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Author Topic: Photvoltaics (PV)  (Read 20898 times)

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AGelbert

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Solar Dropping Wholesale Electricity Prices Like A Bad Habit (Charts) 



Agelbert NOTE:The article is great but I got a kick out of the comments. It seems quite a few of us were on to the fossil fuel utility "energy expert" BULLSHIT game from the start.  ;D


COMMENTS:

Quote
Jouni Valkonen 
• 8 hours ago
And soon batteries will eliminate that evening spike and little bit later also morning spike will be eliminated.

Adam Devereaux 
• 7 hours ago
Isn't it incredible how solar went from a technology that could never generate an appreciable amount of power to a technology that is bad because it steals profits away from utilities and disrupts the standard revenue pattern? ;)

Zachary Shahan Top Commenter > Adam Devereaux 
• 6 hours ago
Ha ha, so incredible and cool. (And also from a power source that "couldn't be integrated into the grid at more than ~5% of the power supply" :P Funny how that claim turned out. :D)

Matt > Zachary Shahan 
• 3 hours ago
People still try to use the "can't be integrated" line. Its like living in Oz. But instead of "Ignore the man be hid the curtain" it is "Ignore those countries in Europe" ;D

Zachary Shahan Top Commenter > Matt 
• 2 hours ago
True.

SecularAnimist 
• 3 hours ago
The utility company alarmism about "integrating solar into the grid" was always a bit of a red herring. That may be a relevant issue if you are talking about integrating utility-scale solar power plants into the grid. But it is mostly irrelevant with regard to distributed end-user solar power, which doesn't really have to be "integrated" into the grid. As far as the grid is concerned, it just looks like demand reduction. Which, as is becoming apparent, is what the utilities were really worried about all along.


Zachary Shahan Top Commenter > SecularAnimist 
• 2 hours ago
Well summarized.

Dave R 
• 2 hours ago
Got any data on California wholesale prices? There's enough solar on the California grid (~3GW utility scale, ~2GW distributed) that we should be seeing a similar effect there as well.
agelbert > Dave R 
• 7 minutes ago
I would be interested in that too. California has double whammy going on in favor of solar and wind because the new surcharge on dirty energy is raising the cost of fossil fuels as the renewable energy cost goes down. Good!


http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/12/solar-dropping-wholesale-electricity-prices-like-bad-habit-charts/

Do NOT expect Charles Hall, Gail Tverberg, Nicole Foss, Tyler Durden or any of the other "energy" pundits out there to own up to the FACT that they pushed the fossil fuel mendacious propaganda for years! Now they are getting SO quiet about what they previously loudly claimed (up about one year ago when the Renewable Energy tsunami began to eat into their cred).   

INFAMOUS Fossil Fuel Propaganda about Renewable Energy:


It is too expensive - It is not competitive with fossil fuels - It's over subsidized with feed in tariffs while fossil fuels are cheap (no mention of fossil fuel gigantic subsidies LOL!) - It's a fad - it's pie in the sky - it's hopium and fartum - it's magical thinking - it's EROI is too low! - it's polluting! - it's unhealthy! - it's a niche -  we need to better use our resources! - it lowers our GDP! - it makes us less powerful as a country! - it's a drop in the bucket - it takes food off the table  - it will destabilize the grid! - it hurts the poor - it's a bad investment - the upfront costs are too high -  it isn't cost effective -  it isn't reliable - it won't last because we will always have to use fossil fuels to make the machinery for it  -  it's ugly and lowers real estate values - it can't respond to demand spikes and people will freeze to death in winter or roast in summer from lack of RELIABLE fossil fuel power!  - it cuts into health insurance profits because less people get SICK from fossil and nuclear fuel poisons (Actually they didn't say this because it is the only statement of all the above that is actually  true!).  ;D
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2014, 02:58:44 pm »

When I set out to build the Bug-Out PV Kit, I did so for a number of reasons. There were a number of questions I had in my own mind...

