Tag Archive for: photovoltaic

On August 21, the City of Santa Barbara began construction on a 425 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic system and BESS at the Granada Garage.

Construction begins on solar photovoltaic and BESS installation at the Granada Garage

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On August 21, the City of Santa Barbara began construction on a 425 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic system and battery energy storage system (BESS) at the Granada Garage. This project will generate, store, and supply electricity to the Granada Garage, Granada Offices, and the 911 Call Center while also reducing electricity costs at the Central Library across the street.

The project will produce approximately 700,000 kWh per year of clean renewable electricity, equivalent to powering over 150 Santa Barbara homes. In addition to increasing local renewable electricity capacity, project benefits include improved regional air quality and energy reliability, and supporting the local green energy industry.

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Source: Independent

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Too many neighborhoods are not designed for today’s record-setting heat. “Smart surfaces” can make cities cooler and less vulnerable to flooding.

We need cooler cities. Here’s how to build them.

“Why is our neighborhood hotter than the one down the road?”
“Why are flooding and mold more frequent?”
“Why is it getting so hot that our kids can’t go outside and play?”

The last eight years have been among the eight hottest on record globally, with 2023 on track to be the hottest year ever recorded. This summer has seen days with more than 100 million Americans living under extreme heat advisories. And 2023 has also been a year of devastating floods across the nation, from California to Vermont.

As heat waves set records and floods reach higher marks, community members living in neighborhoods built to overheat and vulnerable to floodwaters want solutions. And they deserve them.

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Source: GOVERNING

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The 61kW solar photovoltaic energy system produces enough energy to reduce Full Belly Farm’s total annual energy costs by 50%.

Renewable energy investments bring big benefits to Full Belly Farm

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Full Belly Farm, Inc. is a certified organic 450-acre farm located in Yolo County that sustainably grows more than 100 different crops. By investing in sustainable energy production, carbon sequestration through good soil management, cover crop production, and efficiency, Full Belly Farm, Inc. is working to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. A leader in on-farm production of value-added products such as jams, sauces, oils, dried goods, baked goods, and wheat products like pizza dough and pasta, Full Belly Farm, Inc. employs at least 80 people year-round, supporting more than 20 local families.

The California Energy Commission’s Renewable Energy for Agriculture Program awarded a $75,976 grant to the farm, with a 100 percent match commitment from the recipient. Completed and fully operational in August 2020, the project includes  a new 61 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic energy system that produces enough energy to reduce Full Belly Farm’s total annual energy costs by 50 percent and  two Level-2, 10 kW electric vehicle charging stations. These chargers supply power to electric farming vehicles and are available to employees and visitors. The system reduces peak loads on the electrical grid and helps Full Belly Farms meet its goal of 100 percent renewable energy usage.

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Source: CA Climate Investments

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Smart energy storage systems have the potential to make homes self-sufficient, turning consumers of energy into producers of energy.

Solar tech is coming for your neighborhood, kitchen, and furnishings

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An analysis earlier this month revealed that 2023 is likely to be the hottest year on Earth ever recorded. As the world seeks to mitigate anthropogenic climate change, this is one data point among many that indicate that the need for alternatives to emissions-generating fossil fuels is dire.

Fortunately, some hope is in sight, says WGSN, a London-based forecasting agency that recently published an intelligence report detailing how the solar tech sector is already shifting how we consume energy, especially in our homes. Spotlighting products like SolarBotanic Trees, Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel’s sunset-hued Sunne Lamp, and GoSun’s Sport-E solar ovens, this analysis offers an overview of how, where, and when this ample renewable resource can be harnessed within and around our homes.

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Source: AD PRO

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Solar is growing at 33.7% year-on-year and is now at twice the capacity of coal power in China, according to a new report.

China’s solar is now at twice the capacity of its coal power – report

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Today, the China Electricity Council, a state-approved nonprofit national trade association, released its first-quarter report, the “Operational Situation of [the] Electric Power Industry.”

As of the end of March, according to the report, China’s installed power generation capacity was 2.62 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%. Every category of fuel – that is, both renewables and fossil fuels – saw year-on-year installed capacity increases.

Overall, the installed generation capacity of non-fossil-fuel energy power generation was 1.33 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%, accounting for 50.5% of the total installed capacity, and the proportion increased by 3 percentage points year-on-year.

