Solar Energy

With the price of non-renewable energy sources soaring, Kidzworld takes a look at the environmentally friendly energy source we all know and love - our sun! Get the goods on solar energy right here!

How It Works

Solar energy is the energy we acquire from the sun. Millions of years before humans realized the sun's potential as a renewable energy source, plants were using the sun's energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugars to eat. This process is called photosynthesis. Today, we have tried to copy plants by creating something called photovoltaic (PV) cells. These man-made cells are comprised of semiconductors, which are materials that are able to absorb light energy. The most commonly used semiconductor today is silicon because it is, so far, the most cost-effective material. The silicon absorbs a portion of the energy from the light that shines down on it, electrons are suddenly knocked free and are channeled to flow in the same direction by electric fields within the PV cell. On both the top and bottom of the silicon, metal contacts are placed and, through these contacts, the solar energy is extracted and stored.

Practical Uses

Solar energy is used for a variety of different things but the ones that you are most familiar with are solar-powered calculators, solar-heated swimming pools and maybe even the hot water in your house is heated by solar panels. Because solar energy is clean and renewable, it would be ideal to make a move from non-renewable heating sources like gas to solar on a grander scale, so research is ongoing to make solar energy a more cost-effective alternative for people around the world.

Did U Know?

*Solar energy is measured in kilowatt-hours. One kilowatt hour (kWh) is the amount of energy              needed to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours.

*Enough sunlight falls to Earth every hour to meet the world's energy demands for an entire year -        the trick is learning how to extract that energy in a cost-effective way.

*Approximately 10,000 homes in the United States are run entirely on solar power.
*Solar energy can even be used to cook food!

Source by: http://www.kidzworld.com/article/1288-solar-energy

UK-assembled PV-heat batteries set out to ‘prove real impact on fuel poverty’

Sunamp, a Scottish manufacturer of heat batteries for domestic energy storage, including models designed to link with PV systems, has started serial production of its units from a base in the UK.

Company boss Andrew Bissell and his team revealed at the Solar Energy UK show yesterday that Sunamp’s assembly partner, Bay Solutions, is putting together Sunamp products at a rate of 100 cells a week, equating to 50 units.

While the company undoubtedly wants to go for the wider commercial market long term, the initial focus of this output will be for a community-run and privately-invested programme to assess the long-term impact on fuel poverty of using the heat storage in combination with PV on the roofs of at least 1,000 social housing developments.

After initial production began about a month ago, Bissell said, the output from Bay Solutions is at 250kWh weekly, with each heat cell holding 2.5kWh of thermal energy and each battery unit of two cells holding 5kWh. Bay Solutions had until now been making electronics boards for the batteries’ control systems but now taken on the role of producing the finished “white box” product.

The initial line of batteries will be the Sunamp PV model. As might be expected from the name, these are intended for self-consumption of PV by households. The cells use Phase Change Materials that melt and release heat when needed – melting at around 58 degrees centigrade. Sunamp claims that in contrast to a normal domestic PV system, which exports a large portion of its generated power, the heat battery allows the system user to consume as much as 80% of the PV power as converted heat energy.

Bissell has long been vocal in pointing out that in Britain, more energy is expended “in the thermal domain” as in the electrical, and claims the devices, which also work to make already installed combi boilers more efficient, can save a household up to £271 a year over the 20 year life of the PV system.

While some companies are keeping their cards close to their chests and reluctant to reveal prices ahead of full-scale launch in the UK, Sunamp has quoted prices of around £1,700 per 5kWh system – although prices exclude VAT, due to the variable rate of the tax according to whether the property it is going into is new build (0% rate), an energy efficient property (5% rate) or otherwise (20% full VAT rate). As a benchmark, Tesla’s Powerwall electrical storage battery will be sold to installers at US$3,500 (£2,270) for a 10kWh system.

Chinese investor-backed social housing trial

The first units to roll off the production line will be used in the Eastheat, programme to “prove the real impact on fuel poverty” of combining PV and energy storage in the Edinburgh region. It will be part funded by the Scottish government through the Local Energy Challenge Fund, put together by Scottish community renewable energy advisory group Local Energy Scotland.

Sunamp has partnered with two housing associations, East Lothian Housing Association and Castle Rock Edinvar. There are four other consortia in the Eastheat programme, with Sunamp and the others winning the projects through a competitive process against over 100 other candidates.

