by Nichola Groom

(Reuters) - Solar power company SunPower Corp posted better-than-expected earnings and raised its forecast for the current quarter and year on strong demand in both its rooftop and power plant businesses, pushing the company's shares up more than 6 percent.

SunPower, which makes solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity and also builds solar power systems, said its order books are already full for the year due to a pipeline of projects in the United States and Italy.

"We see more demand for our products than we can supply," Chief Financial Officer Dennis Arriola said on a conference call with analysts.

Fourth-quarter net income was $152.3 million, or $1.44 per share, compared with $8.5 million, or 9 cents, a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, earnings per share of $1.36 easily topped the $1.05 per share that analysts had forecast, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 71 percent to $937.1 million from $547.9 million last year, higher than the $931.4 million that Wall Street expected.

The solar industry relies on renewable energy subsidies to spur demand while manufacturers work to bring the cost of generating power from the sun in line with that from fossil fuels. Investors have worried that a decline in government support in key solar markets like Germany and Italy will lead to an oversupply of solar panels in the market this year.

Italy accounted for about a third of SunPower's business last year, but executives said that would fall to below 25 percent in 2011.

"Italy plays a less significant role for us this year than last year, and that is on purpose," Chief Executive Tom Werner said.

Nevertheless, the San Jose, California company hiked its first quarter revenue forecast by $25 million to $475 million to $525 million. It also lifted its forecast for earnings per share, excluding items, to a range of 15 cents to 21 cents from the 12 to 20 cents range forecast it had issued in November.

SunPower's high efficiency panels typically sell at a premium to its Chinese rivals, who have rapidly increased their production and are winning market share in renewable markets in Europe and the United States.

Concerns about that competition have helped push SunPower shares down 13 percent in the last year, but the U.S. company has moved to expand its output and its network of dealers, which will reach 2,000 in 11 countries this year.

SunPower said it is on track to reduce its costs to less than $1 per watt by 2014. Its fourth quarter cost per watt was $1.71.

Like competitor First Solar Inc, SunPower has moved into the engineering and construction market for solar power plants. That business has lower profit margins than selling modules to distributors and other project developers, but creates a direct channel for the company's growing output of solar equipment and gives SunPower more certainty around pricing.

SunPower raised its 2011 earnings per share outlook to between $2 and $2.20, before one-time items. It had previously forecast earnings of $1.75 per share to $2.05 per share. Revenue is expected to be between $2.8 billion and $2.95 billion, up from a prior view of $2.65 billion to $2.85 billion.

SunPower shares were up 6.7 percent at $18.60 per share in post-market trading after gaining 1.7 percent during the regular session.

Reprinted with permission from Reuters

By Susan Kraemer

People in California’s hinterlands pay a very high price for electricity. They use three times more power than the average; trying to stay cool, and they now pay four times the base rate for it. They think that’s not fair, and PG&E agrees with them. PG&E is applying for a rate change to reduce the top tier rate, and spread the cost of that higher energy use amongst the rest of their ratepayers.

But it’s no secret in solar circles that one reason for the boom in California solar has been those high rates paid by the most profligate energy consumers in the state. A “front-of-the-bay” Bay Area counterpart who (by not needing air conditioning or a swimming pool) pays about $100 for an average of just 550 kilowatt hours a month.

But someone with a swimming pool and air conditioning, in back of the Berkeley Hills, in the stifling cities of Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton and Livermore – that see summer temperatures routinely over 95 degrees Fahrenheit – can easily spend up to $400 a month for 1,500 kilowatt hours a month of electricity.

They want to reduce that amount to only three times the base rate of 11 cents a kilowatt hour – to 30 cents a kilowatt hour, dropping almost 20 cents. Instead of the current five tiers, based on usage, PG&E proposes a switch to three tiers.

The rate for the bottom two tiers would remain the same, but many customers who are now in those two tiers would be placed in a higher tier (with the reduction from five to two tiers) and, as a result, pay a higher rate. Overall, PG&E would not make more money on the change. The high energy users would drop about $100 off their monthly bills, and the rest of us would pay $10 more a month to make up the difference.

But, if PG&E lowers the steepest rates of the inland residents, that will lower the pricing incentive that they have to switch to cleaner solar power.

Currently solar is cheaper than PG&E right away for those who have those high bills. So it has been easy for many local solar companies to compete with PG&E – part of the reason that California’s green jobs have grown three times as fast as jobs in the moribund regular economy.

