Renewable Revolution

Jan. 10, 2016, 7:05 pm by Commentary

Editor’s note: This commentary is by Adam Cohen, who is the president of Ranger Solar, a New England based solar energy company.

The sun provides a predictable energy supply without the price volatility, or emissions, of fossil fuels. The New England region has sufficient solar energy available to power more than 4 million homes. Technological innovations have helped reduce the cost of solar energy by about 76 percent since 2006. And Vermonters believe in both clean energy and nurturing a stronger, more diverse economy. What’s more, Vermont needs more power, at an affordable price, for homes and businesses.

These are the reasons Ranger Solar has proposed to develop five 20-megawatt solar projects in Vermont.

The potential projects in Sheldon, Highgate, Randolph, Brandon and Ludlow are a real, meaningful and measurable investment in Vermont’s economy. Each would generate 20-megawatts of power at prices far cheaper than existing renewable energy facilities, which helps people save money on their power bills.

Over the next 20 years, Ranger’s Vermont solar investments will collectively generate about 1,225 job years, $75 million in labor income, approximately $15 million in tax revenue for the state and local communities and add more than $125 million to Vermont’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We have been working closely with each local community to make our projects among the best-sited solar projects in the state and we are grateful for the local support we have already received.

Ranger’s solar projects are tightly contained and sited in an unobtrusive way, delivering the benefits of solar in the most efficient manner.

Perhaps most importantly to Vermonters who champion local solutions to climate change, our projects would each make a very substantial, and economically efficient, contribution to meeting Vermont’s renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets. This is a cause our team of veteran renewable energy and environmental specialists believes deeply in. All told these projects could displace over 190,000 tons of carbon, the equivalent of 2,021 cars operating over 20 years, and avoid about $162 million in carbon dioxide emissions costs.

With the closure of aging power plants in New England, the region faces a challenging time ahead as it seeks to provide clean, reliable, and reasonably-priced electricity to consumers. According to the 2015 Regional Energy Outlook issued by the New England Independent System Operator (ISO-NE), the majority of electric generation resources on the New England power system today are traditional, grid-connected generators fueled by imported fossil fuels.

Vermont’s policymakers have established emission reduction goals and renewable energy targets that are consistent with residents’ commitment to combatting climate change while securing the state’s energy future. Yet, Vermont currently ranks 50th in net electrical energy generation by state, and as of the end of 2014, hosted less than 10 percent of New England installed solar capacity. The vast majority is in Massachusetts and Connecticut. We will need to do better if our goals are to be more than merely symbolic.


Ranger’s solar projects are tightly contained and sited in an unobtrusive way, delivering the benefits of solar in the most efficient manner. Relying solely on behind the meter and distributed solar projects will make Vermont’s targets extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach. And small-scale projects come at a higher cost. On the whole, to produce an equivalent amount of energy to Ranger’s projects, would require hundreds or even thousands of smaller developments on the landscape, eating up in aggregate more land while producing more expensive energy.

Meeting Vermont’s energy and economic objectives also requires that Vermont’s utilities stand by their commitment to the triple bottom line of “cost, carbon and reliability” by welcoming the energy diversity and lower costs that Ranger’s solar projects deliver, even if our lower cost power means marginally lower returns for their shareholders.

Ultimately, our goal is to bring new investment and more affordable clean energy to Vermont with projects that make sense for communities, ratepayers and regulators. We understand and value community dialogue, rigorous oversight and siting standards as illustrated by the letters of support we have received from communities like Sheldon. We’re an organization composed of renewable energy and environmental professionals. We’re committed to doing this right. And we look forward to producing affordable, long-term, stably priced power at lower, more economically competitive rates. 


http://vtdigger.org/2016/01/10/adam-cohen-ranger-solar-projects-right-for-vermont/

Posted on January 15, 2016  by sunadmin   
 
◾These Grade specifications for modules have changed over time and by manufacturing companies in  different parts of  the world.

