Solar Power Systems

2:04 AM Solar Power Systems 1 Comment

Solar power systems have experienced a surge in popularity because of the rising cost of conventional energy sources. By, adding a solar energy system to your home, you can recoup your investment over a few years and continue to save money on utility bills for the life of your system.

The lion's share of the electric utility expense is used in heating the house in the winter and cooling the house during summer months. If you live in the northern climates with intensely cold winters, heating bills during the winter can be astronomical for a home that is only mid-sized. In the Deep South, the greatest expense is often from cooling the house during the hot, humid spring, summer and fall months. Solar power systems, lower these expenses and even help in the cost of hot water generation and cooking.

Perhaps the simplest solar power system to install is a solar hot water heater that can produce some or all of the household needs. In most households, however, this is a small share of the utility expense compared to heating and cooling. Simply, solar hot water heating systems can be built in a weekend and installed by a good handy person with tools that are probably already around the house.

To turn the focus on to production of solar electricity, however, is a bit more complex. Solar power systems that collect the sun's solar rays require a roof-top solar collector panel or panels. In most cases where a good share of the home's electric power is to be generated by the sun, several collectors are often required. These can be purchased or home-built using designs purchased from online sources or found in the local library. The engineering is reasonably simple and construction is not that difficult.

Read More

How does Solar power Works Without the Sun?

1:01 AM How does Solar power Works Without the Sun? 1 Comment

1. • Alternative power sources such as solar and wind are being developed because they reduce pollution and green-house gas emissions while increasing the United State's energy independence. A major problem with solar energy is that it is only available when the sun is shining. Therefore, methods to transform and either store the energy until needed or combine it with energy from other sources have been developed.

   Thermal Energy:

   • One of the easiest ways to store solar energy is as heat. Buildings using passive solar heating are designed with large, south-facing windows and ceramic tile floors. During the day, the tiles absorb heat which is radiated during the night. Swimming pools are heated by pumping pool water through an array of solar collectors before being returned to the pool. During cloudy periods and night time, the water gradually cools. Using a cover when the pool is not in use greatly increases the retention of heat.

   Battery:

   • Solar energy can be converted by photovoltaic cells into direct current (dc) energy and stored in rechargeable batteries. When the sun is not available, the batteries provide electricity to devices such as lights, refrigerators, computers and televisions. If alternating current (ac) is needed, an inverter is added to the system. A solar power system with batteries is frequently used in remote areas where connecting to the electric power grid is not possible or cost prohibitive.

   Utility Grid:

   • Many owners of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems are also connected to the utility grid. When the sun shines and their system is generating electricity, the solar generated electricity powers their household and any excess energy is sold back to the utility company. When the solar system is not generating electricity, the household buys electricity from the utility. At the end of the billing period, the credit for electricity sold is deducted from the cost of electricity bought. The federal government requires utilities to purchase excess electricity from homes and businesses using alternative energy generation. Some utility companies use large solar concentrator systems or photovoltaic power plants to generate power. Because the utility also has other sources of power, such as coal or hydro, the utility is able to balance the solar electricity generation with other sources to ensure a constant power supply.

   Future:

   • The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recognizes that increasing the use of solar energy requires new and better ways of storing the energy until it is needed. In 2008, DOE funded 15 new projects at a cost of $67.6 million to develop heat transfer and solar power storage.
     Several of these projects are researching ways to use latent heat transfer to store energy. When material is heated or cooled, it can change state. For example, water changes from a solid (ice) to a liquid (water) and then to a vapor (steam). In order to change state, heat is either absorbed or given off. This process of giving off or absorbing heat without changing temperature is known as latent heat transfer. When a solid becomes liquid, latent heat is absorbed. When the liquid becomes solid, the latent heat is released. Molten salt and other materials are being explored to find ones whose phase change can effectively store solar energy and release it when needed.

Read More

How Does Solar Energy Transform Into Electricity?

12:57 AM How Does Solar Energy Transform Into Electricity? 1 Comment

Technology is available to take solar energy and convert it into electricity in order to power space ships and satellites and hand-held devices and provide electrical energy to homes. There are two primary methods for creating electricity from solar power. Photovoltaic technology coverts solar energy into electricity, and solar thermal energy generates electricity through a heating process.

1. Photovoltaic:

   • Photovoltaic cells are made from a material such as silicon that coverts the sun's light into energy when it is absorbed into the substance. Each cell is designed to produce one or two watts of electricity, and when the cells are combined in panels or arrays, they can generate more power. Electricity that is generated through solar panels has to be converted into AC power by conversion equipment in order to be used within a home or business.

   Solar Thermal Power:

   • Solar thermal power involves using huge solar-energy collecting tubes or pipes that have a fluid contained inside of them. Once the tubes or pipes are heated up, the fluid is then cycled through a solar power plant that contains a large body of water. Once this water is heated up by the tubes or pipes it produces steam. When the steam is hot enough, it produces mechanical energy that turns a turbine and electricity is created when this turbine powers a generator.

