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http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/1001/flexible-future-1001.cfm
By 2020, solar cells will be everywhere - and you may not even be able to see them. They may be transparent, integrated into your office window. They may
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form a thin film on the roof of your car. Solar cells may be integrated into your briefcase or rucksack, charging up your mobile devices while you are outside and even while you are in your office. They may even be on the top of your television, reusing the light from your living room bulb, enabling you to leave your TV on standby all night. These applications will be made possible because the solar cells of tomorrow are not to made using the same technology as today. Today’s solar cells, which are made using silicon or other rare - often toxic - semiconductors, are complicated to manufacture, and can be cumbersome. Thin, flexible solar cells, will be made using either polymers, a photosensitive dye or organic small-molecule technology and promise cheap, portable solar power (see ‘technology backgrounder’ p44). They will be much simpl
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http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=1FC8E87E-E7F2-99DF-3253ADDFDBEC8D41&ref=rss
STEAM AND MIRRORS: A compact linear Fresnel reflector, like Ausra's plant in Australia pictured here, uses lines of mirrors to focus the sun's rays on
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an overhead trough, turning water into steam to generate electricity.
In the often cloudless American Southwest, the sun pours more than eight kilowatt-hours* per square meter of its energy onto the landscape. Vast parabolic mirrors in the heart of California's Mojave Desert concentrate this solar energy to heat special oil to around 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). This hot oil transfers its heat to water, vaporizing it, and then that steam turns a turbine to produce electricity. All told, nine such mirror fields, known as concentrating solar power plants, supply 350 megawatts of electricity yearly.
In the face of mounting concern about climate change, alternatives to coal and natural gas combustion such as these never seemed more attractive. And with the bounty of the sun waiting to be captured near fast-growing major ce
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http://www.nef.org.uk/greenenergy/index.htm
Did you know.?
At present over 2% of electricity produced in the UK comes from a renewable source. By the year 2010 the Government's target is to exceed
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10%. Various predictions suggest we will achieve 50% by the year 2050.
Some renewable energy sources rely on the availability of natural occurring energy. These include heat or light from the sun; wind at a suitable speed produced from complex weather systems; waves from oceans, and tides based on the relative position of the sun and earth. These cannot be turned on or off according to demand for energy; they are therefore said to suffer from intermittency. Although a degree of back-up is required to cope with intermittency, a report prepared for the Carbon Trust in 2006 identified that intermittency should not be a major problem in the UK over the next 20 years. Please follow this link for more details on intermittency .
To download our education factsheets on the different renewable energy, please visit our education website at ww
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http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=50002
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GE Energy yesterday announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire a minority equity interest in PrimeStar Solar, Inc., an emerging solar thin film technology and manufacturing company. PrimeStar Solar , headquartered in Golden, Colorado, was formed in June 2006 to develop and commercialize thin film photovoltaic modules.
"Solar energy will play an important role in the future of the global energy market and is an integral part of our renewables portfolio," said Victor Abate, Vice President of Renewables, GE Energy . "Our goal, through this investment, is to place GE's solar business in a strategic position in the thin film solar industry, adding to GE's diverse range of energy generation technologies."
In March 2007, GE's solar business was selected for the
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http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0917/place-in-the-sun-0917.cfm
Small-scale solar photovoltaic plants are proving to be an efficient way of generating electricity locally. E&T visits a 1MW facility on Spain’s Costa
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del Sol to look at a facility in action. Nestled on a hilltop above Totana on the Spanish Costa del Sol lies a seven-acre solar oasis. Surrounded by groves of olive trees on the bed of an abandoned reservoir is a 1MW photovoltaic facility that provides power to the local community. In the scheme of things, 1MW is small - the two largest photovoltaic solar parks are in Spain: the Olmedilla PV Park, in Olmedilla de Alarcon, uses 62,000 solar photovoltaic modules to generate 60MW; and the Puertollano PV Park, in Ciudad Real Province, Castilla-La Mancha, generates 50MW. Like most of these small-scale solar developments, the solar plant is owned by an investment company - on this occasion Global Capital Finance. The requirement was for a high-performance photovoltaic plant that could be up and running within six months. The seemingly undue ha
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http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/
As the state of Florida’s energy research institute, FSEC conducts research in Building Science, Photovoltaics, Solar Thermal, Hydrogen and Alternative
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Fuels, Fuel Cells
and other advanced energy technologies. Learn more about us .
