SOLARIG, a company based in Spain that incorporated about four years ago, just began construction of eight photovoltaic parks in Italy this month. The parks will provide 8 MW of energy in total. Over the next few months, it plans to construct photovoltaic projects producing 30 MW throughout different regions of Italy.
But this is just the beginning. SOLARIG has a more global vision.
Solarmer Energy broke the world record for plastic cell efficiency last year. Now, they’ve just broken it again.
The new efficiency record is 7.6% and it breaks 7% for the first time.
Just the other day, I wrote that it was a great time to go solar, especially due to the great rebates and discounts on solar technology. Apparently, I jumped the gun and was a few days early. A new report by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab — “Tracking the Sun II: The Installed Cost of Photovoltaics in the US from 1998-2008” — shows a significant decrease in solar costs over the last ten years and shows that now is a great time to go solar.
Greenpeace’s “Solar Generation” activists installed solar panels on President Obama’s Grandmother’s house in Kenya last week.
A Chinese company set a new world record in solar power efficiency this week. According to the company, Suntech Power Holdings, they achieved a 15.6% conversion efficiency on “a commercial grade multi-crystalline silicon PV module.” This breaks a 15-year-old world record set by US company Sandia National Labs.
There’s been a lot of negativity around the solar space in recent weeks because it has been hard going for some companies. And I don’t want to belittle their pain – manufacturers have big stockpiles and if they’re publically listed their share price is down; project developers can’t get bank finance or government cash fast enough, despite the stimulus; and installers may be seeing some consumer sentiment dropping in places.
But please don’t think that’s all she wrote. The future of photovoltaics is bright as the sun!
Just for one example of how serious a contender PV is becoming, consider Spain. Right now that beautiful country is copping a lot of blame because of changes in the incentive structure that have led to a major drop in solar sales there, large and small. Indeed, little old Spain is being held responsible for most of the oversupply currently being experienced by the PV manufacturing industry, which I think could be seen differently…
India’s ‘National Solar Mission’, plans to have India generating 200,000 MW of solar power by 2050, and 100,000 by 2030 according to an official document.
The plan calls for 20,000 MW by 2020. For the next 11 years there is a three-phase approach: 1-1.5 by 2012, 6-7 GW by 2017 and 20 GW by 2020. Another goal for the 2030 milestone (besides the 100 GW target) is parity with energy production from coal.
A model of clean technology and green building, a rail center planned for Anaheim, CA in 2013 will also provide a link to Disneyland. Taking design cues from NYC’s Grand Central Station, the building will also be a centerpiece of Anaheim and a site to see in itself.
Major US renewables company Astonfield is set to invest a massive $2 billion in India over the next five years, the largest single cash-injection in renewable energy ever seen in the sub-continent.
The deal will generate about 1,000 MW of power, most of it from solar sources.
Much of the proposed $2 billion investment will go towards building solar-photovoltaic powered projects with a capacity of 500 MW.
One of the biggest problems with solar cells currently on the market is that they are extremely easy to break. Companies intent on manufacturing any sort of solar powered products have to find solutions, and few have yet been perfect. Hoping to change this trend, Dupont recently announced the launch of two new lines of encapsulants specifically designed to contend with the trials inherent in manufacturing photovoltaic products.
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