At the Photowatt PV Factory, in the 70’s, where I used to work, module grades were based on output only.  It had nothing to do with how a module looked. An A grade module was 10% above the rated output, a B grade module was right on, and a C grade was 10% below. In other words, if it was a 100 watt module, the A’s were about 110 watts, the B’s were about 100 watts and the C grade modules were about 90 watts. Orders will filled pretty much by the luck of the draw.

The smartest customer we had at the time, Gene Hitney, one of the pioneers of the PV industry, would always come in by the back loading dock and he’d scope out the modules before getting to the sales center, up front where I worked. So he already knew more about the stock then I did. Usually, he’d manage to cherry pick us to death for our best inventory.

At Photowatt small minute cosmetic imperfections were allowed.  Modules with larger cosmetic imperfections were thrown in the garbage at the end of the assembly line, that is, until I or the technicians, started asking for them. Those and the low power modules were sold to a guy who was friends of the General Manager and he resold them to the sailors. Nowadays, factories, with much larger production volume, just create new modules with new model numbers and data sheets for these larger quantities, of lower output but perfectly good modules.

In the 70’s and early 80’s every manufacturer had a + or – 10% power output allowance, and 10 year warranties were standard. Then came the warranty war, from 15 years to 20, 25 and then one company even offered a 30 year warranty a few years ago but no mfrs. followed them. No one cared, 25 years was long enough, I think.

In the 90’s and 2,000’s, Suntech, the world’s largest manufacturer, used different wording for grades, Perfect grade, then A, then B Grades. Their Perfect grade was actually just an A grade, A grade equaled a B, and B grade was a grade C, if you compared their module grades to all the other manufacturers.

For a long time, in some places, like China, many manufacturers didn’t know what the difference was between a grade B or C. For them any module that was not an A grade was simply a Grade B and it ends right there.

The basic difference between a B and an A, is that B grade modules have slight minute cosmetic imperfections that are almost imperceptible to the eye. 12 years ago we got a call one day Alan King from Evergreen. He said, I’ve got a lot of B Grade modules here would you be interested in them. The price was about 35% less than their A Grade. They had the same warranty, 25 years and UL so I said sure. There was a huge demand at the time from Europe (especially the German’s) but they wanted nothing to do with B Grade, so we had them all to ourselves. Then they changed their minds after we sold many tens of thousands of them into Europe and they bought them all at a higher price and installed them on solar farms, and commercial and residential applications.

We got another call from Alan and he said he had C Grade at 45% less than A Grade. We ordered a pallet to look at them and they were 95% identical to B Grade. They did not have UL or a Warranty . Christy my daughter and our Phoenix sales team took an A, B and a C Grade module of 250 watts ea. to a PV show and displayed them side by side at our booth and asked people to identify which was which and basically, no one could do it. The prices were substantially different and the lifetimes were identical. Only the warranty and the certification on the C Grade was substantially different.

The basic difference between a grade B and a grade C is that C grade modules  have the same type of cosmetic imperfections but just more of them and they’re larger. But even most C grade modules’ imperfections are difficult to spot unless someone shows them to you from 7 feet away.

B grade cosmetic imperfections include a tiny chip on the edge or corner of a couple cells, a scratch on a frame, a scratch on the glass, a bubble under the tedlar backskin, a few missing gridlines on a cell, a small piece of foreign matter under the glass, a slightly discolored cell and micro-cracks. C grade cosmetic imperfections are exactly the same B Grade but there are more of them. They are still usually very difficult to see from 8 away.

Micro-cracks are small invisible cracks you can usually only see in an electro-luminescence testing machine on the assembly line. Basically the mfrs. put the panel in front of a special bright light, if there are any major micro-cracks they take these modules and separate them. The substantial majority of micro-cracks occur mainly after the modules have been manufactured and passed this inspection. The handling: packing, transportation and the installation cause the most.

Kyocera Solar, where I worked for 6 years, allows A grade modules to have small chips on the cell edges but they will only tolerate a certain size chip about 1 mm by 1 mm, I believe, and on just a couple cells like that. They have no B modules, per say, but rather, if there is a small cosmetic imperfection they actually repair them in the factory. I have toured the Kyocera plant and actually saw the tolerance allowances and the location where they “operated” on these modules and turned them into “perfect” looking modules again. Or, they catch the grade B cells before the module assembly and manufacturing and sell them to other manufacturers in China, India, etc. to be cut and made into garden, pathway, decorative lights.