Homeowners’ solar now supplies more than 2.5% of state utility’s peak demand for power on the grid and that figure is approaching 5%. But without that high bill incentive, less solar power would be put on the rooftops of inland residents.

Removing the incentive from homeowners would just return the pressure to PG&E to add more dirty gas powered electricity, with the danger that more natural gas electricity brings to California’s water supply, our health, and future climate.

In the long run, keeping that rate inequity is better for all Californians.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

By Timothy B. Hurst

An idea being considered in Colorado that would allow for the establishment of ‘community solar gardens‘ — solar arrays owned by a group of investors who cannot benefit from a rooftop solar installation — has now caught the eye of U.S. Senator from Colorado, Mark Udall. Udall yesterday announced a bill that would extend the tax credit available to homeowners who put solar panels on their roofs, to those homeowners who collectively own small solar arrays located somewhere other than their own property.

The Solar Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Act of 2010 updates the tax code regarding solar energy, giving investors of community solar projects a 30 percent tax credit just like individuals who install PV cells on their houses.

“By eliminating the requirement that the solar panel be on one individual’s property, it frees Americans to work together on community projects where each individual can claim a tax credit on part of a shared project,” said Udall on a conference call with reporters.

The concept behind the SUN Act is that it would open up solar ownership to people who would like to invest in solar, but because they live in an apartment, have a poor solar resource, or simply cannot afford the substantial up-front investment, have not.

“By grouping these solar panels, you can reduce the cost by 30 percent compared to installing a panel or a set of panels on every roof in the neighborhood,” Udall added.

The big difference between the Community Solar Gardens bill introduced in Colorado and the one Udall announced yesterday, however, has to do with who can take advantage of the tax benefit: the Colorado bill covers not only homeowners but also renters.

The way the Colorado bill is worded, anyone may take advantage of the law who is a customer of a qualifying retail utility and who has “identified one or more physical locations located in the same county or municipality as the Community Solar Garden.” The Colorado bill also allows subscribers to change the premises to which a subscription is attributed, and also to sell them to other qualifying subscribers, should the subscriber move out of the state or country.

The tax credits would be available for the next next five years at a cost of about $117 million. Udall says his measure will likely be included in an energy and climate package, or as part of a larger tax bill.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

by Susan Kraemer

First Solar’s utility-scale PV plant has now been quietly up and running, in Blythe, California, for its first full month. Once it got a go-ahead in the summer this project only took three months to build.

Perhaps its relatively smaller size for utility-scale solar holds a key to its success in getting off the ground. Unlike the 250 MW solar trough technologies that are held up in reviews, this project is a modest 21 MW.

PG&E just inked a new deal with First Solar this month, placing an order for the next size up: 48 MW, suggesting that incremental steps are the way to get more solar on the grid in California. The original application with the CPUC had been for a very unassuming 7 MW. With the option to go larger.

PV plants tend not to be as ambitious in scope as utility-scale solar thermal technologies because they are more expensive. This 21 MW thin-film project is so far the biggest PV plant yet built in California.

The First Solar project uses their own advanced thin-film PV, though, that is made of cadmium telluride and is much cheaper than regular PV. This means that it has the same potential as solar thermal technologies to scale up. They have plans to build two more projects in California in the 250 - 300 MW range.

Thin-film is both cheaper and less “efficient” than PV, which is not to be construed as meaning that it doesn’t work very well. One megawatt of PV makes exactly the same power as one megawatt of thin-film. It merely means that it will take a larger area of thin-film to produce the same energy as a smaller PV module.

However, that lower “efficiency” of thin-film tends to go along with lower degradation over time as well, so thin-film is a good long-term investment. Unlike PV which might be 12% less efficient in 25 years (so it can no longer be warrantied at the same output that it was originally rated at ) thin-film keeps on chugging away.

Southern California Edison has signed a 20-year purchase power agreement for the energy it will produce.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

The European Union Energy Council this week reached an agreement on the new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). Under the agreement any new European building will have to be close to energy neutral by 2020, meaning that a very large share of energy consumption in new buildings will be provided by renewable energy.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems as well as solar thermal technologies are among the best suited to be integrated in buildings. However no target has been set for existing buildings which currently represent about 99% of the building stock.

The hope is that the EPBD will ensure a strong boost for on-site renewable energy sources (RES) like PV, which as a decentralized and sustainable energy technology is easy and quick to install in housing and has the ability to provide a significant share of the household and commercial energy demand. In the original draft of the EPBD, there was a cap on building size of 1000m. This has now been removed, which means that large, building integrated renewable energy projects may now be developed.