   Solar Dishes:

   • Solar dishes collect solar energy by concentrating solar collectors at the dish, and this causes the dish to heat up to nearly 1,200 degrees. Electrical power in solar dishes is produced by compressing a cold fluid through the use of a engine. Once this fluid is compressed it is then heated up by the solar dish and this causes it to expand through a turbine and a piston in order to create mechanical energy. This mechanical energy is used to power a generator that produces electricity.

Read More

Process of Solar Energy

12:50 AM Process of Solar Energy 1 Comment

 

1. What is Solar Energy?

   • With current energy prices rising every year and stores of natural energy quickly depleting, alternative sources of power are beginning to take center stage. Solar energy is one of the most abundant sources of heat and electricity on the planet and scientists are beginning to develop methods for harnessing it to power our homes and workplaces.
     There are two classifications for solar power that denote exactly how the solar energy is used: direct and indirect. Photovoltaic cells are a direct form of energy, since the solar energy is directly converted into energy; a black bottomed pool that collects solar energy to heat it would also be considered direct. An indirect method require one or more intermediary steps in order to convert sunlight into power. Plant photosynthesis is indirect because it creates possible fuel sources (carbon, biofuel, etc.) instead of energy itself.
     There are two main ways of tapping the sun for energy, solar thermal power and photovoltaic electricity. Solar thermal energy gathers heat energy from the sun to operate turbines that generate electricity. Photovoltaic electricity is generated using specialized silicon cells that interact with sunlight to create an electric current.

   Solar Thermal Power:

   • Solar thermal power is the process through which the sun's heat energy is collected and used to create electrical current. Solar thermal energy collectors resemble satellite arrays, with a dish covered that concentrates the sun's heat on a small point. Once collected, this thermal energy boils water, and in turn, that steam is used to to turn turbines that create the electricity. This process is an indirect method of creating solar energy and, unfortunately, can only be used when the sun is shining.

   Photovoltaic Electricity:

   • Photovoltaic energy is a direct form of solar energy that converts the sun's rays directly into electricity. Photovoltaic cells, little chips made of silicon that absorb the sun's energy, are made of two layers of specially treated silicon. When light hits the bottom layer, photons knock electrons loose creating an imbalance in charges between the top and bottom. Electrons flow freely through the connector when the two layers are connected, creating an electric current. Small photovoltaic cells are inexpensive to build and maintain, and you can see them at work on any old, sunlight-powered calculator.

Read More

Mecasolar trackers adapted for use at 600 kW CPV plant in Italy

12:41 AM Mecasolar trackers adapted for use at 600 kW CPV plant in Italy 1 Comment

On January 11th, 2012 Mecasolar (Fustiñana, Spain) reported that it has delivered 55 tracking systems to a 600 kW concentrating solar photovoltaic (CPV) plant in Italy. These trackers will be retrofitted to the plant, which is currently operating.

Each tracker will support 48 230 watt CPV modules, for a total of 11 kW per tracker. The CPV modules use a 5x concentration design, and Mecasolar states that this project shows that its trackers can be easily adapted to other types of low-concentration CPV modules available on the market.

Precision of 0.5 degrees anticipated

This is the first time that Mecasolar trackers have been adapted to low-concentration CPV modules, and the company expects its trackers to achieve a precision of 0.5 degrees. Mecasolar trackers used with crystalline silicon PV modules have an accuracy between 2.88 degrees and 1.44 degrees.

The CPV plant also features Tripower 10000 inverters from SMA Solar Technology AG (Niestetal, Germany).

The company states that it will launch a concentration tracker in 2012, and in December 2011 launched a 114 kW polar-aligned tracker.

