3Jan

Solar energy: Chinese city offers help

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Solar energy Chinese city offers help

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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.

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30Dec

Düsseldorf Airport Installs One of The Largest Solar Arrays in Germany

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Düsseldorf Airport Installs One of The Largest Solar Arrays in Germany

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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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30Dec

Germany’s Solar Power Output Up 60% in 2011

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The German Solar Industry Association (BSW) has announced that German solar power producers have increased electricity output this year by 60 percent over 2010 to 18 billion kWh. This is more than three percent of total power output volumes.

The solar sector has already produced enough electricity to power approximately 5.1 million households in Germany.

Gehrlicher Solar AG

BSW’s managing director Carsten Koernig stated that “solar energy has become an indispensable ingredient of a successful energy strategy shift”. The solar sector has already produced enough electricity to power approximately 5.1 million households. This accounts for about one-eighth of all households in Germany.

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29Dec

HUGE NYC Clean Energy Tech Campus for Cornell University

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HUGE NYC Clean Energy Tech Campus for Cornell University

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A project that involved 1.8 megawatts (MW) of solar power, 500 geothermal wells, and fuel cells could potentially reduce energy consumption at a Cornell University campus by 75%. The campus has the name “NYC Tech Campus” and is a project of Distributed Sun.

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29Dec

Large-Scale Solar Continues to Proliferate. 10 Major Announcements Last Week.

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I posted just now on a significant solar project at Palau International Airport, but it was just one of many featured in Cleantechnica’s latest weekly roundup of big solar news. From 200MW in Rajastan to 60MW projects in France and Germany, the future of solar is looking decidedly global if this week’s list is anything to go by. Given all the doom-and-gloom over solar that was spouted in the last few months of 2011, it’s good to see that capacity keeps building and interest keeps building. No wonder Warren Buffet is buying up large solar farms and Google continues its solar surge.

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28Dec

Solar Panels Creating Electricity for Much Longer than 20 Years

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As indicated in a study Josh wrote on just a couple weeks ago, the lifespan of a solar power system is far longer than the 20 years most analysts use to calculate solar power costs. Last November, Susan featured one that was going strong at 30 years. A Facebook fan notes that solar panels at the Technical University of Berlin have been in operation for 31 years. Similarly, Kyocera, one of the oldest solar panel manufacturers in the world, recently posted on the fact that a number of its early installations continue to generate electricity reliably nearly 30 years after installation.
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28Dec

India’s Tata Power to Divorce BP Solar

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India's Tata Power to Divorce BP Solar

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BP Solar is suffering a slow death that is hard to watch and reflects the cutthroat competition that marks an industry that used to be a lot more Pollyanna. The company is closing down and on Tuesday its joint venture partner, Tata Power, said it will buy out BP’s share in their enterprise.

Tata said it will purchase the 51 percent BP had in their Tata BP Solar joint venture, which was formed in 1989 and makes silicon solar panels and offers solar system design services. Tata didn’t disclose the purchase price. The joint venture is among the top three solar cell and panel makers in India, according to GTM Research.

The deal gives Tata total control of an operation that could benefit from India’s emergence as a sizable solar market. India’s central government wants to see 20 gigawatts of grid-tied solar energy and 2 gigawatts of off-grid uses by 2022, and it launched an incentive program in January 2010 that has auctioned off projects. A few states in India also run solar incentive programs. All these efforts are recent, so whether India can hit its goals still remains a big question.

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27Dec

The Good, the bad and the ugly: Solar thermal energy

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The Good, the bad and the ugly Solar thermal energy

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The technology for harnessing solar energy to generate heat or thermal energy is called solar thermal energy (STE). The US Energy Information Administration has classified the solar thermal collectors as low, medium, or high temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are used to heat swimming pools, while medium-temperature collectors can be used to heat water or air for private or commercial purposes.

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26Dec

Solar Power Year in Review 2011

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Please forgive us the journalistic conceit of collecting these year-end trends — it’s a necessary evil we all put ourselves through. In solar, this year is a bit more nerve-wracking than last. Here are ten trends in a particularly dynamic and pivotal year that will echo into 2012.

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22Dec

A solar hot water collector that makes electricity, too

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A solar hot water collector that makes electricity, too

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The company today announced it raised $14 million in series C funding to commercialize a product that will draw electricity from solar hot water collectors. It will also make small chips able to convert heat from car exhaust pipes and industrial machines into electricity.

GMZ Energy, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College in 2008, has created an improved material for converting the energy in heat into electric power. The process works in reverse so an electric current will produce heat.

Thermoelectric materials have been used for years in a few applications, such as heated seats in cars and portable coolers. Now a number of companies are trying to make them less expensive and more efficient at the heat-to-electric power conversion.

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