Home Brew Solar Power
How I built an electricity producing Solar Panel
“Several years ago I bought some remote property in Arizona. I am an astronomer and wanted a place to practice my hobby far away from the sky-wrecking light pollution found near cities of any real size. I found a great piece of property. The problem is, it’s so remote that there is no electric service available. That’s not really a problem. No electricity equals no light pollution. However, it would be nice to have at least a little electricity, since so much of life in the 21st century is dependant on it.
I built a wind turbine to provide some power on the remote property. It works great, when the wind blows. However, I wanted more power, and more dependable power. The wind seems to blow all the time on my property, except when I really need it too. I do get well over 300 sunny days a year on the property though, so solar power seems like the obvious choice to supplement the wind turbine. Solar panels are very expensive though. So I decided to try my hand at building my own. I used common tools and inexpensive and easy to acquire materials to produce a solar panel that rivals commercial panels in power production, but completely blows them away in price. Read on for step by step instructions on how I did it. “
Harnessing sunlight on the cheap
Harnessing sunlight on the cheap
A team of students, led by mechanical engineering graduate student Spencer Ahrens, has spent the last few months assembling a prototype for a concentrating solar power system they think could revolutionize the field. It’s a 12-foot-square mirrored dish capable of concentrating sunlight by a factor of 1,000, built from simple, inexpensive industrial materials selected for price, durability and ease of assembly rather than for optimum performance.
Rather than aiming for a smooth parabolic surface that would bring the sunlight to a perfect focus, the dish is being made with 10-inch-wide by 12-foot-long strips of relatively low-cost, lightweight bathroom-type mirror glass. The frame is assembled from cheap aluminum tubing, with holes drilled in precise locations using a simple jig for alignment, so that the struts can be assembled into a framework that passively snaps into just the right parabolic curvature.
The control mechanism, which allows the dish to track the sun automatically across the sky, is also remarkably simple—photocells mounted on each side of the dish with opaque baffles, which cast a shadow on the cell when it drifts out of alignment, connect to a simple circuit that turns on small electric motors to push the dish back into the right position.
SUNRGI Develops XCPV System That Produces Solar Power As Cheap As Fossil Fuels
SUNRGI Develops XCPV System That Produces Solar Power As Cheap As Fossil Fuels
SUNRGI is a company which designs and develops solar energy systems, and they presented their latest project at National Energy Marketers Association’s 11th Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC. They created a technology what could produce electricity from solar power as cheap as coal.
The technology is based on XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics) which amplifies by 1,600 the energy coming from the Sun. This energy is concentrated on very efficient solar cells which will produce the electricity at a cost of 5 cents per kWh.
Craig Goodman, president of the National Energy Marketers Association, was very excited by this technology and he stated that “Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough. It would make solar generation of electricity as affordable as generation from coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy”.
Photosynthetic dimmer switch
Berkeley researchers identify photosynthetic dimmer switch
In a study of the molecular mechanisms by which plants protect themselves from oxidation damage should they absorb too much sunlight during photosynthesis, a team of researchers has discovered a molecular “dimmer switch” that helps control the flow of solar energy moving through the system of light harvesting proteins. This discovery holds important implications for the future design of artificial photosynthesis systems that could provide the world with a sustainable and secure source of energy.
The pigment-binding protein CP29, one of the “minor” light-harvesting proteins in green plants, has been identified as a valve that permits or blocks the critical release of excess solar energy during photosynthesis. Furthermore, it has been proposed that the opening and closing of this valve can be controlled by raising or lowering ambient pH levels.
Nanobot Solar Cells
Molecular Nanobots are the world’s smallest robots
In Japan photo-reactive nanocrystals are being developed for more efficient solar cell production. Rice University is developing methods that use the reactivity of nanoparticles to clean contaminants, especially biological contaminants from water. In agriculture, nano-sensors will be sprinkled on crops or soil to monitor temperature, water, salinity, nitrogen and disease. Robert Freitas is developing an artificial red blood cell able to deliver 236 times more oxygen to tissues than natural red blood cells. Freitas predicts his device will be used to treat anaemia and lung disorders, but also will enhance human performance in sport and warfare. Researchers at the Florida University have created a nanocapsule gel to deliver drugs into the eyes through soft contact lenses.
The importance of nanotechnology to the future of mankind cannot be overstated. Nanotech’s promise is clean industries, cures for disease, nearly unlimited energy supplies, a continuance of Moore’s Law, the end of hunger, and the elmination of aging. Welcome to Molecular Nanobots.