What is a reasonably sized portable PV Set-up? Is it even practical to design a mobile PV kit? How much would such a kit cost at current prices?

How many and exactly what kind of batteries would be required for such a system?

How much power could such a set-up yield, and what could you do with it?

How often would you need to resort to a grid-based battery charger or a portable generator to keep the batteries charged?

How easy would it be to monitor the system and keep the batteries properly topped off. Would I need to check them daily? Weekly? Hourly?

Some questions I forgot to ask, but would eventually answer:

How much storage space would it take to accommodate all the parts of this system?

How much would the system weigh?

All the handy calculators on the internet designed to help you estimate PV system size work the same way. They begin by getting you to estimate your daily power needs, and then help you figure out how many amp-hours of battery storage it might take to provide that amount of power. After that, you calculate how many panels you need to keep those batteries charged, based on how many sunny hours per day you expect to experience, and how many days of no sun you might need to plan for, based on your geographic location.

For a kit like the one I envisioned, I needed to work from the other direction. How many panels were practical to carry around? What kind of panels were available that met the criteria of being easily portable? Were they 12 Volt? 24 Volt?

I decided to buy 12 Volt 120 W folding panels, with light weight integral folding legs, made sort of like a card table. I first bought two of those, and then eventually decided I could add a third one, after I bought my charge controller, which I figured out would work well for up to about 400W in panels. (The folding panels I got from Solar Blvd were equipped with primitive charge controllers, but I chose to bypass those leaving them in place for back-up)

The cost for the panels was $190 each, or $570 for the 360W total.





I also learned, by reading about other people's adventures, that it takes about 400W in panels to keep a 12 Volt 225 Amp hr battery bank (made of two heavy duty 6V Golf Cart batteries from Sam's Club) charged, in an average sun environment. I bought the batteries from my local Sam's and paid $220. It would have been slightly less had I shlepped a couple of dead 12V batteries to the store to offset the "core charge", but I didn't.




Why 6V g-cart batteries? Simply, they are the best bang for the buck. 12V deep cycle batteries are generally rated at about 50-60 amp hrs, cost about the same as the g-cart batteries. It would take four of them to give the same storage as 2 of the ones I got, and they would need to be wired in parallel, which is something to be avoided with batteries if you can. (Although many people do it anyway.) Gel batteries are nice, but cost much more than wet cell lead acid batteries. The only advantages are that they don't have the potential for leakage, and they don't have to be ventilated. For me, I didn't need to pay double to get those features.

I also learned that such a 400W system is not an uncommon size for RV's, and that I could buy the basic wiring harness, with various junction boxes, switches, circuit breakers, and the correct wiring, along with the Blue Sky charge controller I liked, and a matching battery monitor, from a  small Mom and Pop RV solar outfit called AM Solar.

I had already sourced the controller from Solar Blvd, but I bought the rest of the kit from AM. If I'd bought the complete the kit from AM Solar (They call these kits "system cores ". The appropriate one for my system was their Sunrunner(tm) Signature Series 25/6 PRO Core.) it would have cost $815, including the combiner box.

That price includes a lot of gear. An MPPT charge controller and matching battery monitor (expandable to grow the system if desired), a custom metal box for the charge controller designed to overcome some problems with wiring heavy wire to the CC., Two 30 ft lengths of #6AWG, a bridge shunt for wiring the battery monitor, a temp cable for the batteries and wiring for the battery monitor, and a combiner box with bus bars for paralleling the three panels into one circuit. Also included are all the tiny bits you'd have had to buy yourself after you figured out you needed them. AM kits are well thought out.











That kit basically got me wired from panels to charge controller to batteries. To get AC current, I needed additional battery cables, another fuse, and an inverter. I chose the Morningstar 300W Sure-sine for its durability, simplicity, low cost and small size. I paid about $200. The #2 AWG battery cables I needed (six short ones with lugs and heat shrink installed) cost me $108 from Don Rowe, a company that sells inverters and cables.




