New solar-powered water heater is on the way

A research team composed of teachers and students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Kun Shan University in Tainan County have developed a solar-powered water heater that gets its energy by tracking the sun. The device not only boosts the efficiency of water heaters but is also able to heat the water to 50 degrees Celsius. The commercial viability of the water heater is currently being tested.

The project was led by Chen Chang-jen, an instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Students taking part included Yen Tze-che, Pan Chun-hao, Tsai Cheng-tsung and Wang Chen-pu. They came up with the sun-tracking device with repeated tests and experiments. Previous solar-powered water heater could only absorb the power based on the path that the sun takes throughout the day. The new sun-tracking system takes advantage of the sun at various angles in the sky and adjusts its reflective panels to the most ideal angles to catch the light.
Chen says that most solar panels are traditional flat panels that are fixed in a certain position. As such, the sun's light is hard to catch at certain angles, even on bright days. The new sun-tracking system, however, enables the efficiency to be three times greater than that of the traditional solar panels. As a result, it is not only more efficient in collecting energy, but also in using energy, Chen says.

Yen Tze-che, one of the students involved in the project, says that a number of precision instruments have been installed on the top floor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering to collect data on the efficiency of the water heater. Preliminary findings are quite positive, but the water heater is still in the testing phase, said Yen, adding that the key principle behind the water heater will have applications in other appliances such as solar-powered cooking devices and other products aimed at saving on energy. He said students and teachers in the department are currently working on the technology for these items and testing their efficiency.

Word has gotten out about the preliminary success of the product, and some manufacturers have already contacted the department to discuss related R&D details. Industrialists are now looking into the possible commercialization of the solar-powered water heater, which if successful could ultimately become a common household item. The development of this and other related products not only help to save energy, but are also effective in promoting a greener environment.

Hybrid SolarWall PV/T System in Olympic Village

The Beijing Olympic Village is now home to cutting-edge solar technology, one of the world's first SolarWall photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid systems.

Mounted on the roof of one of the central buildings, which will be a service centre for athletes during the Olympics, the SolarWall® PV/T technology is unique in that it is one of the first commercially viable hybrid solar systems. The technology produces both electricity and heat energy from the same surface area, generating 200-300 per cent more energy than a conventional PV system. It combines SolarWall® air heating technology with photovoltaics to create a total energy solution in which the payback period is reduced and the CO2 displacement is maximized.

As an added benefit the SolarWall® panels act as a racking system to the PV; removing the heat from the back of the modules and channeling it into the facility’s traditional heating system.

The building is also home to a conventional SolarWall® air heating system, which was integrated into the architecturally unique front façade.

The project was done through the Canadian SolarWall office, with Conserval Engineering working in partnership with Natural Resources Canada and the Olympic Village developer to incorporate these innovative solar technologies into the site.

See-Through Solar Hack Could Double Panel Efficiency

If there's one thing most people know about solar cells, it's that they are too expensive.
Now, MIT researchers think they may have found a way to double the performance of solar arrays with cheap dyed glass and some tricks borrowed from fiber optics.

Their so-called solar concentrator could be placed on top of existing solar arrays. It could capture some wavelengths of visible light and guide them to high-voltage solar cells on the edges of the array, while still allowing the infrared light that largely powers current solar systems to pass through.

"If you stick one of these on top of existing solar panels, we think we could nearly double the performance of these systems with minimal added cost," said Marc Baldo, the lead researcher on the work.

The new research, published tomorrow in the journal Science, is another major advance in solar energy, a field that's received renewed interest due to concerns about climate change and rising fossil fuel prices. The new MIT technology marries the science behind two of the most promising ways of harnessing solar energy: light concentrators and thin-film solar cells.
Companies like SolFocus, which has raised $95 million, are using mirrors to concentrate sunlight on small amounts of photovoltaic cells. They can generate a lot of power, but rely on expensive sun-tracking mirrors. Another hot research area of solar research is thin-film solar, which uses dyes to print solar cells on cheap plastic. Putting the two technologies together could be a new way of making solar power cheaper. Current PV generation costs about 20 cents per kilowatt hour, several times more expensive than coal, wind and natural gas power generation.

If Baldo's technology scales up and can get past the inevitable engineering hurdles, it could help drive that kilowatt hour price closer to the market price for electricity, which would undoubtedly drive uptake.

"If they can solve the engineering issues, then this would very much help with the efficiency and cost of solar cells," said Marc Bünger, research director at Lux Research.