The new directive says, “the nearly zero or very low amount of energy required should to a very significant extent be covered by energy coming from renewable sources, including renewable energy produced on-site or nearby."

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) welcomed the news this week and offered recommends to individual EU nations on implementing the directive. They said that when transposing the directive in the national law, EU member states should focus on developing the potential of on-site renewable energy solutions rather than choosing to buy power from existing or planned central station renewable energy projects. The EPIA said that this would help to turn energy consuming buildings into more energy independent entities and possibly even autonomous or positive energy buildings.

“If well implemented by the 27 EU countries, this new piece of legislation will be essential to meet the target set by EPIA to reach 12% of Europe’s electricity demand by 2020 with photovoltaic energy,” said Eleni Despotou, EPIA Policy Director.

Reprinted with permission from RenewableEnergyWorld

After recently having a domestic hot water geyser fail and investigating the potential of replacing it with a solar unit, I definitely saw the need for something different to advance the penetration of solar water heating in South Africa. While replacing my electric geyser costs R 5,500, an equivalent solar installation costs around R 25,000. Eskom, the state electricity generator, provides a subsidy of around R 3,000 and indicates a payback period is 5 to 8 years.

So why would one buy a solar water heater system? why not switch the electric geyser off periodically to save carbon, shower less or even put it on a timer?

Government’s Response

This type of reaction and the lack of impact of Eskom’s subsidy system, seems to be what has driven the South African Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs (DME) to develop a South African Solar Water Heating Strategy and Implementation Plan. The plan aims to install one million solar water heaters by 2014, achieve a 50% penetration of SWHs in the residential sector by 2020 and create jobs through the establishment of new manufacturing capacity.

This strategy is being finalised and will be presented to the minister on 4 December 2009. However, the draft strategy presented at the public participation meeting on 5 November has apparently been accepted and represents what will be presented to the minister.

National SWH Entity

As we have come to expect in South Africa the first focus of the plan is the creation of a National SWH Entity, under the Public Finance Management Act. Its role would be to implement the strategy, facilitate funding and “orchestrate” delivery to the unserviced residential market sectors.

It will have the right to obtain and allocate revenue from carbon offsets, demand-side management (DSM) and other revenue streams to achieve the national SWH plan.

The key aims of the entity are to ensure affordability by procuring low-cost quality systems through bulk buying and large contracts, to obtain and manage funding, to rigorously manage the supply chain, to manage the disciplined deployment of numerous subcontractors, to protect consumer rights and to be accountable to government, funding bodies and consumers.

Is the Devil In the Detail?

The entity would be self sustaining with individual programmes ensuring that costs are covered by a subsidy plus a customer contribution. Prices will be ‘stepped’ from the highest level for upper-income homes to the lowest level for poor households.

The entity would not rely on direct support from Treasury, although some of the funding could be indirect such as that recently announced by the Department of Environmental Affairs, namely a $500-million ‘infusion’ through the Clean Technology Fund.

DME notes that neither the business model nor the funding have been finalised. This is rather concerning because the implementation schedule calls for manufacturing tenders covering implementation, marketing, sourcing, installations, maintenance, financing to go out in April 2010..

The other concern is that although the creation of a manufacturing industry is listed as a benefit in the strategy there is no sign in the plan of how this will be achieved.

Although the overall objective and approach are easy to support there seems to be a lack of detail which might scupper the attainment of the goal. Will this be another case, like the biofuels strategy, where the goal and principles are talked about but little movement towards the goal achieved.

Image by Dave ‘Coconuts’ Kleinschmidt on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Reprinted with permission from Ecoworldly

By Edward Milford, Contributor

Johannesburg, the scene of the 29th bi-annual ISES (International Solar Energy Society) Solar World Congress held from 11th-14th October 2009, is the only major international city that is not founded on a coast or that does not have a river running through it. It sits out in the middle of the high veld in South Africa, its location entirely based on the gold discovered under the earth.

There was also a welcome for the announcement the day before the Congress opened of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Clinton Climate Initiative and the South African Ministry of Energy for support to examine the establishment of a 5000-MW Solar Park.

The massive spoil heaps dotted around the city from mainly disused mines, and the ownership of the largest buildings in the city centre, are signs of the historic and continuing importance of mining to the economy. They are also very visible evidence of the way the availability of natural resources can shape a city and its financial systems.