1,000 Acres of Giant Solar Mirrors to Rise in Israel’s Desert, Finally
1,000 Acres of Giant Solar Mirrors to Rise in Israel’s Desert, Finally
After seven years of dead-end negotiations, Israel will soon turn 1,000 acres in the Negev Desert into giant solar thermal stations.
The $700 million enterprise will comprise two plants to supply 250 megawatts of power in total, equal to 2.5 percent of the nation’s electricity needs.
And it’s slated for solar stardom.
When the plants come online in 2011, the project will be one of the biggest concentrating solar power (CSP) operations in the world. It will be a lucrative deal for the chosen builder, and an international bidding frenzy over who gets the contract could be just around the corner.
Floating solar concentrator with stirling generator
Print Solar Cells With an Inkjet Printer
Print Solar Cells With an Inkjet Printer
If you like the idea of solar power, but aren’t convinced by expensive, clunky solar panels just yet, here’s a more manageable option: print your own on an inkjet! Konarka Technologies has just debuted a printable solar panel film that uses a common inkjet printing process to manufacture paper-thin photovoltaic solar cells. Using the existing and very simple technologies of your office inkjet printer, Konarka has essentially replaced ink with the solar cell material, and paper with a thin flexible sheet of plastic.
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:
Essentially, the head of an inkjet printer deposits a material (ink) into a substrate (paper), and does so in a fairly cheap and quick manner. Konarka’s technique uses the solar cell material as ink, and a thin flexible plastic as paper. According to the company, the process creates solar cells which are almost as good as the clunky silicon ones, created with much more advanced technologies. However, these inkjet babies are much much cheaper.
“Demonstrating the use of inkjet printing technology as a fabrication tool for highly efficient solar cells and sensors with small area requirements is a major milestone,” stated Rick Hess, president and CEO at Konarka.
Unfortunately we probably won’t be seeing the Inkjet-solar-panel option flying off the shelves of Office Depot just yet, as it is currently only feasible for large productions of solar cells. However, it does mean that if the uptake of this technology happens relatively quickly, you will be seeing solar cells of different sizes and price-points appearing everywhere soon.
A Solar CEO’s Beef with Washington Lawmakers
A Solar CEO’s Beef with Washington Lawmakers | SolveClimate.com
July 4th 2007 was Nancy Pelosi’s energy independence day, a day when new legislation delivered by the Democratic majority was supposed to start delivering America out of the hands of fossil fuel interests and toward a responsible posture on global warming.
Not much happened in Congress then — or quite frankly, since — but something else did happen last July that’s worth remembering instead: the first step on the road to generating 10% to 20% of the nation’s energy from the sun by 2030, according to solar energy CEO Peter Duprey.
A project called Nevada Solar One got switched on in a place called Boulder City, Nevada. Congress didn’t notice even though it was the first plant of its kind to be built in 17 years, and was, in Duprey’s words, “the beginning of the resurgence of large-scale concentrated solar power in the US and the world.”
If the beef he has with Washington gets resolved, that is. Here’s the crux of it.
You’d think Solar One would be something Congress and the technology-minded White House would want to get behind with supportive renewable energy legislation, and in fact there’s a bill that got through Pelosi’s House. But the smart money says it will die in the Senate or get vetoed by the President. Meanwhile, in Washington, the State Department is hosting an international renewable energy jamboree in Washington this week called WIREC. Duprey is one of the speakers, but without the renewable law, it’s all only smoke and mirrors.
Nevada Solar One is chock full of mirrors, too, but there’s not a wisp of smoke. It looks like a 400-acre lake glistening in the desert under a crystal clear sky. It generates 64MW of electricity and powers more than 14,000 homes. Its 40-foot-high shiny parabolic troughs focus the sun’s rays onto a pipe filled with heat transfer fluid that heats up to 750 degrees. The hot fluid then turns water to steam, which turns a turbine, which generates electricity.
It does what a coal-fired power plant does, only it doesn’t need the coal. That’s as clean as coal can get.
More-Powerful Solar Cells
Technology Review: More-Powerful Solar Cells
1366 Technologies claims that it improves the efficiency—a measure of the electricity generated from a given amount of light—of multicrystalline silicon solar cells by 27 percent compared with conventional ones. The company’s efficiency and cost claims are based on results from small solar cells (about two centimeters across) made in the lab of Emanuel Sachs, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who is one of the company’s founders. 1366 Technologies is building a pilot-scale manufacturing plant that will make full-sized solar cells (about 15 centimeters across). Within a year, the company will decide whether its pilot-plant results justify building a factory for commercial production, Sachs says.
