solar energy

With the new year, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reaffirmed its commitment to 'fast-track' the nation's first utility-scale solar energy projects on public lands.

The BLM pledged to complete environmental impact studies for 31 of America's "most promising" renewable energy projects by December 2010. Fourteen of these are proposed solar plants — 10 to be built in California and the rest in Nevada and Arizona. The other projects include seven wind farms, three geothermal plants and seven transmission projects.

Together, these fast-track proposals have the potential to power 900,000 homes. The hope is to make them eligible for stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which expires in less than a year.

Silicon Valley solar newcomer Ausra Inc. and the Queensland State Government have announced plans to give Australia’s biggest coal-fired plant a 23-megawatt solar boost.

The project calls for concentrating solar power (CSP) to be tacked on to the state's 750-MW Kogan Creek coal unit. If the scheme wins the $200 million in government funding the parties are after, it will be the largest demonstration of its kind in the world.

The plans are part of a growing global push to squeeze more electricity out of conventional power plants with cleaner fuels — and get more solar power on the grid at lower cost.

Power plants that burn wood and plant materials for electricity account for more than 50 percent of America's renewable energy. But that could change.

Federal tax credits that are keeping 100-plus "biomass" facilities afloat are set to expire at the end of 2009.

If the tax credits are not renewed, it will have "catastrophic consequences to our industry," said Bob Cleaves, president and CEO of the Biomass Power Association (BPS), during a news conference.

Who knew? Apparently not Congress. Which is why BPA has launched a $250,000 public relations campaign to raise the profile of biomass in Washington as an alternative to fossil fuels and help "level the playing field" with wind and solar this year.

Solar photovoltaics (PV) in the UK will be as cheap as grid-sourced fossil fuels much sooner than expected, a new study by Solarcentury finds.

For homeowners, PV will cross the "grid parity" mark in 2013. For commercial customers, it will occur around 2018. The magical parity date for PV is generally assumed to be 2020 in the UK. Says Solarcentury:

"The proximity to parity heralds the prospect of PV being a compelling investment for the individual, without subsidy, in only a few years time."

The 14-page report by the UK's largest solar firm is described as the most "up-to-date and accurate analysis on the investment case for PV in the UK."

Its main point is that solar PV has precisely what it takes to move beyond a British niche and into the energy mainstream: Its energy potential is massive. It's getting cheaper all the time. And it's fast-approaching the holy grail of the solar sector, grid parity.

Time to tap it.

You can't cast a stone without hitting a story on Spain’s influential solar sector, and this week is no exception.

Spain-based Abengoa announced it had started operations at the world's largest "solar power tower" – a 20 MW, concentrating solar plant (CSP) near Seville.

The massive installation is called PS20, and its technology is one to watch. In fact, that power tower you see here could be the future of utility-scale solar. Here's how it works:

Over 1,200 movable mirrors, or heliostats, spread over hundreds of acres of desert land, reflecting sunlight onto a receiver at the top of a central, liquid-filled, 531-foot tower. Concentrated rays heat the water, creating steam to drive a turbine that produces power for 10,000 households.

The PS20 is Abengoa's second go at bringing a solar tower online. The first – the 11-MW PS10 – was fired up to great fanfare in 2007. It sits some 15 miles west of Seville and powers 5,500 homes.

New projects to harness thermal power from America's sun-soaked deserts keep rolling in – thanks in part to Spain.

The latest was announced this week, when Madrid-based Albiasa Solar disclosed plans for a 200 MW, $1 billion concentrating solar plant (CSP) that will spread a sea of parabolic mirrors over a 1,400-acre stretch of Arizona desert near Kingman.

When completed in 2013, the billion-dollar plant will power 50,000 homes.

It's the first solar deal on U.S. soil for Albiasa – and the latest move by a Spanish firm to cash in on the country's concentrated sunlight.

Solar power's potential in India is off the charts -- a thousand times greater than the likely electricity demand in the sun-blessed nation by 2015.

Wind could produce a whopping 65,000 megawatts -- about half of India's present total installed capacity. And the potential of available biomass, energy from plants, is 30,000 megawatts -- ten times the nation's current nuclear capacity.

But there's a problem of mismanagement at India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy that's crippling clean energy development, according to a new report from the London-based Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

And the result is that vital clean technology dollars are going elsewhere.

The Indo-Asian News Service sums it up:

The Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a measure on Tuesday night to fund a program providing loans to property owners for the installation of rooftop solar-power systems. The program is the first of its kind in the nation, which creates a new sustainable energy tax district (pdf) within the city.

Property owners who opt into the program will be given loans for solar systems and pay no up front costs. At an average cost $22,000 apiece (after a $6,108 rebate from the state-run California Solar Initiative), the systems will be paid for over a 20-year term. Homeowners pay off the loan as part of the property tax bill. The cost of the loan will run around $180 per month at an annual rate of 6.75%.

The innovative idea behind this city-run financial mechanism is that homeowners would pay for solar energy via an opt-in property tax increase that would be offset by annual savings on their electric bills.

Nanosolar stole headlines in December when it shipped its first commercial batch of thin-film solar cells to a German power plant, accompanied by this future price claim: solar panels for $1 a watt.

They've sold like candy ever since. So what now?

A massive funding boost. Nanosolar has announced it has raised $300 million in equity financing to meet exploding demand, pushing its capital to a half a billion dollars.

That’s the largest fundraising for a solar startup in 2008. And it positions the six-year-old San Jose upstart as a technology leader in the race to knock King Coal off its cheap-energy throne.

The brass ring for solar energy has long been "grid parity," or delivering electricity to the grid at the prevailing local price. But the solar photovoltaic (PV) march toward parity has been delayed, ironically, by the sector's own surging popularity.

The main reason? Supply of the raw material, crystalline silicon, hasn't kept up with skyrocketing PV demand, resulting in severe shortages and high prices. But with new factories and new technology on the horizon, the supply shortage may end soon, which means the prices could drop like a rock. Or maybe not.

Confused? Read on...