Baldo's concentrators consist of a simple piece of glass coated with dye. The glass concentrates the sun's rays by directing light almost like a fiber optic cable does. Sunlight enters the glass and is absorbed by the dyed molecules in the glass. When the dye molecules reemit the energy, it enters waveguides that send the waves to the edges of the glass.

Fundamentally, Baldo said that his organic concentrators, so named because their dyes contain carbon, help solve a fundamental problem that solar arrays have had: They have two very different functions that require different types of materials.

"Solar cells have got to absorb light and generate electricity and what we tried to do was separate those functions," Baldo said. "It doesn't make sense to use a really beautiful electronic material like silicon in huge fields to absorb light. Lots of things can absorb light, like paint."
Using a cheaper material to do the light absorbing allows the most efficient energy generating materials to be used in much smaller quantities.

Beyond driving costs down, the see-through nature of his technology means that it could integrated into buildings or products. That gets designers and architects excited but Baldo's not so sure that's the most effective way of deploying the concentrators.

"You could put them on plastic and roll it up. You can tune the color to what you'd like. Architects get really excited about this stuff," Baldo said. "But as an engineer, I'm not sure how cost effective it is to to do solar windows."

Because the technology is simple and inexpensive, Baldo thinks it will be easy to manufacture and could be deployed in the field within three years. Towards that end, colleagues of his at MIT have spun out a new company, Covalent Solar, to commercialize the technology.

via Wired

1336 Technologies: $12M raised for a solar start-up

Solar technology startup 1336 Technologies, Inc. announced the close of its first round of institutional venture capital financing, receiving $12 million.

1336 Technologies is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout company that has a new cell architecture that uses low-cost fabrication methods to increase the efficiency of multi-crystalline solar cells.

Plans include building industrial-scale, 100 megawatt plants around the world. Their architecture, developed at MIT, improves surface texture and metallization to enhance silicon solar cell efficiency by 25% (from 15 - 19%) while lowering costs. 1366 Technologies will partner with solar companies and government agencies, licensing its technology to accelerate the ongoing global transition to solar.

North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners co-led the funding round. The company said it would use the proceeds for further development and to acquire manufacturing space.

Nanosolar sells first flexible solar cells

After five years, more than $100 million, and the financial blessings of some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley (the founders of Google, eBay and others), Nanosolar is finally selling something: the first megawatt of its solar panels will be used as part of a power plant in eastern Germany.

Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, solar cells are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal. The technology is particularly exciting because it can be used nearly everywhere.

"This is the world's lowest-cost solar panel, which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as 99 cents a watt," said Roscheisen.

SEAT to install solar panels at Martorell plant

SEAT is this year planning to become one of the world's largest solar energy generators, with the firm's factory at Martorell to see the large-scale installation of solar panels generating enough renewable power to avoid the emission of more than 11,700 tonnes of CO2 a year.

By putting up a 8.5 megawatt (MW) array of solar photovoltaic panels, the system will generate 11.2 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity a year by the end of 2008. The first phase of solar panels will be placed on the roof of SEAT's corporate building in Martorell, as well as on the support structure of one of the finished vehicle parking lots.

The next step will be to cover two more distribution areas with a total surface area of more than 66,000 m2 (16.3 acres). Adding panels to the roofs of several other assembly buildings will further increase generating capacity by 139,000 m2 (34.3 acres).

Another recent advance at Martorell is expected to remove up to 25,000 trucks from Spain’s roads. On 18th January the first FGC (Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat de Catalunya) train carrying vehicles from the SEAT factory in Martorell reached the Port of Barcelona.

The trip marked the culmination of a €6.8 million (£5 million) project to connect SEAT-Martorell and the port by rail. To create the connection between the Martorell factory and the port a new branch line had to be built, part of the main railway line adapted and a new access point to the unloading area of the port created. When fully operational the new goods transport service will see two trains per day transport an expected 80,000 vehicles per year.

IBM Pioneers Process to Turn Waste into Solar Energy

IBM announced an innovative new semiconductor wafer reclamation process pioneered at its Burlington, Vermont manufacturing facility. The new process uses a specialized pattern removal technique to repurpose scrap semiconductor wafers -- thin discs of silicon material used to imprint patterns that make finished semiconductor chips for computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics -- to a form used to manufacture silicon-based solar panels. The new process was recently awarded the “2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award” from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR).