I had a big plastic mil-surp box in the garage that once held dental equipment of the Gulf War era. The batteries and the electronics, fuses, switches and other paraphernalia will mount inside the box, once I make some plywood bread boards to fit the lid and bottom of the box.



Total cost for the completed kit, which I hope to finish this week, will be less than $2000.

The biggest surprise? Weight. The panels weigh 30 pounds each, the batteries 64 pounds each. Inverter weighs 11 pounds. the entire kit should tip the scales at roughly 250 pounds! Yeah, a lot more than I would have thought.

From the beginning, the one major requirement I had for the system was that it should power refrigeration. I researched a variety of refrigerators, both 12V units and 120V AC. Nice 12V chest style units could be had that would be compatible, but they were about $750 minimum. EcoCool makes a nice midsize 12V fridge for about $1100 that is efficient enough to run off my little system....but I kept looking.

Just before Christmas I watched one of Lamar Alexander's videos in which he evaluated the 3.1 cubic ft. Edgestar. These are little 120V AC units the size of a large dorm fridge, with separate freezer and fridge. They can be had for under $250 bucks, and their Energy Star rating is 338kWh/yr. They draw maybe 75W for a few seconds when the compressor kicks on, and then only use about 30W continuous while the compressor runs, which is about 50% of the time, based on ambient temperature and how often you open the fridge.

I ordered an "open box special" for $129.95 from an online seller, CompactAppliance.com, and waited...and waited. Finally I checked back and saw my order had been cancelled. My guess is that they sold the unit before I clicked on it, or some such...maybe they never had it. They get some bad reviews for customer service. So before I ordered another one for the regular price of $232, I checked around some more.

I found two other brands of 3.1 size refrigerators that are even more efficient than the Edgestar. Avanti makes one. And Sears sells one under their Kenmore brand. Energy Star rating of 270kWh per year. That's the energy used by the interior light of most refrigerators...unbelievable. And I bought one at my local Sears on sale for $159.95. Score!




I have some 12V LED lights I picked up at Home Depot. I'm continuing to research lights.

When the kit is functional, sometime this week, I intend to experiment with running fridge, lights, laptop, phone charger, AA battery charger, etc., just to see how it all works out. I've answered a lot of the questions that came to me in the beginning, but I expect that I'll be learning a lot more very soon, and answering the rest of the questions on my list, and maybe some more I forgot to ask.

Oh yeah. How big is it? The whole shooting match will fit easily in the trunk of my car (not including the fridge), with room to spare.


 And this system would be perfect to integrate into a bug-out van or small camping trailer.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2014, 03:35:52 pm »
15 Jan 2014 6:59 AM 

Native sun: In the Deep South, a solar farm rises on a former cotton plantation


By Brentin Mock

Green tech entrepreneur Reginald Parker will be celebrating Martin Luther King Day this year by breaking ground on a six-acre, 1.4-megawatt solar farm in North Carolina, which he’s billing as the largest solar project owned and operated by an African American. From talking to other black business owners in the solar industry, I gather that he’s correct.

African Americans don’t have a lot of skin in the energy game, as I wrote a few weeks back. But Parker is looking to change the face of the green industry, and this is only the beginning. He plans to expand the farm to more than 25 acres for a 20 megawatt project by the end of next year. After that, he’s plotting a 100-acre project 30 miles south of the current one. Not bad for the son of sharecroppers.

parker Q. So what drew you to North Carolina for your solar project?

A. North Carolina is the No. 1 state in the Southeast for solar. It offers state tax credits that can make a solar project fairly lucrative, and it also has a renewable energy portfolio standard — a law that says the state must meet a certain number of solar kilowatt-hours per year — so it’s very solar-friendly. Plus, I have some roots here. It was just a good mix.