Dozens of the world’s top name brands have sold us tens of thousands of  B and C grade modules over the years, including Kyocera, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Sharp, Astronergy, Topoint, AUO, LG, Suntech, Suniva, Solar World, Solarex, BP Solar, Sungen, Dupont, Photowatt, Sovello, GE Solar, Apollo Solar, Schott, Evergreen, Sovello, and many others. If they weren’t safe, you can be sure they would not be selling them to us.

They like to sell them to us, because we can sell them outside of the country where they will not disrupt their distribution networks. And, because of the size of our international distribution network, They also know that we can be trusted to respect and protect the safety of our customers and those that use these modules. We make sure that everyone we sell to, knows that the only use of these modules is for battery based, low voltage (12, 24, or 48 volt) off-grid or hybrid systems.

Grade D modules are generally considered unusable and thrown out. They include modules with broken glass, short circuits, or modules with cracks that are horizontal, across a cell, and that intersect all the bus bars (usually two or three per cell) on the surface of the cells. Modules with cells like this are destroyed or in rare cases, (Kyocera is the only company I have ever seen that does this), are repaired.

I was told once by an employee at GE Solar that If you had shaded a large array, and you shaded just one cell (say with a leaf) and that cell had a major micro crack, and it was a grid tied system (they use high voltage (approximately 300 volts),  you could have serious hot spotting. A hot spot short and can go to 300 degrees F. in about 1 min. Luckily modules made with glass have an extremely difficult time burning. According to the Insurance Industry research we had done by our Hartford  Insurance Agent, there has never been a case of any house burning because of solar modules.

We regularly sell Perfect Suntech, and A, B, and C modules from some of the largest manufacturers in the world who gladly sell them to us without fear of anyone’s house burning down. We are talking about some of the largest module manufacturers in the world here. Almost all of these modules come with flash test reports attached to the top of each pallet and in every case it shows B and C Grade modules put out exactly the same power as their Grade A modules and the same lifetime.

I have worked in the solar industry for 37 years, for 3 U.S. Congressmen, the Governor of Arizona’s Arizona Solar Energy Commission, Photocomm, Photowatt Int., and Kyocera Solar Int. and have owned my own solar electric company for 20 years. Grade B, C, and in some cases even D modules are the best thing that ever happened to the PV Industry. The drop in prices for these readily available modules is astonishing.

In the last 20 years we have sold about 40,000 Grade B, C, and a few carefully selected D modules. Most of the B and C have been Evergreen Solar Modules.The Evergreen Ribbon Technology is one of the only different crystalline modules because it uses only a fraction of the silicon of any other crystalline module made in the industry today. When the cost of silicon shoots up the competitive value of this efficient manufacturing technology keeps Evergreen Modules in high demand. This Ribbon technology was developed by MIT and Mobile Oil Int. then purchased by Evergreen Solar in Mass., it’s an American Company.

To this day we have never had one Evergreen B module come back. There has never been a module short reported either. We make it a point to tell people that our own brand of C grade modules should only be used for low voltage applications like off grid independent homes or systems with 12, 24 and 48 volt battery banks.

The result of not just destroying less than Perfect modules has been a blessing to thousands of people as it has enabled them to have a better life or to get a PV system at a significantly lower price.

The most popular solar company on the internet is not always the best company to buy your modules from. Home Depot, Wholesale Solar and most others on the first page of Goggle under the search term Solar Panels, sell their PV modules at a set price rather than an easy to compare $/watt price. For single modules, Wholesale Solar’s site does offer $/watt pricing on about a dozen modules. Those dozen modules average a $/watt price of approximately $1.07/watt.

Home Depot has never had $/watt pricing. Their most popular brand, Grape Solar, sells for $$370 or $1.39/watt for a 265 watt module. For over 25 years, Sun Electronics has always shown their modules in $/watt prices, this is very important. Our current best prices are $.48 to $.58/watt for grade A with major brand names,

Our current advertised price on Grade B modules is  $.19/watt to $.26/watt from Sharp Solar.  They come with a 20 year warranty and are in stock in our warehouse not someone else’s.

