China just took a massive step forward for renewable energy as it flipped the switch on the world’s largest battery, which will help integrate a solar project and a wind farm into a smart grid. Capable of storing 36 megawatt hours of power and taking up the area of a football field, the giant battery bank was built as a joint venture between solar and electric car company BYD and the State Grid Corporation of China to improve a large wind and solar electric installation’s efficiency by 5-10%. It looks like we have a race to see who will have the largest battery in world as utilities struggle to make solar and wind technologies usable for longer periods of time.
By Kevin Bullis
Semprius, a startup that makes miniscule solar cells capable of capturing concentrated sunlight without costly cooling systems, announced this week that it had made the world’s most efficient solar panel.
The company’s solar panels use tiny solar cells made of gallium arsenide—the record-breaking solar module contains hundreds of such solar cells, each about the width of a line drawn by a ball-point pen, arranged under lenses that concentrate sunlight 1,100 times.
Gallium arsenide is far better at absorbing sunlight than silicon, the material used in most solar cells, but it’s also more expensive. Furthermore, although concentrated solar modules use less semiconducting material, they usually require expensive optics, cooling systems, and tracking systems to keep them aimed at the sun. Semprius’s microscaled solar cells are inherently much better at dissipating heat, making them cheaper.
Maricopa County, Arizona is set to play host to a 125 MW photovoltaic solar power plant, according to an announcement on Tuesday from Fluor Corporation. The company has won the separate contracts to build and maintain the facility, which upon completion will fleetingly join the ranks of the the world’s largest photovoltaic solar farms. The project, known as Arlington Valley Solar Energy II (AVSE II) will be built on 1.8 square miles (4.7 sq. km) near to the Arlington Valley Combined Cycle Facility, a 577 MW natural gas plant also designed and built by Fluor.
China just took a massive step forward for renewable energy as it flipped the switch on the world’s largest battery, which will help integrate a solar project and a wind farm into a smart grid. Capable of storing 36 megawatt hours of power and taking up the area of a football field, the giant battery bank was built as a joint venture between solar and electric car company BYD and the State Grid Corporation of China to improve a large wind and solar electric installation’s efficiency by 5-10%. It looks like we have a race to see who will have the largest battery in world as utilities struggle to make solar and wind technologies usable for longer periods of time.
Some more astonishing stats on the progress Germany is making on solar power thanks to good, steady and predictable renewable energy policy: Greentech Media shares the astonishing fact that in the month of December alone Germany installed 2 GW of solar PV. For the whole of 2011, Germany installed 7 GW.
The US managed to install 1.7 GW in the same time period—which isn’t to knock US installation rates so much as to further highlight the massive Germany push to install more PV before the feed-in tariff for it drop as planned.
At least 400 megawatts of electricity from wind projects in Gharo and Jhimpir will be added to national grid by the end of current year (2012) which is being observed as the year for wind energy.
This was stated by the chief executive officer of Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) Arif Alauddin while talking to media at a reception organised by National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) here the other day.
He said that investment commitments of $500 million have been made for energy projects. Four wind projects were at advanced stage, while 12 projects have completed their financial close. They included Zorlu of Turkey, CWE of China, Three Gorges, Fauji Fertilizers, Fauji Foundation, Arif Habib and Lucky Cement, he added. He was of the opinion that 1,200 MW will be added to the national grid every year from 2013.
Flexible thin-film solar PV manufacturer Ascent Solar Technologies announced yesterday that China’s TFG Radiant Group is acquiring an additional 21% equity stake in the company by purchasing shares owned by Norsk Hydro Produksjon AS for $4 million. The purchase price, at about $0.50 per share, is a 19% premium to Nasdaq-listed Ascent’s $0.42 closing share price on Tuesday, and will bring TFG’s overall equity in Ascent to 41%.
The Zibo city of China is ready to share expertise for setting up solar energy projects in Hyderabad, according to Dr Wang Jianzhong, deputy director of the Zibo Municipal Foreign Affairs Office.
Speaking at a reception given in his honour by the Hyderabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry (HCCI), he said Zibo was one of the most important industrial cities of China.
He said that in the trade with Pakistan, Zebo mainly imported cotton and exported medicines, industrial equipment and other goods.
The Düsseldorf International Airport is about to flip the switch on one of the largest solar arrays in Germany. The 8,400 panel, 2 megawatt solar array spans the space of six soccer fields, and it was finished in time to start feeding power to the grid before the clock strikes 2012. To prove the solar array’s everyday worth, the airport has installed a real time statistics ticker in the airport lobby so passengers can see how much energy it is creating and how much carbon dioxide is being diverted from the atmosphere.
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