Q. Some North Carolina policymakers have been hostile to renewable energy. How’d you bypass that?

A. Well, the good news is they didn’t touch any of the solar laws so then that left almost everything up to the counties, and the county we’ve been working with has been very friendly to us. They are supporting what we are doing because we’re going to bring them economic development.


Q. Was the economic landscape pretty ruined over where you bought land for the solar farm?

A. This land was originally used for cotton farming, so with our groundbreaking we are announcing the change from cotton farming to solar farming in North Carolina, and cotton farming is something I truly will not miss.

Q. What do you mean by that?

A. My mom grew up picking cotton as a sharecropper, and her family were sharecroppers, 13 in total, and they worked hard. She’s not here now, but I’m able to say, one generation later, “Mom, you picked cotton, Dad picked tobacco, but now we’re solar farming.” So there’s a tradition of farming there, but it’s a change from cotton to tobacco to solar. It was something like servitude to be a sharecropper, but now we’re owners, and that’s a source of pride in my family.

Q. What first drew your interest to solar energy?

A. My tutor back at MIT, Mawuli Tse, asked me to write an article for African Technology Forum, so I wrote one on the need for renewable energy in Zimbabwe. At the time, I didn’t know anything about renewable energy, and I didn’t know anything about Zimbabwe. But I found out that Zimbabwe would have run out of wood fuel, they would’ve consumed all of their trees, if they didn’t start using other renewable energy sources. So they’re into hydro, solar, and wind. So through that, I learned about all three and became interested in solar.

Q. Media outlets like 60 Minutes are already writing obituaries for the cleantech industry. How do you plan to last in the current environment?

A. Over the past 20 years, the costs of solar energy has increasingly gone down while the cost of natural gas and coal has increasingly gone up. Solar is by definition cheaper than any form of energy except for hydro. People beat up on solar because of the initial startup costs to install solar energy, but it’s still significantly less than the costs for coal. Coal is trying to stay in there, but coal and natural gas have two things working against them: Both are in limited supply. Meanwhile, solar produces enough energy in 47 minutes for the whole globe to use in one year.


Q. Is solar the only renewable energy tool in your portfolio, or are you looking to branch out?

A. I’m a renewable energy guy, and solar is my first play. Some people don’t believe you should walk with two guns at the same time so I’m keeping it simple for now to show that we can walk with one gun and do it well. First, we’re gonna walk, then we’re gonna moonwalk, and then we’re gonna spacewalk.   

 

Brentin Mock is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who writes regularly for Grist about environmental justice issues and the connections between environmental policy, race, and politics. Follow him on Twitter at @brentinmock.


http://grist.org/climate-energy/native-sun-in-the-deep-south-a-solar-farm-rises-on-a-former-cotton-plantation/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

RE

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #18 on: January 18, 2014, 06:36:00 am »
You know AB, instead of posting all this stuff just here on RR, much of it would work well as Blogs on the SUN Website.  You should do more Cross Posting there.

RE

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #19 on: January 19, 2014, 09:17:43 pm »
RE,
Okay, I'll set up a schedule to post the constructive and peppy stuff at SUN as well.   

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Solar Water Pumps Wean India Farmers From Grid
« Reply #20 on: February 11, 2014, 07:53:35 pm »
Solar Water Pumps Wean India Farmers From Grid

 Natalie Obiko Pearson and Ganesh Nagarajan, Bloomberg

SNIPPET:
A risk in converting to solar pumps is that farmers may use excessive amounts of water because the devices have almost no operating costs;D

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/02/solar-water-pumps-wean-india-farmers-from-grid
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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5 World Famous Solar Sites
« Reply #21 on: February 23, 2014, 01:45:20 am »
5 World Famous Solar Sites

Nice pictures. The Vatican is the first totally solar powered nation state with 660 million dollars worth of PV.  ;D

https://joinmosaic.com/blog/5-world-famous-solar-sites/#comments
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #22 on: April 29, 2014, 03:14:14 pm »
SNIPPETS: go to the links for full text:

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/16/solars-dramatic-cost-fall-may-herald-energy-price-deflation/

Solar's Insane Cost Drop

[...snip...]

 the cost of solar PV has come from - quite
literally - off the charts less than a decade ago to a point
where [investment bank Sanford] Bernstein says solar PV is now
cheaper than oil and Asian LNG (liquefied natural gas).
[...snip...]
 "For these (developing Asian economies) solar is just cheap,
clean, convenient, reliable energy. And since it is a
technology, it will get even cheaper over time [while]
fossil fuel extraction costs will keep rising. There is a
massive global market for cheap energy and that market is
oblivious to policy changes" in China, Japan, the EU or the
US, it writes.
[...snip...]
 And then Bernstein drops this bombshell - while solar has a
fractional share of the market now,  within one decade, solar
PV (plus battery storage) may have such a share of the market
that it becomes a trigger for energy price deflation, with
huge consequences for the massive fossil fuel industry that
relies on continued growth.
[...snip...]
 Sitting on oil and gas reserves for the benefit of
generations yet to come ceases to be a rational strategy if
that reserve represents a depreciating rather than an
appreciating asset."
 This, Bernstein says, is the hidden flaw with the idea that
solar is "too small to matter". Ultimately, it says, what may
kill the  energy market for equity investors is not the fact
that renewable technology and battery storage will turn into
behemoths, but the realisation of that future as inevitable.

----------------------

and:

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/17/bernstein-4-ideas-utilities-favour-solar/

 Bernstein: Utilities Have 4 Choices In Solar Revolution (None
Are Easy To Swallow)

 Can electricity generation companies live off two hours of
demand a day? And what if utilities actually tried to slow
down the rollout of rooftop solar? If these are questions
energy utilities are asking themselves in the current market
environment, they may not like investment bank Bernstein's
answers.
[...snip...]
 "Instead of high-cost (and high-priced) gas-fired peaking
power plants being engaged in the middle of the afternoon when
all of the air-conditioners are operating and all of the
factories are running, solar addresses that load. California -
like Germany and Australia - is already seeing this effect,"
Bernstein writes.
[...snip...]
 Bernstein points out that by 2020, the installed capacity of
solar will be so great that the demand profile will resemble
the green line and daytime power demand will have effectively
collapsed... "For companies selling electricity into merchant
or competitive markets like California, this is a disaster,"
the Bernstein analysts write.
 "Demand during what was one of the most profitable times of
the day disappears. With it, the need for part of the merchant
fleet disappears too for all but the dinner hour. And that is
the issue competitive generators face globally in this
2020-scenario: how to live off demand of two hours a day."
[...snip...]
 "The response of simply raising prices per kWh is therefore
unsustainable," the analysts note. And they are faced with
increasingly unattractive choices.
[...snip...]
 "The behavior from here seems clear: the solar industry will
expand. Retaliatory steps from distribution utilities will
increase the market for cost-effective battery storage. This
becomes - initially - a secondary market for battery
technologies being developed for the auto sector. A failed
battery technology in the auto sector (too hot, too heavy, too
rigid a form factor) might well be perfect for the home energy
storage market... with an addressable end market of 2 billion
backyards."


AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #23 on: April 29, 2014, 11:49:46 pm »
Alan,
That's the way I see it too!



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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China Fuels Highest Solar Silicon Demand Since 2011


 Stefan Nicola and Marc Roca, Bloomberg 
 April 30, 2014 

BERLIN -- The polysilicon industry is headed for its biggest boom since a price war started three years ago. It can thank a burst of solar-panel orders in China and Japan.



Demand for the commodity used to make photovoltaic cells will jump 15 percent this year, the most since 2011, Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts. The price of the material, made from super-heated silicon particles and sliced into wafers, has reached its highest since the middle of 2012. Global sales may top $6 billion at that price.


