in fact already talked about this boat a few months ago, when we casually mentioned that one of the tourist ferries would in fact be a solar ferry created by this company. More recently, the company has been looking at providing solar powered boats to the Sydney transport authority for use in the public ferry transport system. And even more interestingly, those who go visit the Statue of Liberty, might just be traveling on a similar solar boat in the near future.