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Posts Tagged ‘Alternative Energy’

Will Solar Energy Become the New Normal?

When Bell Labs developed the first functioning solar cell in the 1950s, the equipment was rather cumbersome, primitive and inefficient. It remained so for the better part of several decades. Innovations such as thin-film, a smaller, cheaper and quicker-to-produce technology, have changed the game. Big players who once stood on the sidelines have jumped in.

“The traditional solar electric technologies seem to be tapped out, and most of the focus now is more towards commercializing and bringing the high-efficiency cells to the commercial outlets,” said solar market analyst M.J. Shiao of GTM Research, an alternative energy analysis firm.

The cost of producing electricity via solar technologies has fallen 60 to 70 percent over the last few years, according to Danielle Merfeld, a solar business leader for General Electric Energy’s Renewable Business. It has averaged an 18 percent drop in price for every doubling in capacity, she added.

In Germany, a feed-in tariff, which is design to accelerate investment in renewable energy, has created a surge in solar installations. So much so that on a bright, sunny day, about one-quarter of all electricity used across the nation comes from solar technology, Kurtz said.

GE Makes A Commitment

Adding to the price decrease is the increase in major players willing, now, to compete within the industry.

General Electric spent years monitoring the solar industry, trying to decipher the right moment to jump in, Merfeld said. On Oct. 13, it announced the buyout of Colorado’s PrimeStar Solar Inc., and will invest $600 million in thin-film solar technology.

“We’ve been looking at solar for over a decade now,” Merfeld said. “First we tried to understand if this is a real industry, then decided that it’s time to invest in it and try to grow.

“The biggest difference: It is much cheaper to manufacture and has the potential to be as efficient. We’re looking at this in the long-haul.”

Peak Oil, Peak Debt, and the Concentration of Power

Obama’s Solar Bet

Three solar-energy manufacturers that received backing from the Obama administration may survive an onslaught of cheap Chinese panels that helped force Solyndra LLC into bankruptcy.

Abound Solar Inc. and SoloPower Inc. won a total of $597 million in loan guarantees from the U.S. Energy Department to begin building their first commercial solar-panel plants this year, and 1366 Technologies Inc. received a $150 million guarantee for a polysilicon wafer factory.

Abound and SoloPower say their thin-film panels will compete on price against the most common type of solar panels, which are made from polysilicon, and 1366 is developing a low- cost system for producing polysilicon.

Solyndra touted the light weight and ease of installation of its cylindrical, thin-film solar products, advantages that were more important in 2009 when it received a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee to build a factory. The price of silicon-based panels, made mainly in China, has fallen 46 percent since then.

$1 a Watt

The falling prices mean Abound and SoloPower will need to sell their thin-film solar panels at no more than $1.05 a watt to be competitive in 2013 when the plants are expected to go into full production, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The four companies are the only solar manufacturers to receive Energy Department loan guarantees. Most recipients are developing power plants.

“In 2013 we should be able to sell at a dollar, 90 cents or even as low as 80 cents per watt and still make money,” Julian Hawkins, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Loveland, Colorado-based Abound, said in an interview. “When Solyndra started up it was a completely different time for the industry. Nobody expected the huge drop in polysilicon prices.”

Easier to Produce

Thin-film products require less labor, time and energy to produce than polysilicon-based products. General Electric Co. (GE) is also betting on the technology, with its PrimeStar Solar.

Thin Film Solar Panels Gaining in Popularity

FLANDERS, N.J. — A giggling Kyle Bartz used the new rooftop solar panels as a trampoline atop the sprawling Toys R Us distribution center here on a recent sunny summer morning.

“This is the latest panel on the market,” said Bartz, the national director of energy management for Toys R Us. “It’s extremely durable, extremely flexible.”

The Thin Film Solar Panels he was jumping on are now part of the nation’s largest rooftop solar installation, covering 20 acres — the size of about 15 football fields — atop the distribution center. The 5.38-megawatt project will slash $350,000 a year from the building’s power bills, a 72 percent reduction, the company said.

While the Toys R Us installation wrested the crown for largest U.S. rooftop solar plant away from another New Jersey building earlier this month, the 4.26-MW installation on the Avidan Management building in Edison, still another Garden State entity claims it is going be No. 1 this fall. Developers putting 27,000 photovoltaic panels on the Gloucester Marine Terminal in Gloucester City say it will have a rooftop capacity of 9 MW.

“We think the momentum has been fabulous,” said Michelle Siekerka, assistant commissioner for green energy at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. “We’ve seen a thriving industry and we’ve seen jobs created as a result.”

GE Sees Solar Power Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels Within Five Years

Solar power may be cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels and nuclear reactors within three to five years because of innovations, said Mark M. Little, the global research director for GE.

“If we can get solar at 15 cents a kilowatt-hour or lower, which I’m hopeful that we will do, you’re going to have a lot of people that are going to want to have solar at home,” Little said yesterday in an interview in Bloomberg’s Washington office. The 2009 average U.S. retail rate per kilowatt-hour for electricity ranges from 6.1 cents in Wyoming to 18.1 cents in Connecticut, according to Energy Information Administration data released in April.

GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, announced in April that it had boosted the efficiency of thin-film solar panels to a record 12.8 percent. Improving efficiency, or the amount of sunlight converted to electricity, would help reduce the costs without relying on subsidies.

The thin-film panels will be manufactured at a plant that GE intends to open in 2013. The company said in April that the factory will have about 400 employees and make enough panels each year to power about 80,000 homes.

Solar-panel makers from Arizona to Shanghai are expanding factories to add more cost savings that analysts say will sustain the industry’s expansion. Installations may increase by as much as 50 percent in 2011, worth about $140 billion, as cheaper panels and thin film make developers less dependent on government subsidies, Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast.

Solar Costs Dive

The cost of solar cells, the main component in standard panels, has fallen 21 percent so far this year, and the cost of solar power is now about the same as the rate utilities charge for conventional power in the sunniest parts of California, Italy and Turkey, the London-based research company said.

Most solar panels use silicon-based photovoltaic cells to transform sunlight into electricity. The thin-film versions, made of glass or other material coated with cadmium telluride or copper indium gallium selenide alloys, account for about 15 percent of the $28 billion in worldwide solar-panel sales.