You are browsing the archives of photovoltaics.

Check ‘em out:

Why we need a Kelley Blue Book for solar

Swarmanoids (like the Mission Impossible crew, only better)

Building honors site’s history as an aggregate mine with extensive use of concrete

Suppression of the coffee-ring effect by shape-dependent capillary interactions

Lightweight solar panels can be worn by soldiers in combat

Shrinking an arbitrary object as one desires using metamaterials

Share

For the first time that I am aware of, it General Electric seems to have jumped on the Sach’s Law bandwagon and decided that solar power very soon will be competitive with fossil fuel and nuclear energy sources. In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, GE’s global research director, Mark M. Little, asserts that parity will arrive in three to five years.

From a business point of view, it should be noted that Little is glossing over a least one crucial distinction, namely that one has to differentiate between the a discussion about the wholesale cost (less costly per kilowatt-hour) of energy or the retail cost (more costly). But, you get the idea: GE sees a big change coming.

Little tells Bloomberg, “If we can get solar at 15 cents a kilowatt-hour or lower, which I’m hopeful that we will do, you’re going to have a lot of people that are going to want to have solar at home.”

GE also still has a significant footprint in the natural gas and wind turbine-generation business, so in a sense it is covering several scenarios. But the company has been putting some serious investments into thin-film solar R&D that are starting to pay off.

For one thing, GE became a major investor in 2007 in PrimeStar Solar, a maker of cadmium telluride thin-film panels, which just two months ago set the record (12.8 percent) efficiency for CdTe thin films. GE now fully owns PrimeStar and said in an April DOE blog post that it intended to soon build a 400-megawatt CdTe manufacturing facility. The company will be competing with CdTe panel maker First Solar, a company that has been singled out by market researchers, such as Lux, for its ability to continually reduce its manufacturing costs.

Little reiterated these manufacturing plans in the Bloomberg interview and says the facility will open in 2013. He notes that GE is developing many Smart Grid products and services. He specifically mentions its Nucleus consumer-grade power monitor product, announced in 2010, that integrates with personal computers and smart phones. The company is also working on complimentary metering devices.

The PrimeStar–GE relationship is a positive example of how government research can pay off in the commercial sector. The CdTe approach they use, according to the DOE, was developed at the National Renewable Energy Lab by a group led by Xuanzhi Wu. PrimeStar was launched in 2006 to commercialize Wu’s innovations.

I expect some of GE’s plans will be discussed later this summer at ACerS’ Ceramic Leadership Summit, where Krishan L. Luthra, technology leader in ceramics & metallurgy for GE Global Research, will be doing a presentation on emerging applications and challenges at GE

Share

Credit: SunPower

Sandia National Lab and SunPower Corp. say they have reached a new agreement on research into integrating utility-scale solar energy systems into the national electrical grid.

Although a news release about this new cooperative research and development agreement only mentions photovoltaic systems, I have to imagine that might have been a mistake since it would be pretty nearsighted of them to exclude concentrating solar power systems.

Regardless, the two entities have at least $1 million in funding from the DOE and another $1 million from the California Solar Initiative fund.

In an announcement from SNL, Terry Michalske, director of Energy and Security Systems at the lab, said, “This partnership will enable Sandia and SunPower to capitalize on their respective strengths and bring together PV modeling and analysis expertise with extensive system data to answer many of the urgent questions facing utility companies and their customers who are turning to clean, solar energy resources.”

Generally speaking, the point of their work is how to blend sources with volatile energy levels into a grid whose customers rely on steady levels of power.

Abraham Ellis, one of Sandia’s photovoltaic specialists said, “A question worth asking is: What are the possible impacts of connecting very large PV systems or a lot of smaller, distributed PV systems on the grid, and what are the solutions for mitigating these impacts? It’s not just a rhetorical question anymore. Part of the problem is that we lack specialized tools and data to properly assess the impact on the grid and evaluate mitigation alternatives. This partnership will help address those challenges.”

SunPower recently completed large PV systems for Yolo County, California, and on the South Side of Chicago, using its proprietary PV panels and solar-tracking system.

Share

Iowa State University's solar-powered vehicle during the 2005 North American Solar Challenge. (Credit: Stefano Paltera/North American Solar Challenge.)

Teams from 16 universities are about to embark on an 1,200-mile solar car race through the Midwest.

The North American Solar Challenge starts June 20 in Broken Arrow, Okla., and ends June 26 in Naperville, Ill. Teams will be required to stop for the night in Topeka, Kan., on June 21, and in Rolla, Mo., on June 23. Otherwise, the cars go as far as they can until the racing day is over at 6 p.m.

Other cities along the route include Neosho, Mo.; Jefferson City, Mo.; Alton, Ill.; and Normal, Ill.

Universities from across the globe are participating in the 2010 race. They include:

• Bochum University of Applied Sciences, Germany
  
• Illinois State University
• Iowa State University
• Missouri University of Science & Technology
• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Taiwan
  
• Northwestern University
• Oregon State University
• Stanford University
• State University of New York at New Paltz
• University of Calgary, Canada
  
• University of Kentucky
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota
• University of New Mexico
• University of Texas at Austin
• Western Michigan University

Energy from the sun is used to power the cars’ batteries. In order to reach highway speeds, a solar car needs about as much energy as it takes to blow dry your hair in the morning.

The 2008 American Solar Challenge took place along a route from Dallas, Texas to Calgary, Alberta. The University of Michigan’s Continuum won the race with a total elapsed time of 51 hours, 41 minutes, and 53 seconds. No race took place in 2009, and this year the event has been renamed the North American Solar Challenge.

This video shows Northwestern University’s solar car that raced in the 2008  American Solar Challenge.

Share

I continue to be really impressed with 1366 Technologies’ technical work and and business strategy. Now DOE has put together a short (4 minutes) video about 1366’s Direct Wafer Technology silicon wafer production system and why ARPA-E has provided the company with $4 million to continue their efforts. There isn’t a lot of depth here, but it is a nice, easy-to-understand promo piece for both 1366 and DOE/ARPA-E.

For more on 1366, see

1366 Technologies demonstrates directly manufactured silicon PV wafer

Part 1: New busbars, ‘fingers’ to cut costs by 20%

Part 2: Process improvements versus science breakthroughs

Share