Manufacturers led by GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. of China and Wacker Chemie AG in Germany are expanding production, anticipating higher revenue will restore their margins. They’re benefiting from a renaissance in the renewable energy industry, which last year rivaled fossil fuels for new power generation capacity added worldwide.

“We are seeing a massive recovery in the entire solar industry, also in polysilicon,” said Stefan De Haan, a solar analyst at IHS Inc. “2013 was the year of the turnaround, and the situation will further improve in 2014.”

Factories producing the material will be at their busiest in at least two years, according to IHS. All that is an about- face for manufacturers who for the last two years had to idle capacity or post losses as poly prices plunged.

Asian Demand
China and Japan are driving the rebound with subsidies for solar panel installations. About 44.5 gigawatts of solar capacity will be added around the world this year, a 21 percent increase over 2013, according to the average estimate of nine analysts and companies. The two Asian countries may account for half of all new projects. A gigawatt of electricity is about as much as a new nuclear reactor produces.

Renewable energy accounted for 44 percent of the new generation capacity added worldwide last year, according to data from New Energy Finance, which is owned by Bloomberg LP.


“Japan has a fantastic subsidy that’s fueling a domestic boom, and there’s significant demand and government support for new projects in China,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at New Energy Finance in Zurich. “The entire polysilicon industry will benefit from this.”

Polysilicon prices, which tumbled 42 percent during 2012, and were little changed for most of 2013, have been rising since November. They may jump to as high as $25 a kilogram this year, from $21.75 on April 21, Chase said.


Prices Rising


IHS expects the average polysilicon price to rise as much as 10 percent this year. Revenues for suppliers will jump 33 percent to $5 billion, De Haan said on April 24.

China became the biggest solar market last year. Surging demand will benefit European and local makers the most, since the government in Beijing introduced import tariffs for U.S. and South Korean-made polysilicon in January. Chinese companies, which make most PV panels, import more than half the polysilicon they need from abroad.

China imposed anti-dumping charges up to 57 percent for U.S. makers including Hemlock Semiconductor Corp., REC Silicon and SunEdison Inc. OCI Co., South Korea’s largest polysilicon producer, got a tariff of just 2.4 percent. That contributed to a 30 percent drop in U.S. polysilicon imports into China last year. South Korea and Germany raised shipments.

Today, China imposed duties of 14.3 percent to 42 percent for polysilicon it imports from Europe, though it exempted Wacker Chemie from the decision citing a price commitment the German company already has made.

Shares Surge


Shares of solar companies already have responded. GCL-Poly is up about 48 percent in Hong Kong in the past year and Wacker by 43 percent. OCI has risen about 28 percent. Hemlock is a owned by Dow Corning Corp. and Shin-Etsu Handotai Co. Ltd.

“Hemlock Semiconductor has also seen increased business activity in the polysilicon industry,” Jarrod Erpelding, a spokesman at Dow Corning, said by e-mail. “While spot prices are an indicator of increased demand, the large majority of our sales are through long-term contracts.”

Wacker and SunEdison declined to comment, citing quiet periods ahead of their earnings reports. GCL didn’t answer phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment.

The demand surge is trickling down the value chain. The number of Chinese companies producing polysilicon more than doubled to 15 last year. Just four years ago, before prices collapsed, at least 100 companies were manufacturing it.

Tokuyama Corp., a materials maker based in Shunan, Japan, plans to start production this year at a new polysilicon factory in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Industry Rebounds  ;D

Polysilicon producers reduced output as prices crashed in 2012, with many small companies halting altogether. LDK Solar Co. dropped out of the top 10 makers as it defaulted on bond payments. OCI reduced output last year. This year, the South Korean company is investing in streamlining its production plants to fill an increase in demand it expects in the second half of the year, a spokesman said.

“The price will mostly depend on whether there would be a major demand increase or what would be expected after competitors restructuring in the market,” Park Sangbae, senior manager for public relations at OCI, said by e-mail. “We are expecting the price to increase.”

