solar at half the cost

A new mechanism for focusing light on small areas of photovoltaic material could make solar power in residential and commercial applications cheaper than electricity from the grid in most markets in the next few years. Initial systems, which can be made at half the cost of conventional solar panels, are set to start shipping later this year, says Brad Hines, CTO and founder of Soliant Energy, a startup based in Pasadena, CA, that has developed the new modules.

Concentrating sunlight with mirrors or lenses on a small area cuts the costs of solar power in part by reducing the amount of expensive photovoltaic material needed. But while concentrated solar photovoltaic systems are attractive for large-scale, ground-based solar farms for utilities, conventional designs are difficult to mount on rooftops, where most residential and commercial customers have space for solar panels. The systems are typically large and heavy, and they're mounted on posts so that they can move to track the sun, which makes them more vulnerable to gusts of wind than ordinary flat solar panels are.

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solar power breakthrough at Massey

New solar cells developed by Massey University don't need direct sunlight to operate and use a patented range of dyes that can be impregnated in roofs, window glass and eventually even clothing to produce power.

Researchers at the centre have developed a range of synthetic dyes from simple organic compounds closely related to those found in nature, where light-harvesting pigments are used by plants for photosynthesis.

"This is a proof-of-concept cell," said researcher Wayne Campbell, pointing to a desktop demonstration model. "Within two to three years we will have developed a prototype for real applications. The key to everything is the ability of the synthetic dyes to pass on the energy that reaches them - something that mere coloured water could not do.

"This particular technology does not require the large infrastructure required for silicon chips and the like," said Professor Partridge. It lends itself to being taken up by local and New Zealand industries. Professor Partridge said the next step was to take the dyes and incorporate them in roofing materials, tinted window glass and wall panels where they could generate electricity for home owners.

The aim was to develop a solar cell that could convert as much sunlight as possible to electricity. "The energy that reaches Earth from sunlight in one hour is more than that used by all human activities in one year."

Full article here.

tidal power

The project is applying to use part of the tidal mouth of the Kaipara Harbour in northern New Zealand to generate electricity using submerged marine turbines. Crest Energy plans to generate power for 250,000 NZ homes, or 200 MW, by harnessing about 2.5% of the power of the tidal flows in to and out of the Kaipara Harbour.

For a rapid understanding of the Crest Kaipara Energy Project watch their slide show.



The Kaipara Harbour is a source of pride and the spiritual heartland of the Ngati Whatua people of northern New Zealand. It is one of the largest harbours in the world covering 900 square kilometres with 3000 kilometres of shoreline. The Kaipara extends for 60 kilometres north to south: halfway along its length it has a five kilometre mouth to the Tasman Sea.

Tidal turbines follow the same principles as wind turbines: the faster the current, and the larger the blades, the more power is generated. There are perhaps a dozen companies constructing tidal turbines and others joining the industry.

Crest Energy will develop infrastructure to place 200 turbines in the mouth of the Kaipara. We will offer the turbine locations, with connections to the national electricity grid, to turbine manufacturers, electricity generators and investors. The project should generate over 3% of New Zealand's supply.

Tidal and wind power generation have many similarities and some differences :

• Sea water is 830 times denser than air which means that a tidal turbine can generate much more power for the same flow
• Tidal power works for over 16 hours a day in all seasons
• Tidal turbines are totally submerged and therefore invisible
• Tidal turbines are silent

nanosolar 2

At the beginning of January I posted an article from this company.
It seems that Solar maybe finally becoming cost effective - ie as cheap as grid power!

Thin-film solar films are more than 100x thinner than silicon-wafer cells and thus have major materials cost advantages. Roll-printing production processes are simple, robust, and more than entire order-of-magnitude faster in throughput relative to vacuum-based thin-film deposition techniques.

Higher throughput drives vastly lower labor, capital, and process cost; it also enables unprecedented production volume scalability. The combination of thin films and roll-printing delivers low materials cost plus low process cost; the result is the world's most cost-efficient solar electricity cell:

Technology Wave	I. Silicon Wafer Cells	II. Vacuum-based Thin Film	III. Nanosolar Roll-Printed Thin Film
Process:	Silicon wafer processing	High vacuum (e.g. sputtering)	Roll-to-roll printing
Process Control:	Fragile wafers	Narrow process windows	Built-in bottom-up reproducibility
Process Yield:	Robust	Fragile	Robust
Materials Utilization:	30%	30-60%	Over 97%
Energy Payback:	3 years	1.7 years	<1 mnth
Throughput/CapEx	1	2-5	10-25

meet Betsy

She is a sweety, a soft blue, round and solid. Born in 1956 with lots of life in her yet, she has outlasted many new cars that have cycled in a few short years between the production line and the scrap heap.

As my friend Tom said after we had towed her home, she is an iconic piece of New Zealand history, and deserves to be honoured. When I first arrived in New Zealand in 1968, there were an abundance of Morris Minors on the road - imported in parts and assembled here in readiness for many adventures in a young country with a wonderful future.

The way these cars were built makes them easy to work on, and even I can learn and understand the basics of how the internal combustion engine works in this case. She was running, registered with a Warrant of Fitness, up until just over a year ago, so while she has no spark at the moment it shouldn't take too long before she bursts into life again, to begin her next adventure as our second family car.

nanosolar

Nanosolar is on track to make solar electricity:

• cost-efficient for ubiquitous deployment
• mass-produced on a global scale
• available in many versatile forms

Nanosolar has developed proprietary technology that makes it possible to simply roll-print solar cells that require only 1/100th as thick an absorber as a silicon-wafer cell (yet deliver similar performance and durability).

The technology dramatically lowers the process cost and complexity involved in the production of thin-film solar cells and makes it possible to scale production very rapidly.