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http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20070914-00
Photovoltaic solar collectors like this one atop a near-zero energy Habit for Humanity home in East Tennessee will be featured at the first Southeast Solar
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Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oct. 24-25.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 14, 2007 Solar energy will be in the spotlight as researchers, engineers, architects and other renewable energy experts from the region convene at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oct. 24-25 for the first Southeast Solar Summit.
Among the displays will be an Arizona Public Service 5-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array that will be providing electricity to one of the laboratory buildings. The array uses Memphis-based Sharp Solar's photovoltaic modules. A concentrator photovoltaic system from JX Crystals will also be on display. Others participating include Lakeland Electric, Georgia Institute of Technology, Solar Energy Industries Association, Solar Electric Power Association, Lightwave Solar Electric, Sterling Planet, Tennessee Valley Authority, North Carolina
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http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=538&ArticleID=5849&l=en
With end of cheap oil, renewables and energy efficiency attracts fast-growing interest; New investment surpasses $148 billion in 2007, a 60% rise from
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2006, Growth continues in 2008, UNEP study says Climate change worries, growing support from world governments, rising oil prices and ongoing energy security concerns combined to fuel another record-setting year of investment in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries in 2007, according to an analysis issued Tuesday July 1 by the UN Environment Programme(UNEP). "The clean energy industry is maturing and its backers remain bullish. These findings should empower governments-both North and South-to reach a deep and meaningful new agreement by the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009," Achim Steiner, the head of UNEP, says. Over $148 billion in new funding entered the sustainable energy sector globally last year, up 60% from 2006, even as a credit crunch began to roil financial markets, according to the
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http://kn.theiet.org/news/nov08/Sharp-enel-invests-2bn01271108.cfm
Japan's Sharp Corp, Italy's Enel SpA and a third partner are likely to invest more than $2.6 billion in Italian solar power ventures to tap growing demand
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for cleaner energy despite a global economic slowdown. Top solar power firms are hurrying to expand capacity even as the sector smarts from a worsening global economy, which is drying up financing for new ventures, forcing smaller solar power firms to push back capex plans and putting pressure on big players to recoup their investments faster. Sharp, the world's No.2 maker of solar cells, said on Thursday it and Italy's largest power company Enel planned to spend about 100 billion yen ($1.05 billion) to set up solar power generating plants in Italy with a total generating capacity of 189 megawatts by the end of 2012. The two and another manufacturer also plan to build a factory in Italy to produce thin-film solar cells, with an initial investment of at least 72 billion yen, it said. That could grow to more than 150 billion yen when t
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http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0915/new-hot-ticket-0915.cfm
A lack of government support pulled the rug from under the fledgling Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP) industry. Twenty years later, as E&T discovers,
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the technology is enjoying a renaissance. Ask people what they think the new age of solar power will look like, and most see images of flat solar panels stuck to roofs, providing heating or hot water. A smaller number will have heard that you can generate electricity from the sun too - through panels that use semiconductor materials (mostly silicon in crystal or amorphous form) to convert light into electricity - so-called solar photovoltaics (PV). That’s probably as far as it goes. Many people remain sceptical that solar power could produce cost-competitive, utility-scale electricity generation. But that’s exactly what the Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP) industry has been striving for many years to achieve, despite a false dawn in the 1980s when CSP’s early pioneer (Luz International, which built nine CSP plants in Califor
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