Ohio names recipients for $6M in pending Third Frontier PV Program awards
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
Another $6 million in grants may soon be awarded to several solar manufacturers in Ohio, thanks to the state’s Third Frontier Photovoltaic Program. The recommendation announcement came last week; the awards are contingent on the approval of the state’s Controlling Board. The program supports the R&D that addresses the technical and cost barriers to commercialization of PV components and systems in Ohio.
LG Electronics to start production on 120MW solar-cell line in January
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
LG Electronics will begin production next month at its 120MW crystalline-silicon solar cell manufacturing line in Gumi, South Korea, about 200 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The company said it will open a second line in 2011, which will increase the plant’s total output to 240MW, and will also continue to work on thin-film photovoltaic PV technology.
Solar EnerTech’s PV panels get safety certification from TÜV Rheinland
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
TÜV Rheinland has issued its Safety Class II certification to Solar EnerTech’s photovoltaic modules, which will enable the company to sell its products to a wider spectrum of customers primarily based in Europe. The Menlo Park, CA-based solar cell and panel design firm has a 50MW manufacturing line in its 63,000-square-foot facility in Shanghai.
Project Focus: Evergreen Solar’s panels get nod for 525KW rooftop PV installation at Patriot Place
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
Evergreen Solar’s String Ribbon crystalline-silicon solar panels have been chosen for a 525KW installation at Patriot Place, a 1.3-million-square-foot shopping, dining, and entertainment complex located adjacent to Gillette Stadium, home of the National Football League’s New England Patriots. The photovoltaic system, being installed by Constellation Energy’s projects and services group, will supply about 30% of the power to the complex and more than 12 million KW-hours of electricity over 20 years, according to the Massachusetts-based company.
Applied completes acquisition of Semitool
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
Applied Materials has now completed its total acquisition of Semitool. This purchase is designed to expand Applied’s presence in the high-growth wafer packaging market as well as offering a platform for complementary systems and technology for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
SunPower and SolarPower Ltd. Dedicate 50-Kw Solar Power System for HP in Israel
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
Dec 21, 2009 – SunPower Corp. (Nasdaq: SPWRA, SPWRB), a US-based manufacturer of high-efficiency solar cells, solar panels and solar systems, and SolarPower Ltd., an Israeli solar power system integrator and project developer, today dedicated a 50-kw rooftop solar power system at HP’s Indigo division facility in Kiryat-Gat, Israel.
SolarPower designed and built the system with high-efficiency SunPower solar panels. Construction on the project began in October. ”By combining SolarPower’s design and construction expertise with SunPower panels, the most efficient solar panels commercially available, HP will maximize the amount of clean solar power generated on the roof,” said SolarPower co-CEO Alon Tamari. “We are very pleased to have completed the first solar power installation for the high-technology industry in Israel.” “SolarPower’s leadership in Israel was clearly an advantage to SunPower as we entered the market,” said Howard Wenger, president, global business units, for SunPower. “On four continents, the proven performance of SunPower’s technology has achieved a superior return on investment for our residential, commercial and power plant customers.”
SunPower has completed more than 550 large solar power systems worldwide, including the recently completed 24-megawatt Montalto solar power plant in Italy.
SolarPower Israel Ltd. is a system integration (EPC) and project development company. Founded in 2003, SolarPower designs, integrates, supplies, installs and develops solar energy projects for various applications including grid-tied and off-grid projects.
Siemens Working on Integrating Electric Cars into the Public Power Grid
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
Dec 22, 2009 – Siemens is hard at work on technologies for integrating electric cars into the public power grid. The development of methods to rapidly recharge the cars is just one of the company’s contributions to Denmark’s Edison project, which is the first to plug a pool of vehicles into the grid. Practical testing will begin in 2011 on the island of Bornholm. Siemens is also researching components for the electric cars themselves. The company presented 3 additional demonstration cars at the Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen: the eRUF Stormster based on the chassis of the Porsche Cayenne. The vehicles built by Siemens and the automaker RUF are being used as shuttles. The 340 hp (250 kilowatt) Stormster has a maximum range of 180 kilometers on a full battery charge, accelerates to 100 kilometers per hour in nine seconds and reaches 150 kilometers per hour.