“We need to learn to harness the gold in the sky, not just dig it from under the ground” were the evocative words of conference Chair John Adams at the opening session, alluding to a fairly constant theme of the conference; why does the continent with the best solar resource in the world make least use of it? What needs to be done to make its use more widespread?

Many of the global energy issues are present in the small country of South Africa; it has a predominantly fossil-fuel powered electricity system, with many of its wealthier citizens enjoying high energy-consumption lifestyles while millions of others have little or no access to any form of electricity. The issue of power is intensely political; demand has been growing fast, resulting in load-shedding and vociferous complaints from many customers.

Both industry and those without power at all are clamoring for more. At the same time, the massive CO2 emissions from its largely coal-fired generation put the country under the spotlight. As Richard Worthington from the local branch of WWF pointed out in one of his presentations, one new coal-fired power station in South Africa would emit more CO2 annually than the combined emissions of the twenty, lowest-emitting African countries.

Electricity in South Africa means Eskom, the incumbent utility (and generous lead sponsor for the Solar World Congress), responsible for both generation and distribution. It owns over 40 GW of generating capacity, making it on its own reckoning one of the top 10 utilities in the world.

It faces intense pressure from many different directions; on the final day of the Congress, the national press were full of Eskom’s application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to raise the price of electricity to consumers by 45% a year for the next three years, taking it from its current level of 33 c kWh (about 4.5 cents US) to 99 c kWh (about 13.5 cents US). Eskom sees this as necessary to fund a capacity expansion program, but even rises on this scale will leave it 30 billion Rand short of the capital it is forecast to need.

South Africa is home to some very energy-intensive industry. Remarkably, over 65% of the energy it generates is used in industry, and this is reflected in its customer base. Barry MacColl from Eskom observed that the top 135 customers account for 40% of total energy consumption; the largest 80,000 account for 75% of demand and the remaining 8 million use the final 25%. The larger customers, all industrial concerns, will not be affected by the rate rises, as they negotiate their own contracts.

The planned Eskom rate rises do include an allowance for some CSP (concentrating solar power), and a lively discussion forum at the Congress agreed that the potential for this was significant. There was concern that the competing technologies might not all get a fair chance and many of the commentators from the floor argued against Eskom being in a position where it tried to pick a technology winner.

There was also recognition both that CSP could provide significant numbers of local jobs (it was claimed 80% of the costs needed to be based in South African Rand to protect against currency fluctuations) and that there was scope — as David Jarrett from NamPower, the Namibian utility, agreed — for significant regional development and initiatives. For MacColl again, another key issue will be to diversify the supply; if carbon taxes arrive (another issue under discussion) Eskom would be hit hard, with a tax of 200 Rand (US $27.40) per tonne of CO2 effectively wiping out Eskom’s turnover.

South Africa is also finalizing its feed-in tariff, and many of the speakers in other sessions believe that this could prove to be a very important catalyst to the development not only of CSP, but more widespread uptake of PV, and some significant utility-scale wind development. Again, Eskom’s role could be crucial as the company serves as network operator and distributor, and often arbiter of what can and can’t happen. Many are arguing for a greater role for Independent Power Producers, and this is high on the political energy agenda.

For some of the householders visiting the exhibition, the simple answer to ‘what brings you to a solar event?’ was ‘Eskom’. There was a lot of interest in solar water heating – not surprisingly perhaps given that electrical water heating accounts for over 43% of domestic electricity consumption.

There is plenty of awareness of the bigger picture. Much of the discussion at the Congress looked forward to the COP 15 meeting in Denmark at the end of this year. The conference approved a text to send to delegates at the COP meeting, which stressed that ‘rapid transition to a renewable energy world is the key to climate recovery’.

The COP 15 text reaffirmed ISES’s willingness to work with partner organizations, including the newly formed International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), whose interim Director General Helene Pelosse spoke via video at the opening ceremony. She reminded delegates of the need to reduce the barriers to wider deployment of renewable energy by addressing the expertise gap, the human capital gap and the financing gap.

5000 MW of Solar for South Africa

There was also a welcome for the announcement the day before the Congress opened of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Clinton Climate Initiative and the South African Ministry of Energy for support to examine the establishment of a 5000-MW Solar Park. A feasibility study is being commissioned, and the Ministry explicitly expects this to include ‘significant solar generation by different Independent Power Producers’.

