All About Solar | Green Energy News

December 4, 2005 – Vol.10 No.37

All ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news...

A tour of Spanish solar photovoltaic companies, organized by SolarPlaza and attended by delegates from China, the U.S. and Switzerland, revealed a problem in Spain that may be characteristic of the world: a real shortage of solar modules. The booming global solar product industry can’t keep up with demand from solar developers in Spain and elsewhere.

According to SolarPlaza, Spanish solar developers say 2006 should yield 40 megawatts in new solar capacity in large scale solar projects, but 100 megawatts could be built if the modules were available, and they’re not. Visit Solar Plaza at http://www.solarplaza.com/ .

Conventional photovoltaic solar cells convert only a partial spectrum of sunlight to electricity. Find a way to grab the full spectrum, and electric output per cell should increase dramatically.

RoseStreet Labs of Phoenix, Arizona believes a solar technology developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the U.S. Department of Energy is the right technology to make full spectrum solar/electric conversion possible.

In this belief the company as signed a license agreement to commercialize Berkeley Lab’s Multiband Semiconductors and High Efficiency Solar Cells. The company thinks the technology can be used to develop single junction solar cells that will achieve solar electric conversion efficiencies above 48 percent. The technology is not silicon based, thus not constrained by silicon supplies.

The first step for RoseStreet will be to spin off a solar division to be known as RSL Energy, then introduce an Intermediate Band Solar Cell (IBSC) product series using the technology licensed from Berkeley. RoseStreet does not say when their solar products might enter the marketplace. Visit RoseStreet at http://www.rosestreetlabs.com/ .

As a greenhouse gas, methane has 21 times the heat-trapping capability of carbon dioxide. So using methane as a fuel - even if carbon dioxide is released - is better than letting the methane go off by itself into the atmosphere.

The Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation (SHEC) of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada says that converting methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide first then using the hydrogen as fuel is a more efficient method of utilizing methane as fuel - especially when solar energy is used to make the methane-to-hydrogen-and-carbon dioxide conversion.

The company, and partners, have received the go-ahead from the City of Regina, Saskatchewan to build SHEC No 1, a demonstration project at the city’s Fleet Street landfill. When complete SHEC No 1 will have the capacity to produce 1.2 million kilograms of hydrogen each year and prevent 81.1 kilotons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (all that landfill methane) from entering the atmosphere each year. Visit SHEC at http://www.shec-labs.com/ .

GE Energy has unveiled a new 200-watt solar panel intended for commercial applications. It uses polycrystalline cells to offer high output per square foot to help maximize power output from available real estate. Installation costs should be reduced somewhat as well: fewer panels for technicians to install for a desired output. Visit GE’s solar division at http://www.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/products/solar/en/index.htm