Posts filed under 'Solar Energy'
The PS10 Project is the first 11 Megawatt Solar Thermal Power Plant in Southern Spain that produces electricity with 624 heliostats (large movable mirrors). Located 25 km west of Seville, the PS10 is a concentrating solar power plant that uses solar radiation to produce electricity using the heliostats in a thermodynamic cycle. The mirrors concentrate the Sun’s rays to the top of a 35 story tower where a solar receiver and steam turbine generates the electricity. It is designed to produce 23 GWh of electricity which is enough to supply power to a population of 10,000. Although this plant currently costs about three times as much as a regular plant, it saves about 16,000 tons of CO2 each year. Five more plants are also planned to be developed in the same area to produce more than 300 MWs of power by 2013. The European Union has been supporting the Concentrating Solar Power sector for more than ten years.
Read more about the project at SolarPaces.org
September 17th, 2007
Alex
A Solar Thermal Startup company called Ausra will be announcing a $40 million project funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Khosla Ventures for a 175-megawatt power plant. The plant will be in California and should be operational in 3 years. The plant will be made up of hundreds of glass-covered metal “collectors” that collect sunlight in a tube filled with water. The water then becomes steam and turns a conventional steam turbine. High pressure water storage tanks also allow the company to keep several hours worth of electricity on tap. The system is able to deliver electricity at 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which is 1 cent more than natural gas power plants. You can see a cool Flash demo of how Ausra’s technology works here. This is going to be a pretty big advancement as a alternative to coal-fired plants and natural gas powered plants. Although the current power plants are cheap sources for energy, they are not as clean and good for the environment. I think that solar plants will be our future as it is a fairly untapped resource that has plenty of potential. We have tons of empty land and plenty of sunlight that energy can be generated from and it is inevitable that we will be eventually able to find a cheap solution to create and store that power.
via News.com
September 10th, 2007
Alex
In this blog article, Lyndon Rive, CEO of Solar City says that residential solar system prices are actually going up. Over five to ten years, the price will eventually go down but not anytime in the immediate future. The shortage of silicon continues to keep panel prices high while government subsidies are going down. If you want to install solar panels, this might be the best time to do so. California offers rebates for panels last year of $2.80 per watt, this year, $2.20, and next year will be $1.90. It looks like there might be an environmental bubble right now with all the hype causing a stir that will eventually go away. Solar panels have never really been affordable by your daily consumer, but with all the news about global warming and being green, the benefits have attracted more people to doing something good for the environment. Over time, there are cost benefits but once all this hype goes away, people may not care anymore if the prices don’t drop. I still have hope however, that solar panels will definitely be the future. It is just a matter of time.
via News.com
September 6th, 2007
Alex
The AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, is also home to 590 Sharp solar panels. The solar panels are located in three separate areas of the stadium and generate 120-kilowatts of electricity back into the grid for Northern California. There is plenty of electricity that gets used during baseball games but during the off-season, the electricity that gets generated can be used by others as the size of the power generated by the park is equivalent to 40 residential solar systems. This idea would make a lot of sense for Monster/Candlestick Park as well since the 49ers only play 12 games a season and the stadium is practically unused the rest of the year.
via Engadget
July 19th, 2007
Alex
A solar advocacy group called NorCal Solar has released a survey that says the Bay Area now has enough panels to provide electricity to about 61,725 homes. Californians have purchased more than $2.8 billion in solar electricity technology. The Bay Area Solar Installation Report can be found here. The report used publicly available data as of 12/31/2006 in ten Bay Area counties so surely that number has increased since then. The report says that San Francisco has 483 total projects as of 12/31/2006. On the San Francisco Solar Map, it reports that there have been currently 585 installations in San Francisco. The cost of installing solar panels may still be the biggest setback as power plants burning natural gas can generate the same amount of energy at a fraction of the price of the installation up-front price. Fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, however, release carbon dioxide into the air and contributes to global warming by trapping the heat in the atmosphere. Solar power has zero emissions. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is making an effort to increase the usage of solar power by putting $3.3 billion into rebates for businesses and homeowners with the California Solar Initiative. The goal of this initiative is to create 3,000 megawatts of solar power by 2017. The California Energy Commission only has 217 megawatts installed so far. I think that the state should make a bigger effort in rolling out solar panels into more state buildings. All new building constructions and developments should have solar panels installed. Although the up-front costs are high, the state can save a lot of money every month in electricity bills and will make up the money after years of use. Right now, installing a solar panel can cost about $9,500 per kilowatt and most homes have two to three kilowatt. State and Federal incentives can cut that cost down to about $7,500. There are a lot of solar panel installation companies that have come out recently and hopefully the prices will go down. The California Energy Commission has a 25% higher rebate for new affordable housing and the California Public Utilities Commission is currently working on creating an incentive program for low-income households. New housing developments are starting to have solar panels built-in and hopefully that will be the norm one day.
via SFGate
July 18th, 2007
Alex
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