One of several impassioned speakers was Harry Lehmann from the Federal Environment Agency of Germany. He stressed the need for the goal of 100% renewable energy. As he pointed out, nobody doubts that we will need to achieve this in a few decades, so why, he asked, are we considering such side roads as nuclear power and clean coal, when we can head straight to the necessary target. This theme was also then picked up in the final congress resolution which stated firmly that ‘the global target of 100 percent renewable energies is both attainable and necessary by the middle of the current century’ while also noting that ‘the unacceptable backlog in energy supply in the third world countries can only be covered cost effectively and in time by the use of renewable energies’.

Maybe the gold from the sky can be harnessed after all.

Edward Milford is currently the Chairman of Earthscan, and a former publisher of Renewable Energy World magazine.

Reprinted with permission from Renewable Energy World

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $750 million in Recovery Act spending to create a new loan guarantee program for conventional renewable energy projects. These will be different from loan guarantees that have been given to companies like Tesla Motors and Solyndra in recent months. Those companies represent what the DOE calls innovative technologies. The new program will attempt to lure private sector participation to accelerate the financing for tried-and-true wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydro power. DOE said the program could leverage between $4 to $8 billion dollars in lending.

Georgia-based Suniva Inc. plans to invest $250 million in a new solar manufacturing facility in Michigan, if the company receives a DOE loan guarantee. Michigan governor Jennifer M. Granholm made the announcement Tuesday. A timeline was not given for the project, and planned production capacity was not announced. But, Granholm said the facility is expected to create 500 new jobs over the next five years. Just last month, Suniva announced plans to triple its Georgia-based production capacity to 100MW of crystalline silicon solar cells.

German company SolarWorld AG (SWV.DE) announced plans to to expand production capacities at its Hillsboro site in Oregon. The company said it wants to build a new manufacturing facility for the production of crystalline photovoltaic modules with a capacity of 350 megawatts (MW) by 2011. Upon completion, SolarWorld said it will have about 1,000 employees nationwide producing solar wafers, cells and modules at a capacity of 500 MW annually.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) announced a contract to install wind turbines off the coast of North Carolina in a demonstration project. Duke will install and pay for up to three turbines and UNC will lead the research. if the project moves at a steady pace their turbines could be the first installed in the waters off the East Coast of the U.S.

Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) unveiled a line of photovoltaic solar panels in the form of shingles that can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingle materials. The Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingles are expected to be available in limited quantities by mid-2010 and more widely available in 2011. The shingles incorporate CIGS thin-film solar cells, designed with financial support from the Department of Energy. Dow said they can be installed by conventional roofing contractors.

Internet giant Google Inc (Nasdaq: GOOG) is partnering with Energy Inc to create a home energy management system that does not require the installation of a smart meter. This is good news for homeowners who want to monitor their energy usage, but are not part of a smart grid pilot program. Google said homeowners can purchase Energy Inc's measuring device called the TED 5000, and with Google's free PowerMeter software, they can see how and when their home consumes energy.

New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPTT; OPT.L) has signed an exclusive agreement with a consortium of three Japanese companies to develop a demonstration wave power station in Japan. OPT also has been invited to join the Tokyo Wave Power Initiative, a committee including the city of Tokyo, regional governments and national agencies involved in the promotion of new energy sources. OPT now has projects underway off the coasts of Oregon, Hawaii, Scotland, England, Spain, Australia and Japan.

TransAlta Corporation (TSX: TA; NYSE: TAC) and Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc. (TSX: KHD) announced they have agreed to a purchase price for all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Canadian Hydro. TransAlta amended and earlier offer of C$4.55 per share to C$5.25 per share, bringing the total acquisition value to about C$1.6 billion. TransAlta operates both renewable energy facilities and conventional fossil fuel power plants. Canadian Hydro has more than 6,000MW of renewable power capacity under development, including the rights to an enormous offshore wind farm in the Great Lakes.

Last week Standard & Poors announced that First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) will soon join the S&P 500, replacing Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), which was acquired by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE). Like solar companies across the board, First Solar's shares fell dramatically in 2008, but have partially recovered in recent quarters and have edged up since this latest news. The addition of First Solar to the flagship index marks another milestone in the mainstreaming of solar power and the renewable energy industry.

Reprinted with permission from SustainableBusiness.com

By Tina Casey

Building solar power plants in the desert is a no-brainer, but until now there hasn’t been a cost-efficient way to provide solar power directly to homes in colder, cloudier parts of the word. Cool Energy, Inc. believes it can do just that. Last month the Boulder, Colorado based company announced the release of SolarHeart, an engine designed for home use that can convert low-temperature solar energy into sustainable electricity, and also saving up to 75% on heating oil or propane.