WHAT ARE GRADE A, B, and C, PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULES ?

Thank you and have a great day. 


John Kimball

Owner

Cell 305-498-1863

Call me anytime.
http://sunelec.com/blog/

For 30 years, SunPower has led the way with record-setting technologies and innovative solar solutions, and our cutting-edge approach to sustainability is renowned for its positive impact on the environment and our communities. No other solar company offers such a complete package.

http://us.sunpower.com/why-sunpower/solar-energy-solutions-partner/
Our Maxeon® solar cell is fundamentally different. And dramatically better. With its unique copper foundation, our cell delivers unmatched reliability and allows us to build panels with the world record for highest efficiency.* Talk about illuminating.

- See more at: http://us.sunpower.com/why-sunpower/high-efficiency-solar-technology/#sthash.WPgxjz6G.dpuf

Derek Markham (@derekmarkham)
Technology / Solar Technology
 January 29, 2016


Over the next five years, France will install some 621 miles (1,000km) of solar roadway using Colas' Wattway solar pavement.

Solar freakin' roadways! No, this is not the crowdfunded solar road project that blew up the internet a few years ago, but is a collaboration between Colas, a transport infrastructure company, and INES (France's National Institute for Solar Energy), and sanctioned by France's Agency of Environment and Energy Management, which promises to bring solar power to hundreds of miles of roads in the country over the next five years.

One major difference between this solar freakin' roadway and that other solar freakin' roadway is that the new Wattway system doesn't replace the road itself or require removal of road surfaces, but instead is designed to be glued onto the top of existing pavement.

The Wattway system is also built in layers of materials "that ensure resistance and tire grip," and is just 7 mm thick, which is radically different from that other design that uses thick glass panels (and which is also claimed to include LED lights and 'smart' technology, which increases the complexity and cost of the moose-friendly solar tiles).

According to Colas, the material is strong enough to stand up to regular traffic, even heavy trucks, and 20 m² of Wattway panels is said to provide enough electricity to power a single average home in France, with a 1-kilometer stretch of Wattway road able to "provide the electricity to power public lighting in a city of 5,000 inhabitants   ."


According to Global Construction Review, tenders for France's “Positive Energy” initiative have already been issued, and tests on the solar roadway panels will begin this spring, although the exact locations (and costs) for the project have not been specified. No word yet on whether these roads will be moose-friendly. 

More information about the solar roadway project can be found at the Wattway website.

http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/france-pave-1000km-roads-solar-panels.html

"All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed, only to emerge all the more triumphantly from the struggle.
…

Our duty is to lay the foundation for those that are to come, and to point the way
Yes, humanity will advance with giant strides
We are whirling through endless space at an inconceivable speed
All around everything is spinning; everything is moving;

Everywhere, there is energy! "  Nikola Tesla

Fossil fuel industry reaction to the above: 

Feb. 12, 2016, 10:58 am by Mike Polhamus 6 Comments

Suncommon  (at link)
Vermont has the third-most solar industry jobs per resident of any state in the Union, according to a report published Monday by Washington, D.C.-based group The Solar Foundation.

Next year’s solar job market is expected to continue expanding, the report states, with an anticipated 13 percent growth in 2016. Forecasts show the state’s workforce as a whole growing only 0.4 percent, according to thereport.

Industry representatives say the state has done a good job of exploiting a profitable business sector, that is likely to grow even more lucrative in coming years.

“It’s exciting to see Vermont taking its share of this new, clean type of economy,” said Andrew Savage, spokesman for solar parts manufacturer All Earth Renewables. “These jobs are happening; either Vermont’s going to get them, or they’ll go elsewhere.”

The relatively high percentage of solar jobs in Vermont are from the manufacturing sector, Savage said. This industry sells products out of state and isn’t dependent on sales associated with Vermont’s local solar needs.

Two hundred seventy solar businesses in the state employed 1,367 workers in 2015. Of Vermont’s solar jobs, around 800 are in installation, and about 250 are in manufacturing. Installers make an average of $23 per hour; figures for manufacturing wages are not available.