Interestingly, the project was developed before the proposal of drastic feed-in tariff (FiT) cuts in the UK. As a result of the announced cuts, the plan has been revised to maximise the number of installations from an initially planned 1,000 rooftop PV systems and 650 Sunamp heat batteries. An estimated 3,000 PV installations will be carried out instead by Eastheat’s installation partner Edison Energy. “…Due to the planned changes to the feed-in tariff the challenge was accepted to maximise the installations within the housing association properties wherever it was feasible,” Bissell told Solar Power Portal.

As the programme was enlarged, Bissell said, a Chinese investor – which Edison Energy preferred not to name at this stage – stepped in with a £10 million contribution to the project’s costs. This could also mean a ramping up of the expected 650 Sunamp system deployments.

Bissell said he personally did not know any further details of the Chinese investor.

However, he said that it was "obviously...a big investment and obviously the feed-in tariff for PV is key to it happening".

source by: http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/uk_assembled_pv_heat_batteries_in_project_to_prove_real_impact_on_fuel_pove

University of Kansas architecture students take solar construction into the future

October 14, 2015 Kathie Zipp

Powering old homes with solar is only half the renewable-energy equation.

Designing and building new homes that make the most of that renewable power – achieving ultra-efficient “Net Zero” construction, and beyond – is the next frontier for sustainable living.

Graduate students in the University of Kansas Department of Architecture, Design and Planning are pushing construction into the future through Studio 804, a nonprofit organization that tests their drafting-board skills against real-world challenges.
Where conventional construction ends, the Studio 804 program begins.
“If a group full of students who have never worked construction or designed and built a project can accomplish these highly sustainable buildings, it shows what the industry as a whole should be capable of,” said Taylor Pickman, now in his fifth and final year in the colloquially known “M-Arch” program. “We like to think we’re setting an example in that sense.”
Their most recent success: the East Lawrence Passive House, an innovative solar home set among the tree-lined streets of a quintessential college town, a mix of modest historic homes, and even the mansions of nineteenth century industrial tycoons.
Outside, the home was designed to fit in with the scale and aesthetics of the neighborhood, while maximizing square footage on a prominent but narrow corner lot. Cut-cedar siding offers a look familiar to the neighborhood while carrying a low carbon footprint. Generous windows maximize passive solar potential.
Inside, the home boasts a laundry list of energy-saving features. A triple-thick blanket of insulation achieves dramatic “R” values, while an advanced air barrier wrap further reduces heat loss. A low-energy HVAC system and energy-recovery ventilator supplies fresh air without energy waste, while the plumbing includes an insulated hot-water recirculation system for more efficiency still.
The home targets the rigorous standards of the LEED Platinum, Net Zero and Passive House certification programs – a trifecta for sustainable construction.
Net Zero, for instance, requires that all heating, cooling and electrical needs must be met through energy-conserving design features and onsite renewable sources.
That’s where solar comes in. The East Lawrence home features a 6kW rooftop system powered by 20 Trina modules and 10 APsystems YC500 dual-module microinverters.
Studio 804 students approached APsystems for help with the project, and the Seattle-based solar technology company offered the microinverter units as a donation.
“These students are really leading the way forward for energy-efficient design and construction,” said Jason Higginson, APsystems senior director of marketing. “As a leader in innovative solar technology, we were glad to sign on to the project and be included in this showcase home.”
Pickman said microinverters represent “a huge innovation” in the solar field, helping students meet their project goals even without real experience as solar installers.
“I have to say that those microinverters were very simple to install, very simple to work with and very simple to use,” Pickman said. “We had more trouble getting the panels up onto the roof than we ever did working with the microinverters.”