Denmark is driving the development of electric cars particularly hard because the cars’ batteries are to be used as intermediate storage for the fluctuating supply of electricity from wind power. Part of the research being conducted by an international consortium for the Edison project is therefore focused on how to optimize the bi-directional flow of electricity between the car and the grid. For instance, Siemens Energy is developing rapid charging functions for the cars’ batteries. Instead of the usual 220 volts, the batteries will be charged in an initial step with 400 volts and 63 amps. The long-term goal is to achieve up to 300 kilowatts of charging capacity so that a car can be completely recharged in roughly six minutes. The development engineers are also investigating how the constant switching on and off of the batteries affects the power grid. The harmonics this generates could knock the grid out of sync. Here Siemens Energy is working directly on the Ris ø research campus of the Technical University of Denmark, a partner in the Edison consortium. Siemens Corporate Technology is currently developing the components for the new Greenster II electric car, which will go into small-series production in late 2010. A central innovation are the two rear wheels, each which is powered by its own electric motor. This allows the individual wheels to be optimally powered in every driving situation. The differential, which provides this function in central drive systems, is eliminated, making the car substantially lighter. In the future, each of the four wheels of an electric car is to have its own little drive system. The axle shaft, cardan shaft, and central motor will be eliminated, and the car gains installation space while saving weight.
Let’s Get Wind Power Off the Ground
December 23, 2009 | Comments Off
Dec 21, 2009 – Frank Nelson writes in Miller-McCune, “Let’s Get Wind Power Off the Ground.“ A new crop of entrepreneurs believes that wind power can and should take to the skies — literally. Some scientists, academics and entrepreneurs are convinced that to meet the world’s energy needs and roll back the ravages of global warming, we need only look up. “A river of energy flows above us,” said Cristina Archer, assistant professor of energy, meteorology and environmental science in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at California State University, Chico. “People talk about oil lakes under the ground, but we have the same [energy resource] in the sky. There’s a lot of wind energy up there. It’s astonishing. And it’s free. It makes sense to tap into that free source.”
Archer, also a consulting assistant professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, is regarded as an authority on high-altitude wind power, or HAWP. In 2007, working with Ken Caldeira, senior scientist in the department of global ecology at Stanford’s Carnegie Institution for Science, she began a six-month research project, crunching through 28 years of global data to determine wind characteristics up to about 7.5 miles.
Her findings, published in the journal Energies earlier this year, revealed immense reserves of sustainable energy at different altitudes and at different times of the year, all around the world. “The total wind energy in the jet streams is roughly 100 times the global energy demand,” Archer wrote. “Because of their abundance, strength and relative persistency, jet stream winds are of particular interest in wind power development.” Archer estimates energy demand at between 2 trillion and 2.5 trillion watts. About 6 miles up, jet stream winds, even though they don’t blow hard all the time even at that height, could generate around 200 trillion watts.
Florian Holzapfel will take over as CEO of Q-Cells subsidiary, Calyxo
December 22, 2009 | Comments Off
Florian Holzapfel, an executive board member of Q-Cells since 2006, will now take over as CEO of Calyxo, a subsidiary of Q-Cells SE Germany, effective the beginning of 2010.
Happy solstice: Solyndra files for IPO, could become next CIGS pure-play to go public (corrected)
December 22, 2009 | Comments Off
CIGS could soon have a new name and face on Wall Street–Solyndra. While much of the business community was sipping egg nog and eating Christmas cookies at office parties or buying armloads of presents on the final Friday before the coming holiday, Solyndra filed an S-1 registration statement for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The purveyor of cylindrical copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide thin-film photovoltaics will trade under the symbol “SOLY,” according to SEC documents, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley running the book on the proposed offering, joining Ascent Solar as the only publically traded CIGS pure-play companies. CEO Chris Gronet and his team have come a long way in a short time since emerging from stealth mode with a splash a little more than a year ago, and the prospectus filed as part of the S-1 provides a new level of granularity about the progress and plans of the company.