Installation and manufacturing represent about 60 and 18 percent of the solar job force, respectively. Sales and distribution jobs employ another 7 percent of Vermont’s solar workers, and project development another 5 percent; 11 percent are classified as “other.”

Savage said the actual number of Vermonters working in the solar energy may be much higher.

“I think there are a lot of professionals starting to work in the solar industry, but it’s only 30 or 40 percent of the work they do,” he said.

Suncommon  (at link)
Electricians install the last solar panels at the home of SunCommon’s 1,000th customer in Barre Town on Tuesday. Photo by John Herrick/VTDigger

Most of the state’s solar jobs — just over 60 percent — are residential installations, the Solar Foundation report found.

The share of jobs devoted to large, “utility-scale” installations is less than half the share of these jobs in all solar employment nationwide, with 8.4 percent in Vermont and 21.5 percent across the country.

In 2015 alone, the state put 34.4 megawatts of solar energy into use, bringing total installed solar capacity in Vermont to 104.4 megawatts.

Andrew Perchlik, director of Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund, said solar companies will continue to employ more people in the near future because of an extension of a large federal tax break for new solar installations, and new net metering rules soon to be promulgated by the Vermont Public Service Board could also have an impact, Perchlik said.

“We thought 2016 was going to be a mad rush to get everything installed that you could before the tax credit was going to expire in December this year,” Perchlik said. “But the issue in Vermont became the net metering cap.”

Vermont’s Public Service Board previously capped the amount of energy the state’s utilities may purchase through net metered installations at 15 percent. That number could easily increase when the Board releases new net metering rules, which are due to take effect in the beginning of 2017.

The rules’ first drafts are likely to released by the end of the month, Perchlik said.

The Public Service Department, of which Perchlik is a functionary, is seeking to eliminate the net metering cap altogether, he said.

The cap was intended to protect ratepayers from the relatively high rates utilities pay to purchase net metered energy; those rates are intended to incent solar development within the state, Perchlik said. Some ideal price would presumably accomplish both aims, he said.

The state is scheduled to release another report on the clean energy industry in April, Perchlik said, and that’s likely to give additional details on some of the information the Solar Foundation report contains.

http://vtdigger.org/2016/02/12/vermont-has-third-highest-per-capita-number-of-solar-jobs-in-the-nation/

Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft breaks solar power distance record
Posted on January 21, 2016 by Stephen Clark


NASA’s Juno spacecraft bound for a rendezvous with Jupiter in July has set a record as the most distant solar-powered space probe ever flown.

Juno broke the record previously held by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft Jan. 13 as it flew about 493 million miles (793 million kilometers) from the sun, NASA said in a press release announcing the milestone.

When it enters orbit around Jupiter on July 4, the Juno spacecraft will become the first solar-powered mission to reach the gas giant, beginning 20 months of commissioning and science observations aimed at studying the structure of the planet’s interior and atmosphere.

Juno carries three large solar panels, each one 9 feet wide and 29 feet long, to generate electricity.

Shortly after the mission’s launch in 2011, the solar power system could convert sunlight into 14 kilowatts of energy. When Juno reaches Jupiter, which orbits five times farther from the sun than Earth, the spacecraft must operate on 500 watts.

Half of Juno’s electricity budget goes to its thermal system to keep the spacecraft at a comfortable temperature. The balance goes toward communications, computers, propulsion and operating the probe’s seven scientific instruments and color camera.

All eight probes that previously explored the realm of the solar system now occupied by Juno relied on nuclear power sources, but the U.S. government’s stockpile of space-grade plutonium was diminishing when engineers designed Juno, prompting a decision to build three huge solar panels for the spacecraft.

Juno’s solar panels are arranged in a triangular shape in space. All together, the panels have an area of about 635 square feet, larger than most studio apartments.

Juno’s solar panels consist of 18,698 individual cells, each measuring approximately 3.7 inches by 2.25 inches. The rectangular cells are made of silicon and gallium arsenide.

A rocket firing will steer the Juno spacecraft into a polar orbit around Jupiter, kicking off about 20 months of science observations comprising more than 30 laps around the huge gas giant.