Solar works for Kansas

KU’s Studio 804 program is committed to the research and development of sustainable, affordable, and inventive building solutions, from the standards of human comfort to the nature of urban spaces.
Two education tracks are offered: a three-year Master of Architecture program for students who already hold undergraduate degrees, or a five-year program that melds both undergraduate and graduate studies and also culminates in the master’s degree.
The final year is a rigorous practicum in which students tackle all aspects of design and construction: from site selection to negotiating building and zoning codes, to working with neighborhood associations and project engineers, to pouring concrete and pounding nails.
“A lot of our projects are speculative, so we are also in charge of making sure the project gets sold,” Pickman said.
To date the studio has completed seven LEED Platinum buildings and two with Passive House certification, meeting the most rigorous environmental standards for materials and construction.
Solar has become a regular feature of Studio 804 work, Pickman said, because it is one of the most effective means of achieving onsite energy production in the Midwest.
“Solar is relatively simple and it functions relatively well with different housing configurations,” he said. “And every year the technology gets better, so every year, we can demonstrate that technology as well.”
Studio 804 produces one building per year, and they keep getting more ambitious.
Twenty years ago, the first Studio 804 project put a simple metal roof over a historic farmhouse. Two years ago, students designed and built a lecture hall and auditorium addition to Marvin Hall, a treasured, 1908-vintage engineering building on the University of Kansas campus.
Pickman said their next challenge may be achieving the WELL Building standard, which considers interior design and the ergonomics of the living spaces and fixtures – anything that will “reduce wear and tear on the human body.”
“Every year we set slightly different goals,” Pickman said, from building scale to advanced materials and construction and renewable energy techniques.
“And great architecture, or at least very good architecture,” he added. “There’s not a lot of it in Kansas.”’

source by:http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2015/10/university-of-kansas-architecture-students-take-solar-construction-into-the-future/

‘World’s Most Efficient Rooftop Solar Panel’ Revisited

World-record claims of this nature, absent actual distribution, yield and volume data, are mostly bluster and stunt specmanship.

by Eric Wesoff 
October 13, 2015

Earlier this month, SolarCity made the claim that solar panels coming off of its 100-megawatt Silevo pilot production line were setting world records for solar module efficiency as "the world’s most efficient rooftop solar panel, with a module efficiency exceeding 22 percent." A week later, Panasonic claimed the crown at 22.5 percent module efficiency.

A chart might help clear things up.

SolarCity’s panel was measured with 22.04 percent module-level efficiency by the Renewable Energy Test Center. The silicon-based bifacial PV cell combines n-type substrates, copper electrodes, thin-film passivation layers, and a tunneling oxide layer that yields high conversion efficiencies.

SolarCity claims that its module will be "the highest-volume solar panel manufactured in the Western Hemisphere." Production will begin this month at the firm's 100-megawatt pilot facility, but most of the new solar panels will be produced at SolarCity’s 1-gigawatt factory in upstate New York. Full production will be between 9,000 and 10,000 solar panels per day when the Buffalo facility hits full capacity.

SolarCity CTO Peter Rive noted that the record panel was manufactured on the company's 100-megawatt pilot production line -- the Buffalo factory won't be at full production until 2017. Rive acknowledged that the 22 percent panel is "on the high end," but also noted that a majority of panels are hitting 21.8 percent.

SunPower claims its X-Series panels are the "most efficient panel on the market today" with an efficiency of 21.5 percent. The company also says demand for its X-Series product is "extremely high," with "manufacturing volume [set] to increase more than 300 percent year-over-year." Average cell efficiency across all SunPower lines was close to 23 percent during the quarter, according to the company. A reliable source at SunPower told GTM that 22 percent efficiency panels were already coming off of its line.

A SunPower spokesperson added, "As a company that is leading in providing customers around the globe with the world’s most efficient solar panels, SunPower always welcomes others to the efficiency race. It’s great that we all agree -- efficiency matters. We’re proud that we’ve been shipping the industry’s highest-efficiency solar panels for years, and some of our customers are receiving panels with greater than 22 percent efficiency."

A source suggests that there are enough SunPower panels at the factory with greater than 22 percent efficiency to build a 10-kilowatt system, starting with panel serial number J19M20279602.

Panasonic: As covered in PV Magazine, the Panasonic panel’s 22.5 percent conversion efficiency was verified by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology "and builds upon the 25.6% efficiency record the company set in 2014 at cell level."

World-record claims of this nature, absent actual distribution, yield and volume data, are mostly bluster and stunt specmanship.

An anonymous source suggested, "In solar, cost is king. Energy is a commodity, after all. With [balance-of-systems] costs declining, efficiency has less leverage on total system cost."

In any case, SolarCity's pilot production line holds the title for now.

source by:https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Worlds-Most-Efficient-Rooftop-Solar-Panel-Revisited

Solar panels on a garage near a house in Marshfield.

By Lorne Bell

Across the state, solar company sales representatives are marching door to door, offering installation contracts that seem hard to refuse: solar panels for no money down, with no maintenance, and electricity at prices significantly below those of utilities.

So, is it a good deal?