IBM estimates that approximately three million silicon wafers worldwide are scrapped each year by the semiconductor industry – representing a significant solar recycling opportunity:
Stretch for 375 miles if placed end-to-end
Cover 22.5 acres of area
Weigh 187.5 tons
Generate 13.5 megawatts of solar energy
Produce 57 million kilowatt hours in solar panels (12-hour day x 365 days)
Power 6,000 houses (9,500 kWh per year per house)

Solar island for green power

United Arab Emirates has just contracted with a Swiss firm, CSEM to purchase a floating solar island. The construction of a prototype is now underway in the Gulf. It will have a diameter of 100 metres, one-tenth of the size of an actual solar island with a peak power generation of roughly 1 megawatt. Because of its floating structure, the island could be easily turned to always face the sun, generating maximum power.

The plant will produce energy by concentrating solar power onto pipes containing water. The water will boil, and be used to spin turbines. Once shipped off-shore, the islands could be used to convert seawater to hydrogen, allowing them to be autonomous and untethered to the shore. They hydrogen could be picked up by barges, instead of having to transport the electricity to shore via a physical connection

Zephyr Solar Plane Flies for 54 Hours Straight

High altitude, long endurance aircraft flies into the night for the first time

QinetiQ’s Zephyr High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) solar powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has achieved its longest flight to date during a set of flight trials at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at the end of July. One of the three aircraft flown in the trials flew for 18 hours, including 7 hours of flying in the dark, the first time Zephyr has flown at night. The aircraft flew using solar power for the ascent, reverting to battery power as dusk fell.

Zephyr is an ultra-lightweight electrically powered aircraft, with a wingspan of up to 16 metres but weighing less than 30 kg. The aircraft uses a combination of solar array and rechargeable batteries and, when fully developed, is expected to operate for months at a time at an altitude above 50,000 feet providing a sustained and persistent earth observation platform.

In addition to confirming the anticipated flight performance, the trials demonstrated a suite of payloads flown onboard two of the aircraft. The UAV platform was successfully used for the first time as a communications relay, demonstrating capability beyond line of sight between handsets on the ground at significant distances in mountainous terrain. A number of different electro-optical and infra-red payloads were also successfully operated, providing a mix of images and video transmitted from the aircraft in real time.

Zephyr has been developed by QinetiQ under a jointly funded programme with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). Lord Drayson, Minister for Defence Procurement, praised the Zephyr programme during his key note address at the recent Farnborough International Air Show, describing it as “a truly unique capability”.

Paul Davey, Zephyr development director at QinetiQ, said: “I am delighted by our recent flight achievements. The latest trials have validated the design goal for long endurance operations at altitudes above the weather and air traffic and support our goal of being able to offer an operational low cost persistent military capability from 2008.”

In addition to supporting defence and security requirements, Zephyr is an ideal platform for a variety of civilian mapping, earth observation and atmospheric sensing applications, for example for pipeline, crop and forestry fire monitoring, fisheries protection and border control.

Two Zephyr aircraft were first trialled at White Sands in December 2005, achieving a maximum duration of 6 hours and an altitude above 26,000 feet. Both aircraft were successfully recovered and subsequently reflown in the recent July trials. The principal aims of the latest trials were to extend significantly the flight envelope and to demonstrate payload capability. Both were achieved - the maximum flight duration was trebled and the maximum altitude increased by a further 10,000 feet to 36,000 feet.

A new generation of more efficient solar cells is on the horizon

Today’s solar cells have an efficiency of 17 per cent, where 100 per cent means that all the energy from sunlight is converted to electricity. There are two types of solar cells, known as first- and second-generation cells. The most important difference between the two is the production price. First-generation cells are built of single crystals of silicon, and are expensive to produce,while the production of secondgeneration cells is far less expensive. The drawback of second-generation cells is that they sacrifice efficiency for cost, as compared to firstgeneration cells. However, because the cost is so much lower, the price per produced watt is also reduced.

Now, a new project at NTNU is taking part in the search for third-generation solar cells. Associate Professor Turid Worren is head of a project that will make a test model of the solar cells by the end of the year. The efficiency of the new cells should be beyond anything that has been produced in Norway to date.

LITTLE INTEREST SO FAR
“Theoretically, we might reach efficiencies of 60 per cent or higher. In practice we hope for 40 per cent efficiency at the start. Even at that level, the energy efficiency will be 2 to 3 times higher than today’s solar cells”,Worren says.

NTNU is the only institution in Norway where this kind of research is conducted. Worldwide, just a few groups are working on this new type of solar cell; otherwise, interest in the field has been limited.Worren says fossil fuels are to blame.

“I am convinced that a new generation of solar cells would have been available already, if not for cheap fossil energy”, she says.