Juno will initially be captured in a long, egg-shaped orbit that takes 53.5 days to complete one trip around Jupiter. A follow-up maneuver in October will reduce the high point of Juno’s orbit, moving it closer to the planet to allow the craft to complete one lap every 14 days.

That is a change from Juno’s original flight plan, which called for the probe to first go into a 107-day orbit, then switch to an 11-day orbit.

Scientists say the new plan allows Juno to complete a first look at meeting the mission’s science goals, which are centered on Jupiter’s interior, atmosphere and magnetic field, in shorter time than previously anticipated. But it means Juno will need 20 months, five months longer than originally planned, to collect the mission’s full data set.

Besides the challenges imposed by the distance from the sun to Jupiter, engineers had to account for the harsh radiation environment around the giant planet.

Engineers conducted extra testing before Juno’s launch to ensure the solar cells, computers and wiring in the spacecraft’s power and control system can endure Jupiter’s doughnut-shaped radiation belts as it passes as close as 3,100 miles over the planet’s cloud tops, closer than any mission before.

Juno will encounter radiation equivalent to receiving 100 million dental X-rays during its mission at Jupiter.

Juno’s flight computers, avionics and commanding system are wrapped inside a solid titanium box on top of the spacecraft. Known as the vault, the radiation-shielding container is about the size of a microwave oven and weighs nearly 500 pounds fully loaded.

But the solar panels could not be put in the vault, so engineers doubled the thickness of the cover glass over each cell to protect them from radiation. Otherwise, Juno’s solar cells are off the shelf, meeting the same qualification levels required for other space missions.

Engineers expect the solar cells to degrade over time as they are zapped by radiation, but not within Juno’s 20-month primary mission.

ESA’s first spacecraft to visit the outer solar system, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, set for launch in 2022 will rely on solar power for its mission to study three of the planet’s largest moons. JUICE will eventually swing into orbit around Ganymede, becoming the first mission to enter orbit around one of Jupiter’s moons.

NASA’s Europa mission, an uncrewed probe in development to repeatedly fly past Jupiter’s most famous moon, will also use solar power generators. Managers chose solar power over nuclear power for the mission in 2014.   

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/01/21/jupiter-bound-juno-spacecraft-breaks-solar-power-distance-record/




NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter has broken the record to become humanity's most distant solar-powered emissary. The milestone occurred at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST, 19:00 UTC) on Wednesday, Jan. 13, when Juno was about 493 million miles (793 million kilometers) from the sun.

The previous record-holder was the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, whose orbit peaked out at the 492-million-mile (792-million-kilometer) mark in October 2012, during its approach to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

"Juno is all about pushing the edge of technology to help us learn about our origins," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We use every known technique to see through Jupiter's clouds and reveal the secrets Jupiter holds of our solar system’s early history.  It just seems right that the sun is helping us learn about the origin of Jupiter and the other planets that orbit it."

Launched in 2011, Juno is the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate at such a great distance from the sun. That's why the surface area of solar panels required to generate adequate power is quite large. The four-ton Juno spacecraft carries three 30-foot-long (9-meter) solar arrays festooned with 18,698 individual solar cells. At Earth distance from the sun, the cells have the potential to generate approximately 14 kilowatts of electricity. But transport those same rectangles of silicon and gallium arsenide to a fifth rock from the sun distance, and it’s a powerfully different story.

"Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth, and the sunlight that reaches that far out packs 25 times less punch," said Rick Nybakken, Juno's project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "While our massive solar arrays will be generating only 500 watts when we are at Jupiter, Juno is very efficiently designed, and it will be more than enough to get the job done."

Prior to Juno, eight spacecraft have navigated the cold, harsh underlit realities of deep space as far out as Jupiter. All have used nuclear power sources to get their job done. Solar power is possible on Juno due to improved solar-cell performance, energy-efficient instruments and spacecraft, a mission design that can avoid Jupiter’s shadow, and a polar orbit that minimizes the total radiation. Juno’s maximum distance from the sun during its 16-month science mission will be about 517 million miles (832 million kilometers), an almost five percent increase in the record for solar-powered space vehicles.