These contracts are known as power purchase agreements and they are largely responsible for the boom in residential solar panels here and across the country. Of the 189,000 residential solar units installed in the United States last year, more than 70 percent were power purchase agreements, according to Cory Honeyman, senior analyst with Boston-based GTM Research, which provides data and consulting for the green tech industry.

Power purchase agreements offer an alternative to buying and installing residential solar panels, which cost about $21,000 for a typical 6,000-killowatt-hour system, according to GTM. Instead, solar companies purchase, install, and maintain panels on customers’ homes at no cost for a contractual period of 20 to 25 years.

In return, homeowners pay the solar company for the energy produced by the panels, usually at discounts up to 25 percent lower than utility rates. The contracts also fix annual rate increases to offer predictability in the erratic energy market.

Residential solar systems can produce anywhere from 40 to 95 percent of a home’s electricity, and they can lower overall electric costs by 10 to 20 percent, says Jonathan Bass, spokesman for SolarCity Corp. of San Mateo, Calif., the nation’s biggest residential solar company. SolarCity has about 15,000 customers in Massachusetts.

For homeowners who cannot afford or do not want to pay the upfront costs of solar panels, power purchase agreements offer immediate savings and cleaner energy. Still, said Honeyman, consumers should carefully weigh their options.

“There is a lot of fine print in those contracts,” he said, “and there are important risks and considerations to keep in mind.”

The first consideration is the 20- to 25-year contract. That commitment means that if a homeowner sells his home, he must buy out the remaining years or transfer the contract to the new owner.

The balance owed when a contract ends early is based on projected solar electricity rates, average usage, and remaining time on the contract. In a typical contract charging 13 cents per kilowatt hour, for a typical home consumer 6,000 kilowatt hours a year, buying out the last 10 years could cost more than $8,000.

Solar companies say that in nearly all cases — SolarCity estimates 98 percent — homeowners transfer their contracts to the buyers.

Another consideration: the falling price of solar panels could make buying a solar power system more attractive than a power purchase agreement. The average cost to install residential solar power has plunged 73 percent since 2006, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a Washington trade group, and those costs are expected to decline further.

For those who can afford to buy or finance solar panels outright, owning a system can provide additional financial benefits. For one, instead of paying a solar company for the electricity produced on the homeowner’s roof, that energy is free.

Owning the panels also allows residents to reap state and federal tax credits and other incentives, which under purchase agreements, go to the solar companies. A typical $20,000, 6,000-kilowatt-hour system could generate $1,200 to $1,800 annually through the incentives — enough to cover the cost of loan payments, said Josh Mailloux, sales manager at Boston Solar of Woburn, which installed nearly 800 residential systems in Massachusetts last year. Most were purchased by homeowners.

“It’d be nice if people had some idea of what they’re giving up” with power purchase agreements, Mailloux said.

As panel prices slide, analysts expect the market share of power purchase agreements to shrink and more homeowners buy systems outright. SolarCity, which has relied almost exclusively on these agreements, recently added a loan program, called MyPower, to finance residential purchases.

Whether homeowners buy panels or enter a power purchase agreement, residential solar could face a challenge in 2017, when the 30 percent federal investment tax credit is set to expire for homeowners and fall to 10 percent for solar companies. Analysts expect residential solar installations to accelerate over the next two years as homeowners and solar companies seek to take advantage of the program before it expires.

Congress could extend the tax credits. But if lawmakers don’t, the pace of solar installations will slow, analysts said. For the time being, said Honeyman, power purchase agreements still offer a good deal for many low- and middle-income homeowners who can’t afford the upfront costs or don’t want the maintenance and other hassles of ownership.

“The case for [power purchase agreements] is still viable,” he said. “In the end, there are meaningful savings opportunities.”

HERE’S HOW MANY SOLAR PANELS WE’D NEED TO PROVIDE POWER FOR THE ENTIRE PLANET

Solar energy currently is an untapped resource, only providing 0.39 percent of the energy in the US. This figure is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years with some visionaries like Elon Musk predicting solar will become the dominant energy source by 2031. So what would the earth look like if it were powered by solar panels? Land Art Generator Initiative used some fancy calculations to find out.

The folks at Land Generator used 678 quadrillion BTUs, the predicted global energy consumption in 2030, as the basis for their calculations. They converted this figure to 198,721,800,000,000 kilowatt-hours and then divided it by 400 kilowatt-hours of solar energy production per square meter of land to calculate the square footage of solar panels necessary to supply the earth with power. This 400 kilowatt-hours value was calculated based on the assumption of 20 percent solar panel efficiency, 70 percent sunshine days each year, and the measurement that 1,000 watts of solar energy hits each square meter of land on the Earth.

According to Land Art’s calculations, we would need 496,805 square kilometers or 191,817 square miles of solar panels to provide renewable power for the entire Earth. This solar panel requirement is roughly equivalent to the land mass of Spain. When looking at it globally, it is a small amount of land for a lot of energy.

Of course, this is an estimate that could change. This calculation is based current technology that is 20 percent efficient at harvesting the energy from sunlight and further assumes solar energy would be sole energy provider. If this efficiency were improved or other renewable energies were used to supply power, the amount of land mass required would shrink even further. We also wouldn’t have to take over an entire country — these panels could be spread out on the rooftops of houses and buildings around the world.

According to the US Department of Energy, the sun bombards the earth with 430 quintillion joules of energy each hour of the day. This single hour of sunlight would supply the earth with all the energy it needs for an entire year. With such an abundant energy source and so little land mass required for harvesting it, it would be shocking if we didn’t fully utilize this resource in the upcoming decades.

source by:http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/solar-panel-spain-energy/

New York State Pledges to Start Talks on a North American Carbon Market

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made several strong commitments to act on climate, but it’s unclear how New York will follow through.

by Julia Pyper 
October 09, 2015








As another round of global climate negotiations approach, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has positioned his state to be a national and global role model for aggressive climate action.

Cuomo announced yesterday that New York state has signed the Under 2 Memorandum of Understanding, a global pledge to prevent the Earth’s average temperature from rising 2 degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial level benchmark by 2100 -- which is widely considered the limit to avoid catastrophic climate change. New York joins 42 other jurisdictions in 19 countries that have made the same commitment.

“As U.N. climate negotiations begin in Paris this December, the powerful collective of signatories to the MOU are demonstrating the urgency of action, and the importance of setting binding targets,” Cuomo said in a speech at Columbia University, appearing alongside former Vice President Al Gore. “World leaders must now follow suit.”

Cuomo announced that New York will also reach out to California, Quebec and Ontario, as well as state partners in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to explore the possibility of linking carbon markets.

“Hopefully, this will drive a national discussion to every state in the nation,” said Cuomo.

In terms of activity within the state, the governor made a new commitment to bring solar to 150,000 more homes and businesses by 2020. He also pledged to install renewable energy at each of the State University of New York’s 64 campuses by the same year.

These recent announcements build on previous efforts to combat climate change, including targets to reduce state emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The goals were introduced under the previous administration, and reaffirmed in June as part of New York’s 2015 State Energy Plan.

To achieve these reductions, New York launched Reforming the Energy Vision -- a comprehensive energy agenda that includes a fundamental restructuring of the state’s electricity sector.

"The leadership shown by Governor Cuomo and New York state to make bold emissions reductions commitments is vital to solving the climate crisis,” said former Vice President Al Gore.

New York’s efforts have been broadly met with praise, but also some skepticism.

Conor Bambrick, air and energy director at Environmental Advocates of New York, said it’s encouraging to see the governor publicly embracing strong goals, but added that the path to meeting them is far from clear.

“From our point of view, these goals are great, they’re ambitious, but we would also need to see a concrete plan as to how to get there,” he said.

New York’s carbon reduction goals are not written into law as California's are. The Golden State has the same target to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050. Without a clear directive, the heads of state agencies lack the authority and impetus to achieve these goals, which is not going to be any small task, said Bambrick.

“An 80% by 2050 reduction means within the next three decades, our power systems, heating and cooling of buildings, and transport all have to be electrified by clean renewable energy,” he said. “Without a plan or mandate of future administrations written in the law…we worry that the state may fall short.”

Bambrick added that the expansion of New York’s carbon market is an exciting prospect with a lot of potential.

RGGI members are expected to meet through 2016 to discuss the future of the program beyond its current end date of 2020, and as a possible compliance mechanism for the Clean Power Plan. Joining with California, the Canadian provinces and other states in the Northeast adds a new layer to the initiative that could shift RGGI’s carbon market for power plant emissions to an economy-wide program.

Lori Severino, spokesperson for New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation, reiterated Cuomo’s view that carbon markets are a powerful tool for reducing pollution. But with conversations just getting underway, she said it’s too soon to know what the structure will look like.

