Here’s our fun infographic of the week, on the top 10 countries for solar power, based on installed solar power capacity
Subsidies for solar panels installed after Monday will fall by as much as 50 per cent from next April, assuming the government adopts proposals set out in the on-going consultation on its popular feed-in tariff scheme.
The consultation on new rates for photovoltaic (PV) systems with capacity of 250kW or below does not conclude until 23 December. But the government’s controversial package of reforms suggest the proposed cuts will come into force for installations completed 12 days prior to the closing date of the consultation exercise.
Apple has updated their plans that describe their future headquarters yesterday. The updated Spaceship campus is now planned to include solar panels on its roof, and as ugly as it may have looked through the eyes of Steve Jobs, maybe, the idea is not bad – after all it will generate around 5 megawatts of clean electricity to power the factory where grown-up toys are made.
The Spaceship’s rooftop has been estimated to have around 750,000 square feet. 9to5mac.com, a website specialized in Apple news calculated that about 500,000 sq ft will be used for solar power. Assuming that an average solar panel produces around 10 watts per square foot, that gives the 5 megawatt figure.
Renewable energy investments are surpassing investments in new fossil fuel power for the first time ever, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance as reported by Joe Romm on ThinkProgress. Adding to the encouraging news, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that the trillionth dollarhas been invested in renewable energy, energy efficiency and smart energy technologies.Wind, solar, wave and biomass energy attracted $187 billion of investment capital in 2010 compared to $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s latest data and calculations. A faster pace of wind and solar power installations, along with oversupply in various wind and solar power plant inputs, is driving installed costs lower, making these clean, renewable alternatives more competitive with coal using conventional cost and return on investment measures and methods, even given their increasingly glaring inadequacies.
The “Oracle of Omaha,” who made his fortune by betting on technologies that appear underpriced, is now putting his money into solar.
The solar industry got a turbo-boost of both name recognition and mainstream credibility on Wednesday as a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s investment company MidAmerican Energy Holdings announced plans to purchase the Topaz Solar power development from thin-film PV module maker First Solar. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Some heartening news broke yesterday, at least if you’re a fan or supporter of clean energy and solar power. SolarCity and BoA-Merrill Lynch announced that they have agreed to terms on financing SolarStrong, a billion-plus dollar SolarCity project – the largest in US history – that could double the number of residential solar installations in the US by installing solar power systems on privatized US military housing communities across the country.
SolarCity is partnering with the leading privatized military housing developers in the US to install, own and operate rooftop solar power installations and provide electricity at a lower cost than utilities. The five-year project plan call for as many as 120,000 installations on military housing units expected to produce up to 300 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity. That would easily make SolarCity the largest provider of solar photovoltaic (PV) power in US history, (more…)
Recently the Cleantech Group, with the assistance of an advisory panel of corporate executives, sat down to decide upon the third annual Global Cleantech 100: the hundred “most promising and innovative” clean technology companies of 2011. The listed companies span a range of industries, and though solar energy firms, chemical recyclers, LED manufacturers and energy-monitoring software programmers certainly aren’t under-represented, many companies in the hundred are defined by a single product or idea. Gizmag scoured the Cleantech 100 to find what we thought were the ten most innovative companies.
Google has abandoned its effort to come up with better flat mirrors and power plant designs for producing electricity from the sun’s heat, but it is releasing its research results so that others could perhaps use it to create commercially viable solutions.
It’s interesting to see what Google thought it could contribute to the field of solar thermal power plant engineering. The company’s research has focused on using smaller engines and light-weight mirrors with better controlling software — along with a tower outfitted with equipment to receive the concentrated sunlight and run a turbine and generator — to produce electricity. It ran into some technical challenges with engineering a suitable power tower before it decided to shelve the research project.
As you can see from the linked stories on the left of this article, Google is quite a big proponent of renewable energy. They have made all kinds of investments in wind, solar, geothermal, etc. Some are to generate clean energy for their own needs, others are more akin to financing deals to help big wind and solar farms get built. In any case, it is very commendable work and if more big corporations had the long-term vision of Google, the world would definitely be in better shape.
Europe’s ambitious project to capture solar and wind energy across Arab deserts to power homes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa inched forward Thursday despite technical and political hurdles.
Two international consortiums led by German and French industrial giants joined forces in highly complex drives to deploy solar panels and wind turbines in arid regions, and sink cables across the Mediterranean.
The two groups, Desertec Industry Initiative and Medgrid, signed a cooperation deal in Brussels on the sidelines of an EU energy ministers’ meeting, linking projects aimed at meeting 15 percent of Europe’s electricity demand by 2050.
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