"It is cool we got the record and that our dedicated team of engineers and scientists can chalk up another first in space exploration," said Bolton. "But the best is yet to come. We are achieving these records and venturing so far out for a reason -- to better understand the biggest world in our solar system and thereby better understand where we came from."

Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4 of this year. Over the next year the spacecraft will orbit the Jovian world 33 times, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops every 14 days.  During the flybys, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study Jupiter’s aurorae to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.


For more information about Juno visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/juno and

http://missionjuno.swri.edu



DC Agle
 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
 818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

2016-009


Last Updated: Jan. 13, 2016

Editor: Martin Perez

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-juno-spacecraft-breaks-solar-power-distance-record

Agelbert NOTE: If you finished college more than five years ago, and studied the solar system while you were there,  as the following video will patiently explain to you, everything you were taught about how the solar system was formed is wrong.

Of course this sort of new knowledge never makes the papers.

It's embarrassing to the scientist PhD poobahs who don't like their theories being shredded in public by reality.

So they filter it out to us little by little. But it does make for some nice profits from the rewriting of Planetary science textbooks.


God did it. Scientists have difficulties with that even though all the evolutionary models make no scientific sense whatsoever. 

Feb 29, 2016 Authors Laurie Guevara-​Stone Writer / Editor
Joseph Goodman, Ph.D. Manager

With Nevada rolling back net metering and solar company stock prices falling, one might think the solar industry is in big trouble. In fact, a recent New York Times article stated that SolarCity and other residential solar companies face a cloudy future. The article implies that the solar business model is based largely on subsidies (federal, state, and local), and therefore highly exposed to regulatory changes. Yet we believe the opposite is true: the solar industry will continue to have sustained and significant growth despite SolarCity stock woes and net metering policy changes. And here are ten reasons why:

1. PV companies are diversifying

The PV industry is increasingly diversifying, making it more resilient to incidents of bad policy. “While the New York Times article focused on residential solar, that segment is less than 25 percent of the market,” according to RMI Associate Kevin Brehm. In fact, SolarCity, a company commonly associated with rooftop solar, is now building and owning utility-scale solar projects. As companies diversify they are less exposed to policy risk that may affect one segment, such as the Nevada policy change.

2. The PV industry is global

On a global scale, new markets will enable the U.S. PV industry to grow despite short-term recessions in local markets. In October of 2015, global information and analysis company IHS predicted 2015 global PV demand would reach 59 GW, 33 percent higher than 2014, and 2016 would reach 65 GW. This growth is largely due to increased demand in China, India, and other emerging economies. “It’s a growing global market and U.S. developers are really well positioned to capture that market,” says Brehm. For example, SunPower has been diversifying into markets including the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, and 50 percent of SunEdison’s project pipeline is outside the U.S. First Solar is also going global with over 60 percent of its 2015 Q2 potential booking opportunities (16.7 GW) coming from international markets. “This global diversification mitigates local, state, and federal electricity policy changes to a great extent and helps to insulate the solar PV industry from microeconomic vagaries,” according to Anthony Coker, VP of Market Development for Hannah Solar.

3. Solar PV is a proven and robust technology

Standard solar PV module warranties currently range from 25–30 years and product lifetimes are far exceeding manufacturers’ warranties. Many early off-grid adopters are still harvesting solar energy from modules installed in the ‘70’s. Even inverters are getting out of the reliability hot seat with over 20 year warranty extensions based on the belief that if products fail at 15 years they will delight customers with higher-efficiency longer-lifetime replacements.