Read More

New Plastic Solar Design Promises Efficient Power

11:00 PM New Plastic Solar Design Promises Efficient Power 1 Comment

In a quiet research laboratory here, an Inventor is developing solar power devices designed to operate four or five times more efficiently than the beat photovoltaic cells now in use, and at a small fraction of the cost.
Alvin M. Marks, an inventor who, holds patents for a 3-D movie process and polarized film for sunglasses, is working with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation to build prototypes of the solar power devices. He received one patent for the devices earlier this year and another in 1984.
The Exxon Corporation recently offered $9 million for Mr. Marks's patents, and for Phototherm, the small company that controls them. according to Gerard J. Aitken 3rd, chairman of Phototherm's board. But company officials chose not to sell; instead they signed the development contract with Westinghouse, which says it is particularly interested in the technology's applications for Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars.
Mr. Marks says solar panels made with Lepcon or Lumeloid, the materials he patented, could turn 70 to 80 percent of the energy from sunlight they receive into electricity. Most photovoltaic cells are only about 15 percent efficient. The electricity would cost three or four cents per kilowatt hour, as against about 10 cents a kilowatt hour for commercially generated electric power. Most photovoltaic cells produce energy for around $1 per kilowatt hour.
Typical photovoltaic cells use layers of chemically treated metals that produce electric current when struck by sunlight. The basic problem has always been the quantity of current produced per unit cost of the materials used to produce it.
Lepcon, which was a preliminary design, consists of glass panels covered with a vast array of millions of aluminum or copper strips, each less than a micron or thousandth of a millimeter wide. As sunlight hits the metal strips, the energy in the light is transferred to electrons in the metal. which escape at one end in the form of electricity.
Lumeloid uses a similar approach. but substitutes cheaper, filmlike sheets of plastic for the glass panels and covers the plastic with conductive polymers, long chains of molecular plastic units. Lumeloid is easier to manufacture and handle than Lepcon. The company declines, for competitive reasons, to identify the chemicals it uses to produce Lumeloid polymers.
There are as yet no large-scale working prototypes of Mr. Mark's invention, and some scientists have expressed caution in assessing it. "It is beyond our technological fabrication capability at present," said Dr. Edward D. Wolf, the director of the national research facility for submicron structures at Cornell University, who has studied Mr Marks's work."But it's an interesting concept."
Professor Stuart A Rice, dean of the division of physical sciences at the University of Chicago, has also reviewed the patents.
"It is an intellectually challenging idea," he said, "I do not know whether it can be brought into practice, so I don't know whether to be optimistic or pessimistic. If it turned out to work, and was very efficient, it would he very significant."
Mr Marks said he believed Lumeloid would be available for commercial use within two or three years. He added that Lepcon and Lumeloid could be used to create lasers, an application he said he had discussed with the Pentagon in conjunction with Westinghouse.
Mr Marks conceded that getting his ideas to the major prototype stage would cost around $5 million. Commercial production of solar panels would cost between $30 million to $5O million, he estimated, and the preliminary work, supported by Westinghouse, is now underway, he said.
Phototherm plans a $15 million initial public stock offering soon to help subsidize development of the solar patents.
Mr Marks has more than 100 other patents, Including the film used on polarized sunglasses, and the process to make 3D movies, and he was also an energy adviser to president John F. Kennedy.

Read More

Nanosolar and EDF Energies Nouvelles Commission Projects Totaling Six Megawatts

10:56 PM Nanosolar and EDF Energies Nouvelles Commission Projects Totaling Six Megawatts No Comments

Bordeaux and Oregon projects develop field performance track record from leader in thin film solar printing  
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Nov. 15, 2011 – Thin film solar printing leader Nanosolar, Inc. today announced its supply of Nanosolar Utility Panels to two separate installations totaling close to six megawatts (MWp) in partnership with EDF Energies Nouvelles (EDF EN) and its US subsidiary enXco. These projects are the latest result of a long-standing collaboration between Nanosolar and EDF EN.  
“These latest projects to be commissioned with Nanosolar panels are a significant validation of both our close relationship with EDF EN and the low-cost potential of our thin film printing technology, which we believe can fundamentally change the solar and energy industries,” said Geoff Tate, CEO of Nanosolar, Inc. “EDF Energies Nouvelles continues to be a strategic, collaborative partner to Nanosolar in the development, testing, and installation of our printing technology.”    
Gabardan, France  
Three MWp of Nanosolar Utility Panels were installed this past summer and commissioned in September as part of a larger EDF EN solar farm in Gabardan, France. ColSun, a joint venture of EDF Energies Nouvelles and Belectric, installed the project using SMA central inverters. This is the first utility-scale installation of Nanosolar Utility Panels by EDF EN.  
Amity, Oregon  
A second approximately three MWp Nanosolar Utility Panel installation was constructed this summer and was commissioned in November 2011 near Amity, Oregon. Developed, designed and installed by enXco, the US subsidiary of EDF EN, at two separate sites using Advanced Energy inverters, the projects connect to the Portland General Electric distribution system.  
“Nanosolar’s thin film printing process and the Nanosolar Utility Panel continue to show great promise for low-cost solar installations,” said Pierre-Guy Therond, Head of New Technologies at EDF EN. “We continue to support the development and progress of this disruptive technology from the lab through to delivery in the field.  
Nanosolar Utility Panel  
Nanosolar’s innovative, roll-to-roll printing process and utility-scale panel design enables the Nanosolar Utility Panel to significantly reduce both manufacturing costs and balance of systems costs in multi-megawatt installations. In addition, it is the first solar panel to be certified to operate at up to 1500 system volts. These system design features allow for balance of systems cost savings of up to 30 percent over competing thin film solar panels in utility-scale power plants.  
Nanosolar thin film solar cells are printed at the company’s headquarters and manufacturing facility in San Jose, California. The Nanosolar Utility Panel can be assembled close to market demand in order to leverage local resources and minimize logistics costs.  
For more information about Nanosolar and its innovative solar printing technology, please visit http://www.nanosolar.com.  
About Nanosolar, Inc.
Nanosolar designs, engineers, and manufactures innovative thin film solar cells and panels based on printing CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenium) and nanoparticle inks. The company’s first product, the Nanosolar Utility Panel, enables competitively priced peak power and installed system economics at utility-scale. With headquarters in San Jose, CA, Nanosolar operates the industry’s first roll-to-roll solar cell printing factory in San Jose, California and a panel-assembly factory in Luckenwalde, Germany

Read More