Solar Activity | Green Energy News

March 28, 2004 – Vol.9 No.1

SOLAR ACTIVITY.

Here’s some upbeat figures. According to the New Energy Foundation in Japan 52,339 people filed for the subsidized installation of residential solar systems there. And, according to the California Energy Commission, 27 megawatts of solar PV power were installed in 2003, bringing the state total to 60 megawatts.

Lawyers from General Electric ran to bankruptcy court to buy the assets of Enron Wind when it was up for grabs. The company’s lawyers once again burned the soles of their shoes sprinting to buy bankrupt solar energy company AstroPower.

The deal is now complete, AstroPower employees are working for GE and the new division already has a presence on the Web. Hopefully the market clout of the multinational corporation will do for its solar energy division what it did for its wind division.

To the best of the editor’s knowledge the GE was the first wind energy company to have wind energy advertisements on television in the U.S.. Maybe solar will make its way to the tube when advertising efforts get rolling. Visit GE Power Systems at http://www.gepower.com/ .

APS, once Arizona Public Service, has begun construction of a 1-megawatt solar trough power plant in Red Rock, Arizona. The project is the first of its type in Arizona and the first constructed in the U.S. since 1988.

The solar trough system is comprised of parabolic mirrors to concentrate sunlight to heat mineral oil to 250 -550 degrees F. The fluid then, through a heat exchanger, heats another fluid until it becomes a gas. That gas is fed through a turbine which then generates electricity. The gas is condensed to a liquid and recycled in the system.

The project is expected to be complete in about a year. Visit APS at http://www.aps.com/ (click News Releases)