4. Solar PV cost is beating fossil fuels

According to Lazard’s latest Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE 9.0), the levelized cost of electricity for utility-scale solar PV without subsidies is beating conventional alternatives in many parts of the U.S.—even with current low fossil fuel prices. First Solar recently agreed to sell power from its 100 MW solar plant in Nevada for 3.87 cents per kilowatt-hour (escalating at 3 percent per year), thought to be the lowest electricity price ever. And last June, Austin Energy received bids for over 1.2 MW of PV projects under 5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

5. Cost of solar PV will continue to fall

PV costs in all segments are expected to continue down. According to LCOE 9.0, “The levelized cost of rooftop solar PV is expected to decline in coming years, primarily as a result of more efficient installation techniques, lower costs of capital, and improved supply chains.” Canadian Solar estimates that the cost of the modules will fall 25 percent in the next three years, and GTM Research predicts that through balance of systems cost reductions, PV system prices will fall an average of 40 percent by 2020. Economies of scale along with improved business processes in a newly emerging industry will continue to drive down costs.

6. The industry is attracting top talent

Forbes “Top 30 under 30” list of the brightest entrepreneurs and change agents under the age of 30 has a disproportionate share of PV talent compared to market cap. The new generation of leaders is bringing a pragmatic outlook honed in the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Yet, where previous generations largely fled green agendas this pragmatic generation has analyzed the long-term trends that will play out in our lifetime and see renewable energy and energy efficiency as sure bets for both job security and satisfaction.

7. Decommissioned coal plants will drive surge in PV demand 

Even with the unknown outcome of the challenge to the Clean Power Plan, a total of 46,000 MW of coal generation is on track to close in the ten years spanning 2012–2022. Just last July the 200th coal plant shut down in the U.S. As coal assets are decommissioned, solar PV is likely to step in and cover a large share of the capacity need. Solar PV is affordable, and with falling storage prices, it can be a great alternative to coal. According to Brehm, “The war on coal is over. Now it’s just a question of rebuilding and solar will be a large portion of that generation capacity.” Duke Energy, which installed over 200 MW of solar in 2015, has stated that despite what happens with the Clean Power Plan, any new generation it installs will be in natural gas and renewables. Coker adds, “No one is arguing for a single silver bullet—one generation source for the global economy’s electricity. Rather, we are seeing a displacement of coal by lower-priced gas, solar, and wind in many regions. Economics are dictating the change.”

8. Completely untapped markets still exist

New solar business models will create access for more customers. There is currently a huge market for low-to-moderate income households in the U.S. Less than 0.04 percent of these families have solar PV systems, which we estimate at a $250 billion dollar market in the U.S. alone. And worldwide, over a billion people have no access to electricity at all. As PV costs continue to decline and more developing countries enact policies supporting renewable energy expansion and continue to push for electrification to drive economic development, the solar PV market is poised to grow at an incredible rate in those countries. Solar PV can reach these populations providing them with clean, reliable, and affordable electricity.

9. New solar markets segments are emerging in mature markets such as the U.S.

Even if some currently active solar market segments stagnate, there are significant new markets opening up. Community solar is a large currently untapped market. There are currently 65 MW of community solar installed in the U.S. with an estimated 250 GW market potential. “Community-scale solar is an exciting segment of the market. Increasing demand from rural electric coops, community-based organizations, and local municipalities is driving developers and service providers to innovate new technology and business solutions,” according to RMI Associate Kieran Coleman. “Clearly this is a very early stage nascent sector that has huge potential to meet broader need.”

10. Business models are being continuously innovated

While the New York Times article makes it sound as though SolarCity and other companies’ business models have inherent flaws and risks, we believe that business models are continuously changing. Whether it is a non-profit organization like Clean Energy for Us, a for-profit solar company such as PosiGen, or a utility such as Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, there is continuous innovation to make solar more affordable, accessible, and profitable. Even large, conservative investor-owned utilities are adding more solar (e.g., Southern Company with its three military bases of over 90 MW under construction and several large utility scale solar farms publicly announced by Mississippi Power) forging new solar business models in highly regulated markets. “And regulators like the New York Public Utilities Commission play an equally important role in opening the field in business model innovation in current and emerging sectors,” adds Coleman.


So while states like Hawaii and Nevada end net metering, and solar companies’ stock values fall with the market like oil and gas or banking stocks, we feel the solar industry does not face a cloudy future. Far from it.

Policies, regulations, and the stock market can’t stop the continued growth of this clean, affordable, reliable technology; the future of solar PV is bright.


http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2016_02_29_top_10_reasons_why_solar_pv_has_reached_escape_velocity