Rising production in China may cause poly prices to sag again, said Shiro Okada, a spokesman for the Tokuyama. Factory utilization, which De Haan says is good health indicator for the polysilicon industry, will increase by 14 percentage points to 78 percent this year.

‘Oversupplied’

“The industry remains oversupplied,” Okada said by phone from Tokyo. “The market is expected to grow globally, but companies already have enough production capacity.”

The market is dominated by five companies -- GCL-Poly, OCI, Wacker, Hemlock and REC. They alone can almost cover all the demand for high-grade polysilicon. Their capacities are on the edge of becoming short of what the market needs this year.

“Supply and demand has reached a really tight point,” said Jade Jones, an industry analyst at GTM Research in Boston. “Polysilicon makers have been able to raise prices because they know that there’s growing demand. If you listen to their recent earnings calls, there’s hope in their voices.”

Copyright 2014 Bloomberg

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/04/china-fuels-highest-solar-silicon-demand-since-2011
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #25 on: April 30, 2014, 03:54:21 pm »
World’s Largest Solar Plant Could Power 230,000 Homes

Brandon Baker | April 30, 2014 9:32 am 

NRG Energy and MidAmerican Solar unveiled the new king in solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities this week. 


Located on 2,400 acres of land between Yuma and Phoenix, AZ, Agua Caliente is now operational as the world’s largest PV solar facility in the world.  The 290-megawatt (MW) project uses solar energy to avoid the annual emission of about 324,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—equivalent to taking nearly 70,000 cars off the road.

Under a 25-year power purchase agreement, NRG and MidAmerican sell solar power to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. At peak capacity, the plant will generate enough energy to power 230,000 homes.


NRG Energy and MidAmerican Solar announced the completion of Agua Caliente, the world's largest photovoltaic solar facility at 290 megawatts. The Arizona plant sells clean power to Pacific Gas & Electric Company under a 25-year power purchase agreement. Photo credit: Business Wire/NRG Energy

NRG Energy and MidAmerican Solar announced the completion of Agua Caliente, the world’s largest photovoltaic solar facility at 290 megawatts. The Arizona plant sells clean power to Pacific Gas & Electric Company under a 25-year power purchase agreement. Photo credit: Business Wire/NRG Energy

NRG was also involved in another record-setting solar project this year—the launch of Ivanpah, the world’s largest concentrating solar thermal power plant.

“Proving that we can build both the world’s largest solar thermal and now one of the world’s largest solar photovoltaic facilities advance NRG’s mission to reshape the energy landscape that is incredibly beneficial to both the economy and in how we produce and consume energy,” Tom Doyle, president of NRG Solar, said in a statement.

FirstSolar designed and constructed the project using advanced thin-film PV modules and will operate and maintain the facility for NRG and MidAmerican Solar. Peter W. Davidson, executive director of the Loan Programs Office (LPO) said the energy companies received a $967 million loan guarantee for Agua Caliente. In a blog post for the U.S. Department of Energy, Davidson displayed pride in aiding clean energy.

“Despite the strong and consistent public demand for greater development of solar energy, these achievements seemed more aspirational than attainable in 2009, given the state of financial markets at the time,” Davidson wrote. “However, with the help of loan guarantees, these projects were able to move forward.

“We aren’t done yet.    By the end of next year, we expect all five solar PV plants in our portfolio to be completed with a combined capacity of 1,510 MW—enough to power more than a quarter million average American homes.”


Agua Caliente, located in Yuma County, AZ, is now the largest solar photovoltaic power plant in the world. Photo credit: (at link) NRG Energy

Agua Caliente is the largest of 10 operational utility-scale solar PV facilities in three states that NRG has an ownership interest in. By this time next year, it may no longer be the largest PV plant, as work continues on another MidAmerican project, the 550 MW Topaz Solar Farm in San Luis Obispo County, CA.

“In 2012, our company made a commitment to invest in its first utility-scale solar project to foster economic development while demonstrating our commitment to the environment,” said Richard Weech, chief financial officer of MidAmerican Renewables.