The SolarHeart engine is based on the legendary Stirling engine design, which harkens back to the early 19th century. Stirling engines run on changes in the pressure of hydrogen as it is alternately heated and cooled in a sealed chamber, which drives a piston. Cool Energy plans to integrate the SolarHeart engine into a complete solar energy system built into individual homes and other buildings. If SolarHeart lives up to its promise, we could all be just a heartbeat away from off-grid living.

Cool Energy, Inc.

Cool Energy has been making a name for itself by tweaking the nearly two century old Stirling platform into the engine of choice for solar energy design. One clear advantage of the Stirling engine is its ability to run on practically any heat source including waste heat. That makes it an ideal candidate for cogenerating electricity from the waste heat of factories, diesel generators, and other heat sources. As part of Cool Energy’s SolarFlow system, the SolarHeart engine would be able to convert both solar and waste heat into electricity for use in homes and small commercial buildings.

The SolarHeart Difference

According to MIT Technology Review writer Kevin Bullis, Cool Energy’s proprietary SolarHeart engine works at only 200 degrees Celsius, far lower than the 500 degrees required to run a conventional Stirling. Normally, a solar-powered Stirling engine would be unsuitable for most homes because it requires full sunlight and solar concentrators to get the high temperature. Bullis also notes that Cool Energy was able to design a low-temperature engine by using plastics and certain ceramic materials that are poor conductors of heat. These are used to separate the “hot side” and “cold side”, helping to keep the difference between the two sides higher than possible with the conventional metal design.

SolarFlow and Cold Weather Solar Power

In variable climates such as the northern U.S. and Canda, the SolarFlow system offers the best of both worlds. In winter, the system’s solar collectors provide heat for the home. In the summer, the SolarHeart engine converts excess heat into electricity, which could be used to run fans or air conditioners. That tightens up the payback period, making the system a more attractive investment for property owners. Cool Energy anticipates that the complete SolarFlow system, which includes a thermal storage feature, will provide 80% of a home’s heat, all of its hot water, and 60% of its electricity.

More Stirling Engines in the Future

With their low maintenance requirements and ability to run on practically any fuel or heat source, Stirling engines make an ideal platform for alternative energy, and Cool Energy is not the only fan among solar innovators. The high efficiency SunCatcher solar dishes use a Stirling-based power conversion unit to convert focused solar thermal energy into grid-quality electricity, Segway inventor Dean Kamen is working on an electric scooter that sports a two-piston Stirling under the seat, and Mitsubishi is looking into infrastructure support for its MiEV electric car, including a solar thermal dish hooked up to a Stirling engine.

Image: Mark F. Levisay on flickr.com.

Reprinted with permission from CleanTechnica

By Susan Kraemer

It’s easy to power a single-story buildings-worth of electrical needs with a solar roof, but what about the power needs of skyscrapers? They have so little roof space available on top compared to their 40 or 50 floors-worth of electrical needs underneath them.

Here’s one idea. Why stop at sunlight to power solar cells. Let’s harness our fluorescent lighting as well.

New Energy Technologies is trying to develop a solar cell that makes electricity just from that nasty fluorescent tube lighting buzzing over your head.

New Energy’s solar cells in their transparent SolarWindow generate electricity by using the visible light in artificial fluorescent lighting typically installed in offices and commercial buildings. In tests published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy they outperformed regular solar cells by orders of magnitude; producing two to ten-fold more power.

Researchers tested the ultra-small solar cells on a 1”x1” substrate against today’s popular solar materials for their capacity to produce electricity under varying artificial light conditions, mimicking the levels of light exposure in homes and commercial offices.

Under normal office lighting conditions, without any natural light from windows, New Energy’s ultra-small solar cells produced not just twice the power of monocrystalline silicon, but achieved:

-- 8-fold greater output power density than copper-indium-selenide, known for its high optical absorption coefficients and versatile optical and electrical characteristics. -- 10-fold greater output power density than flexible thin-film amorphous-silicon.

(Of course regular solar cells are not designed to make electricity from office lighting. So that may not actually mean much.)

For their first use, the technology application would probably be just in little gizmos like solar calculators and iPods.

But a great application of this would be to embed this transparent material right into the fluorescent fixtures themselves in a layer right below the light. And helping to power it.

Image from Flikr user Ubiquity zh

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica