SunPower taps GE to provide ultrapure water system for new Malaysian joint-venture solar-cell fab - Photovoltaics International

SunPower taps GE to provide ultrapure water system for new Malaysian joint-venture solar-cell fab - Photovoltaics International

Project Focus: Pacific Blue Energy and Siliken to submit bid for Sunshine Solar Farm - Photovoltaics International

Project Focus: Pacific Blue Energy and Siliken to submit bid for Sunshine Solar Farm - Photovoltaics International

Utility wins award for massive photovoltaic project | Cooler Planet News

Utility wins award for massive photovoltaic project | Cooler Planet News

Batteries included: California passes energy storage bill

Batteries included: California passes energy storage bill

June 22, 2010 by Todd Woody

photo: Todd Woody

This post first appeared on Grist.

The California Assembly has passed legislation that takes the first step to requiring that a percentage of electricity generated in the state be stored.

Electricity, of course, is the ultimate perishable commodity. If the bill is approved by the California Senate and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, it would apparently be the first time a state will move toward mandating that electricity generated by wind farms, solar power plants, and other intermittent sources be stored for use during peak demand.

That’s key if California is to meet its ambitious mandates to obtain 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

“Electric energy storage is an emerging industry that offers the possibility to solve a number of major obstacles to the achievement of a sustainable electricity future,” according to an analysis of the legislation prepared by the California Public Utilities Commission in May. “It can effectively address problems such as the integration of intermittent renewables.”

Sponsored by Assembly member Nancy Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat, the bill has been watered down to make it palatable to the state’s utilities and regulators. It originally required the state’s utilities to obtain energy storage systems capable of providing at least 2.25 percent of average peak electrical demand by 2014. By 2020 the target would rise to at least 5 percent.

The latest version of the bill now wending its way through the state Senate requires the California Public Utilities Commission to open proceedings on energy storage and by October 2013 to adopt an initial target — if appropriate — for utilities to meet by the end of 2015.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for governor, is sponsoring the legislation, which is backed, not surprisingly, by the renewable energy industry and venture capitalists.

“It’s part of our bigger effort to deal with climate change,” Cliff Rechtschaffen, Special Assistant Attorney General, told me. “When we looked at how to develop renewables, the technology is here but stalled by lack of regulatory focus.”

Utilities spend billions of dollars building so-called peaker plants that operate just hours a year to supply electricity and avoid blackouts when demand spikes — say, on a hot day when everyone cranks up their air conditioners.

Such costs — and greenhouse gas emissions — could be cut or reduced if electricity stored from wind farms or solar power plants could be dispatched when demand rises.

A report prepared for the California Energy Commission and released this month concluded that adding gigawatts of wind and solar energy to the grid to meet renewable energy mandates would require “major alterations to system operations.”

Without storage, more natural gas power plants or hydroelectric facilities would need to be built to smooth out grid operations as increasing amounts of solar and wind energy comes online, according to the report prepared by Kema, an energy consulting firm.

“Storage can be up to two to three times as effective as adding a combustion turbine to the system,” the report stated.

The cost and feasibility of such storage systems is another matter, as it remains a nascent industry.

Most efforts focus on using batteries or mechanical systems like flywheels to store electricity. California utility PG&E has launched a pilot project to store electricity in the form of compressed air. Some developers of solar power plants intend to use molten salt to capture heat that can be released and used to drive an electricity-generating turbine after the soon goes down.

“This bill moves storage to the top of the regulatory agenda where it belongs,” says Rechtschaffe

Solarmer taps NREL to boost organic thin-film cell lifetimes - Photovoltaics International

Solarmer taps NREL to boost organic thin-film cell lifetimes - Photovoltaics International

SOLAR

SOLAR THERMAL COOLING - A POSSIBLE ANSWER TO RISING AC DEMAND STILL NEEDS A MARKET

BY HARRY TOURNEMILLE ON JUNE 21, 2010

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With the ever-increasing demand for air conditioners expected to rise dramatically in the next few years, solar thermal cooling could be a plausible, energy-smart solution.

That is if the market would catch on.

Approximately 500 solar cooling installations were completed last year -- and that's globally, with the majority being done in Europe. A clear indication that while the idea has been around for some time, it is still very much a niche market in need of a significant boost. A work in progress, as the saying goes.

David Appleyard, associate editor for Renewable Energy World International Magazine, recently looked at some of the major players who have designed and created "sorption chillers" with small and medium-scale cooling capacity.

A Few of The Players:

SorTech AG - manufactures and distributes adsorption chillers for cooling and air-conditioning applications in the small and medium scale performance range up to 75 kW cooling capacity. Suitable for air-conditioning and cooling of one- or multi-family houses as well as smaller commercial and office buildings, the machines use water as refrigerant.

Solar Next AG - The firm offers its SolarNext chillii Technology and chillii System Controller for the optimized heat management of modern heating systems as well as services such as the measuring and evaluation of ab- and adsorption chiller systems of up to 105 kW of cooling capacity.

Yazaki Corporation - Today, well over 100,000 of the company's units are in operation worldwide, with more than 2000 installations in the EU alone. The installations offer capacities from 17.5 kW to up to 700 kW for such diverse projects as offices, hotels, hospitals and industrial facilities.

AIL Research Inc. - AIL's solar specific SOA Series – the end product of a seven year, US$5 million initiative funded by theDepartment of Energy's SBIR program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – uses patented low-flow technology and, in addition, requires lower activation temperatures than absorption chillers or solid desiccant systems, the company says.

With the technology available, the question then becomes, why isn't it catching on? High costs? Problematic installations? Lack of a useful acronym (STC doesn't ring the same as AC does)? Perhaps all of the above.

Video: Up Close and Personal with Stirling Energy's CSP | Renewable Energy World

Video: Up Close and Personal with Stirling Energy's CSP | Renewable Energy World