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Source: electrek

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France-based off-grid solutions provider Sunwind has developed a PV module that can be used at ski stations, ski lifts and resorts at high altitudes in mountainous areas.

Solar panels for ski areas

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France-based off-grid solutions provider Sunwind has developed a PV module that can be used at ski stations, ski lifts and resorts at high altitudes in mountainous areas.

“The mountain is in our DNA,”§ the company’s founder, Xavier Duport, told pv magazine France. “The high mountain environment is conducive to the production of solar electricity, due to greater irradiation, less atmospheric pollution, and a stronger albedo effect which brings 5 to 10% of production in more about the winter months thanks to the snowpack.”

For the modules, the company uses a special encapsulation process based on a composite multi-layer that gives them the exact shape of the polycarbonate side windows they replace.

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Source: PV Magazine

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India’s solar program met its original twenty-thousand-megawatt goal four years early, and went on to set higher goals; by 2023, the country had more than 60,000MW of solar capacity installed.

India’s quest to build the world’s largest solar farms

Every morning in the Tumakuru District of Karnataka, a state in southern India, the sun tips over the horizon and lights up the green-and-brown hills of the Eastern Ghats. Its rays fall across the grasslands that surround them and the occasional sleepy village; the sky changes color from sherbet-orange to powdery blue. Eventually, the sunlight reaches a sea of glass and silicon known as Pavagada Ultra Mega Solar Park. Here, within millions of photovoltaic panels, lined up in rows and columns like an army at attention, electrons vibrate with energy. The panels cover thirteen thousand acres, or about twenty square miles—only slightly smaller than the area of Manhattan.

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Source: The New Yorker

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Utility-scale battery energy storage system capacity in the West region of the US is forecast to grow exponentially over the next decade

Solar-fueled arbitrage potential supercharging storage economics in Western US

Utility-scale battery energy storage system capacity in the West region of the US is forecast to grow exponentially over the next decade, driven by aggressive renewable portfolio standards and related strong solar development, particularly across the sunshine-soaked desert southwest. The West is home to 6 GW of operating battery storage — 60% of the nationwide total. At over 32 GW, the pipeline of both stand-alone and colocated storage in the region is more than five times the installed base, however, as it tries to keep pace with the rapidly expanding solar fleet.

The Western US is home to the best solar resources in the country, and photovoltaic development has followed accordingly, with 30 GW in operation and another 51 GW in planning. This growing solar base is expected to lead to significant daytime generation surpluses, opening the door for the rapid expansion of battery storage. The West is home to just over 6 GW of operating storage capacity, but the pipeline has swelled to over 32 GW, with much of this capacity paired with a solar generator.

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Source: S&P Global

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Solar panels' lifespan is 25-30 years and companies are looking to recycle the valuable, reusable materials and keep panels out of landfills.

As millions of solar panels age out, recyclers hope to cash in

In Odessa, Texas, workers at a startup called SolarCycle unload trucks carrying end-of-life photovoltaic panels freshly picked from commercial solar farms across the United States. They separate the panels from the aluminum frames and electrical boxes, then feed them into machines that detach their glass from the laminated materials that have helped generate electricity from sunlight for about a quarter of a century.

Next, the panels are ground, shredded, and subjected to a patented process that extracts the valuable materials — mostly silver, copper, and crystalline silicon. Those components will be sold, as will the lower-value aluminum and glass, which may even end up in the next generation of solar panels.

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Source: Grist

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Scientists at Stanford University created a solar panel that works in the dark, and discovered how to modify the installed solar panels generate power at night.

Groundbreaking new solar panels can generate electricity in the dark

Solar power is a promising avenue for clean energy. Unfortunately, solar panels have one major weakness – they can’t generate electricity in the dark. However, this weakness could soon change as scientists at Stanford University have now created a solar panel that works in the dark.

The researchers published their findings on the new type of solar panel in the journal Applied Physics Letters back in April of 2022. While they discovered a way to make solar panels work in the dark, they also discovered that already erected solar panels could be modified to generate power at night, too, saving businesses and homes from having to upgrade to new panels.

The process used to make older solar panels work in the dark is called radiative cooling. When the sun sets, the Earth cools down, releasing heat into the air. This helps to create a temperature difference between the air and the surface of the panels. Then, researchers say that we can install thermoelectric generators onto the panels, allowing us to harness the power generated by radiative cooling.

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Source: BGR

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