Commercial solar cells made from multicrystalline silicon are normally far less efficient than more expensive ones made from single-crystal silicon, but they’re cheaper. The 27 percent improvement will bring multicrystalline cells to efficiencies about the same as single-crystal cells—around 19.5 percent—at the lower costs. So, if the technology successfully scales up, Sachs says, it could significantly bring down the cost of solar electricity. Sachs says that today, solar cells cost about $2.10 per watt generated. When manufactured at a commercial scale, the first cells incorporating his new technology will cost $1.65 per watt. Planned improvements will bring down this cost to about $1.30 a watt, he says. To compete with coal, the cost will need to come down to about $1 a watt, something that Sachs predicts can be achieved by 2012 with further improvements in antireflection coatings and other anticipated advances.
The company’s first prototype solar cells include three key innovations to improve efficiency. The first is a method for adding texture to the surface of the cells that allows the silicon to absorb more light, a trick that’s been used before with single-crystalline devices but has been difficult to implement with multicrystalline silicon. The rough surface causes light to bend as it enters the cell so that when it encounters the back of the cell, it doesn’t reflect right back out; rather, it bounces off at a low angle and remains inside the slab of silicon. The longer the light remains within the silicon, the greater the chance that it will be absorbed and converted into electricity.
2 big projects will amp up solar power in Southland
2 big projects will amp up solar power in Southland
Solar energy is getting a big boost in Southern California with the unveiling of two projects that will be capable of generating a total of 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve more than 300,000 homes.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Southern California Edison plan to announce today the country’s largest rooftop solar installation project ever proposed by a utility company. And on Wednesday, FPL Energy, the largest operator of solar power in the U.S., said it planned to build and operate a 250-megawatt solar plant in the Mojave Desert.
The projects would help California meet its goal of obtaining 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. In 2006, about 13% of the retail electricity delivered by Edison and the state’s other two big investor-owned utilities came from renewable sources such as sun and wind, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.
Energy experts were struck by the size of the two projects, which would bolster the state’s current total of about 965 megawatts of solar power flowing to the electricity grid.
“Five hundred megawatts — that’s substantial,” said spokesman George Douglas of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Projects of that size begin to show that solar energy can produce electricity on a utility scale, on the kind of scale that we’re going to need.”
The Edison rooftop project will place photovoltaic cells on 65 million square feet of commercial building roofs in Southern California. The cells will generate as much as 250 megawatts of electricity — enough to power about 162,500 average homes, based on the utility’s estimate that one megawatt would serve about 650 average homes.
SolFocus “Recycled” CPV Systems
SolFocus “Recycled” CPV Systems
Many Photovoltaic Conversion systems are not a reliable solution due to their high costs and the large period of time necessary to retrieve your investment, but SolFocus Concentrated Photovoltaic systems are designed to offer you the lowest cost of energy. First of all, the CPV are made of recycled materials (over 95% glass and aluminum), which are cheaper, more reliable and easier to be maintained comparing to silicon or thin film cells.
The SolFocus CPV panels are guided by a dual axis tracker, designed by Inspira, which is already recognized for their pointing accuracy and tracking range, improving the efficiency by 40%. The primary and secondary mirrors are able to focus the solar energy up to 500 times onto the optical rod, which directs the solar energy to a very efficient solar cell. Many states offer financial help to achieve CPV systems, but regarding SolFocus CPV, you simply don’t need the help of the government to decide achieving them.
Rooftop Solar Concentrators
Soliant Energy, Inc.
Soliant Energy is a manufacturer of rooftop concentrating solar panels.
* Same dimensions and weight as a conventional solar panel
* Identical installation
* Optimized for the rooftop
* Fully integrated tracking within the panel
* Simple, reliable
* Low maintenance
Eco-Millionaires See Boom Times Ahead
Eco-Millionaires See Boom Times Ahead
Mankind’s response to climate change will shift how the world gets its energy and is already making “green barons” out of early investors in renewable energy, clean technologies and carbon trading.
Solar Technology
Bruce Khouri, co-founder of Solar Integrated Technologies, based in Los Angeles is one of a number entrepreneurs who are cashing in on the energy revolution and who say there is more money to be made.
At the age of 48, Khouri has made $5 million (NZ$7.3 million) by cashing in shares in the company and still holds an $11 million (NZ$16 million) stake in the company, which makes lightweight solar panels for commercial roofs. He saw the opportunity while running his own industrial roofing firm.
Do it yourself solar projects
BuildItSolar: Solar energy projects for Do It Yourselfers to save money and reduce pollution