“It is exciting to see this project become fully operational and begin to realize the full benefit of emissions savings with the clean energy generated at Agua Caliente.”

http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/30/worlds-largest-solar-plant-could-power-230000-homes/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #27 on: May 06, 2014, 01:31:25 am »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0kFCv6gOQ0&feature=player_embedded

Even while deaths from Fossil Fuel caused severe weather increase, the exponential curve of the Renewable Energy Revolution replacement of all dirty energy has manifested itself. Fossil Fuels are a DEAD PIG WALKING!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #28 on: May 06, 2014, 03:29:59 pm »
Missouri’s Solar Problem:   
Too Many People Like It


By  May 5, 2014 at 3:48 pm

Missouri has been heavily dependent on coal for decades
, but the state is on the cusp of a solar revolution.     The state had just 39 megawatts of solar installed at the end of 2013, putting it in 17th place nationally. But by mid-2014, as much as 110 megawatts of solar is expected to be online, potentially making Missouri a solar leader in the Midwest

Unfortunately that could be the end of the solar story in Missouri. Just as the state is picking up serious momentum, the solar rebates that have helped propel the growth are abruptly ending, six years before the gradual phase-out that had been planned.  >:(

“We want off the solar coaster,” Heidi Schoen, executive director of the Missouri Solar Energy Industries Association told Midwest Energy News. “We don’t want to be in this boom-and-bust situation.”

Despite its enormous impact, Missouri’s solar rebate program is still relatively new. It came into being in 2008, with the passage of Proposition C, a ballot initiative that required investor-owned utilities to derive 15 percent of their electric generation from renewable resources by 2021 — including 2 percent from solar energy. To help jumpstart solar development in a state where 4 out of 5 homes are powered by coal, the successful ballot initiative required utilities to offer a $2-a-watt rebate for solar installations, with a maximum rebate of $50,000 per installation.

For the average homeowner, the rebates meant that the price of a typical, residential 5-kilowatt array was about $10,000 instead of $20,000.

The legislation, however, had one huge key caveat — it stated that if meeting the renewable standard led to rate hikes for customers of more than 1 percent, utilities would no longer be required to comply.

And last year, Missouri’s two largest utilities announced that they had met that 1 percent cap on rates and asked that the rebate program be suspended indefinitely.

After much negotiation, the utilities and solar installers agreed on something approaching a compromise — a finite pool of rebate funds that was intended to soften the otherwise brutal blow to the solar industry. The $175 million set aside for rebates was, however, devoured by Missourians still eager to get solar, and the money was gone within weeks of being announced, with $25 million in applications on a waiting list, in case a project doesn’t move forward.

There are several bills in the Missouri Legislature to restart the solar rebate program in the state, but with the current legislative session drawing to a close with the bills still in committee, their prospects look dim.

One of the bills would revive solar rebates on a more limited scale — just for schools and nonprofits. The other option under consideration is to restart the rebates under Missouri’s 2009 energy efficiency law.

“We’re going to lose half our employees, at least,” Rick Hunter, chief executive of Microgrid Solar, one of the largest installers in the area told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “And we’re gonna be better off than most companies. … We were up to 75 employees and we’re expecting to be less than 40 before the end of the summer.”

The Missouri Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that if the rebate had stayed in place, the solar industry would have added a total of $415 million to the state’s economy and more than 3,700 jobs by the end of the year. Missouri even ranked in the Top Ten States for Clean Energy Job Announcements in 2013 by the national group Environmental Entrepreneurs.

© 2005-2014 Center for American Progress Action Fund

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/05/3434278/missouri-solar-rebates-abruptly-end/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Photvoltaics (PV)
« Reply #29 on: May 07, 2014, 11:17:02 pm »
UK Partnership Helps 50 Schools Raise Nearly $600,000 to Go Solar


http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/06/uk-partnership-schools-solar/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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