QUANTUM DOTS
The new solar cells are based on what are called ‘quantum dots’. All solar cells use semiconductors to absorb sunlight, but today's cells are unable to absorb very much of the infrared heat radiation from the sun. The new solar cells being developed have pyramid-shaped semiconductor dots in addition to conventional semiconductors. These dots absorb a portion of the infrared light that the other parts of the solar cells do not capture.

The project uses new technologies and is partly financed by NTNU’s Nanolab. The longterm goal is to produce solar cells using this new technology.

BEAUTIFUL CELLS
“Using these kinds of solar cells, we could build solar cell power plants in sunny places in the developing world.At our latitudes, the most realistic use of this technology would be to cover buildings with aesthetic building elements that integrate solar cells", Worren explains. People would accept this approach if the cells were decorative enough,Worren says. “Solar cells can be beautiful, and a good alternative to decorative stone and window glass”, she says.

90,000 ROOFTOPS
On a worldwide basis, the installation of new solar cell plants (measured as the amount of energy produced) increased by 63 per cent from 2003 to 2004, with much of the increase due to political involvement. It is estimated that by 2010, the number of solar cell plants will have tripled compared to 2004. In Norway, solar cells are mainly used for mountain cottages and lighthouses, where it can be difficult to connect to the power grid.

“If we could cover 0.3 per cent of Norway’s land area with solar cell plants, we could produce 120 terawatt hours, which corresponds to our entire electricity consumption in 2002”, Worren says.

“That means that it is physically possible to handle Norway’s total energy consumption with power from solar cells, but that is neither necessary nor desirable. One alternative could be to produce just one per cent of Norway's electricity consumption using solar cells. That would correspond to a solar cell area of some 90,000 roofs, each measuring 100 square metres”, she says.

SILICON SHORTAGES
Another factor that makes the production of more efficient solar cells interesting is the lack of raw materials for the current technology. Most solar cells have an active portion made of a thin wafer of silicon. The solar cell industry is currently experiencing a silicon shortage. The search for other ways to produce silicon has begun, but increased efficiency in silicon use will also be an important component of solar cell production.

via ntnu.no

A Chinese company says it has developed a mobile phone that uses solar energy to recharge itself and can provide 40 minutes of talk-time after sitting in the sun for an hour.

Hi-Tech Wealth, a well-known telecommunication products supplier in China, claims its mobile phone is the world's first solar power to recharge its battery. The company says a scale-like solar panel on the top side of the clamshell-designed phone can also be recharged by light from other sources including candles.

Hi-Tech Wealth says it has developed the most advanced solar power technology and owns eight patents and has applied for numerous others. Many companies around the world are working on similar mobile phones but their products are still at the experimental stage, said an official with Hi-Tech Wealth.

Zhang Zhengyu, chairman of Hi-Tech Wealth, said the company began researching the use of light as an energy source in 2000 and has invested hundreds of millions of yuan. "With more than 400 million mobile phones in the country, China would save a great amount of electricity if all its mobile phones were recharged by light," Zhang said, adding that the lifespan of the battery in the new phone is 2.5 times longer that traditional batteries.

In March, Hi-Tech Wealth exhibited its light energy mobile phones at the world's largest electronic, IT and telecommunication products trade show CeBIT in Hanover, Germany. The company plans to put six of its light energy mobile phones on the market this year, and another 30 next year.

Solar power with helium balloons

A new way to produce electricity using helium balloons coated with solar cells has been devised by researchers at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Scientists from the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Architecture and City Construction have already installed two models, one in the city and one in a desert area that lacks power.

Dr. Pini Gurfil, who heads the environmentally friendly project, said that to produce electricity from solar energy, one needs a large area - about 400 dunams - for a power station large enough for commercial use. "Therefore, the balloons should be used at a low altitude in the sky," he explained.

Gurfil and doctoral student Yossi Corrie developed a technique of using helium-filled balloons coated with solar energy cells to provide electricity. The same cable that brings the helium to the balloon will also carry the electricity to the ground.

The Technion researchers estimate that each home or apartment would need only two balloons. If they were mass produced, their cost could be reduced below the estimated $700 per square meter of today's solar cells.

The pair filed a patent application for their invention and hope the technology will compete with existing power producers.

Coated helium balloons could be used, at first, to supply electricity to ships and homes in jungles, deserts and other isolated spots off electricity grids. Beyond that, Gurfil and Corrie hope that homes in cities around the world will get their electricity from such balloons.

via Jerusalem Post