Dave Clegern, spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board, said his state is “committed to working with others to expand the number of jurisdictions that put a price on carbon.” However, he would not speculate further on the market design.

California made its own climate news this week with Gov. Jerry Brown signing into law SB 350, which requires the state to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources and double building energy efficiency by 2030. A third goal to cut gasoline use in half was ultimately eliminated from the bill, but legislators kept requirements for California’s electric utilities to invest in electric-vehicle charging infrastructure and support EV adoption.

“The passage and signing of SB 350 prove once again that California is the nation’s leader in the fight against climate change,” said Pasquale Romano, CEO of the EV station network ChargePoint.

New York, it appears, wants to challenge the Golden State for that title.

source by:http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/new-york-state-pledges-to-start-talks-on-a-north-american-carbon-market

It could be lights out for solar power under this government

Terry Macalister

Ten times as many of the jobs lost at Redcar are at risk under the government’s plans to cut solar power subsidies by 87% – and it may be schools that suffer most

 Solar panels on the roof of a school in Liverpool. Subsidies for nuclear and gas power stations are increasing but falling for wind and solar power. Photograph: Alamy

                Ministers rightly wring their hands over the 2,200 jobs being lost at the 98-year-old Redcar steelworks hit by low-cost Chinese competition. But they seem deaf to warnings of 27,000 jobs being potentially lost in a brand-new industry now facing crisis due to their own clumsy cuts.

Almost 1,000 redundancies have already been made by the solar panel installers Mark Group and Climate Energy. No one in the industry believes this will be the end of the sad story.

The latest flashpoint for “green” developers is the government plan to slash the feed-in tariff – which subsidises people installing solar panels on their home – by almost 90%. Meanwhile, an energy-efficiency regime has been scrapped with only a vague promise of a future replacement.

If these were isolated examples, then companies might be willing to hang on in the hope of better things to come. But they are the latest in a series of cuts not just to solar but also to onshore wind, and come at a time when it seems maximum effort is being expended on removing roadblocks to shale-gas fracking and nuclear power.

And yet new figures out this week from Bloomberg New Energy Finance show the cost of building nuclear or gas-fired power stations is rising – as wind and solar costs fall.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) says it is exactly those falls in the cost of renewable technology that make it unnecessary for the hard-pressed consumer to continue to fund a high level of subsidies.

Certainly, there is a need for subsidies to be constantly reviewed and possibly adjusted – but not hit with a blunt axe. And while many people might think it is well-heeled homeowners who benefit from the feed-in tariff on their solar panelled-roofs, Alex Lockton, general manager of the installer TH White, will remind them that schools and community groups will suffer too.

“We have been engaged in community solar ventures, which have been a massive success story. But they are about to get blown out of the water if the government proceeds with its latest plans to cut subsidies by 87%,” Lockton said.

Most people – Lockton included – presume that the cuts agenda is being driven by George Osborne as he tries to meet Treasury austerity objectives as much as any serious attempt by the Decc to push forward energy policy.

“We are the builders,” Osborne claimed at the Tory party conference this week. But government cuts and tinkering have already destroyed a precious commodity in the world of renewables, as in any sector of commerce – and that is confidence.

source by:http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/08/it-could-be-lights-out-for-solar-power-under-this-government

Elon Musk's SolarCity has the world's most efficient solar panels

The company co-founded by Elon Musk, now produces the world's most efficient rooftop solar panels with a module efficiency of just over 22 percent. That bests the X-Series panels built by SunPower, which top out at around 21.5 percent. The results were confirmed by the Renewable Energy Test Center, a third party California photovoltaic testing company. SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive told Fortune that the company is shooting for a cost of around 55 cents per watt. It plans to build the 360 watt panels its 1GW solar panel plant in Buffalo, New York, set to open next year.

If 22 percent doesn't sound particularly great, you may be thinking of the (extremely expensive) panels used by NASA in space, which have nearly double that efficiency. However, the slight improvements made by SolarCity with its new panels will still have a big impact, bringing more power, less waste and a smaller footprint to consumers. The company said that a smaller pilot line is already producing the panels, which it will sell in select areas to start with. Once the main line is running, SolarCity will build enough of them to equip up to 200,000 homes per year.

source by : http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/02/elon-musk-solar-city-rooftop-efficiency/