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The American Southwest has some of the best solar resources on the globe. Nevada, with abundant land and sunshine is becoming a hot bed for the solar industry. The result is green jobs and billions of investment dollars.

Solar Panel Manufacturing

The opening of Ausra’s solar thermal power factory earlier this week in Las Vegas is a prime example. As the largest plant of its kind in the world, it employs 50 factory workers. At full capacity, the plant can generate 700 MW of solar panels, which could produce enough power for 500,000 homes. This quantity of panels would create an estimated 1,400 solar plant construction jobs.

The factory will produce giant mirrors and absorber tubes that are used for solar power plants. This technology uses the sun to generate heat and spin turbines, thus creating electricity. The giant mirrors follow the sun and reflect it onto fixed absorber tubes that are mounted above.

“Nevada is poised to be a leader in the clean energy revolution,” said U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “This facility will help position our state as the premiere place to invest in these new technologies. As the factory expands operations and we continue to invest in clean energy, we’ll create thousands of good-paying jobs and keep our outdoors pristine for future generations.” Read the rest of this entry »

A location often dreamt of in my household, for its summer weather and prime surfing, Hawaii now goes up another notch in my estimation with the passing of a bill which makes it mandatory for water heaters to be powered by solar energy.

Signed in to law by Governor Linda Lingle (there’s a name for you), a republican, the bill requires that the energy savers be part of the new home landscape starting 2010. It prohibits issuing a permit for building a single-family home without a solar water heater, and for a state that relied on imported fossil fuels more than any other American state, this can only be a good thing.

Hawaii manages to import about 90% of its energy from foreign countries, according to state data.

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While adoption of solar energy steps up around the world, two key challenges remain: how to store the energy created during the day so it can be used through the night and how to dispatch the energy to where it is needed. Both of these problems may be solved by coupling molten salt with concentrating solar power (CSP), according to a June 26 article in Renewable Energy World.

You will recall from previous CleanTechnica postings that CSP technology concentrates the sun’s power to create steam, which turns a turbine to make electricity. But how did molten salt get into the picture?

“Terry Murphy, Chief Executive Officer for SolarReserve, who along with others helped develop the molten salt technology at Rocketdyne. ‘Molten salt is a heat storage medium that retains thermal energy very effectively over time and operates at temperatures greater than 1000°F, which matches well with the most efficient steam turbines. Second, it remains in a liquid state throughout the plant’s operating regime, which will improve long-term reliability and reduce operation and maintenance costs. And third, it’s totally ‘green,’ molten salt is a non-toxic, readily available material…..’”

Molten salt storage was a key component of the Solar Grand Plan, published in Scientific American in December 2007, which outlined a plan to supply 69% of U.S. electricity and 35% of its total energy by 2050. The Grand Plan, written by By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis, proposes molten salt storage concentrating solar, among other proven technologies, and calls for an aggressive plan of government subsidies to allow solar energy to compete fairly with oil and other fossil fuels.

Related Posts on Solar Storage

Clean Energy Intro: Solar Thermal

Solar Power Goes to Extremes

Solar Thermal Electricity: Can It Replace Coal, Gas and Oil?

In New Jersey, demand for solar installations is high, but 700 customers are on waiting lists for solar rebates, and some smaller installers are laying off workers while waiting for the rebates to be funded. So the state is considering moving to a system of energy credits that can be traded on the open market, according to a story today in the New York Times. That’s because, while New Jersey has grown its solar market, now it needs to grow it even faster.

• Solar must provide 2.12 percent of NJ electricity by 2020 to meet the state’s commitment, but is only providing only .07 percent thus far.
• The state has paid out $170 million in rebates and 3,100 solar systems have been installed.
• There is pressure to keep electricity rates from rising further, as NJ’s are some of the highest in the country, yet if rebates continue at the needed level, rates will rise even further. (Rebates are funded by surcharges on electrical rates.)

It is believed that energy credits would reward larger companies, allowing them to ramp up solar installations at a faster rate. This faster growth would also take the pressure off the state to supply rebate funds.

Image: Rob Bennett for The New York Times. Installing solar modules on the roof of Kohl’s

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I am a frustrating individual who likes to delve deeply into decision making computations and hates easy answers that sound like sales pitches. One of the best compliments I ever received came from one of my division officers when I was serving as the Engineer Officer on a submarine - he told me “Eng, you ask hard questions.”

As vocal advocate for nuclear fission power I recognize that it has many associated questions, but I after 30 years of study, I have determined to my own satisfaction that most of the important questions have reasonably good answers. In contrast, I have not yet found reasonable answers for many of my questions related to other renewable energy sources. (Yes, I - perhaps controversially - classify fission as renewable, but that is a discussion for a different post.)

Solar photovoltaic (PV) cells are a popular and often discussed (see, for example Atlantic City Convention Center Plans Largest Solar Roof in U.S., 10% of U.S. Electricity From Solar by 2025, SF Passes Largest City Solar Program in U.S. (Finally), all of which were published within the past week) form of “renewable” or “green” energy, but a casual scratching of the surface knowledge that many people have about the technology reveals some troubling details.

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Giving a new meaning to the term “sun roof”, Atlantic City’s Convention Center will install solar photovoltaic (PV) modules on 290,000 square feet of roof space, saving a projected $4.4 million over 20 years, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. In a groundbreaking economic arrangement, Pepco Energy Services, a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings, will pay to have the solar panels installed, and the Convention Center will then buy back the electricity from Pepco. The installation will provide a quarter of the energy consumed by the convention center. The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) says the installation will be the largest in the U.S. on one roof.

“Jeffrey Vasser, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority, said the group began planning a solar project a few years ago when Gov. Jon S. Corzine pushed for greater use of sun and wind power in New Jersey.

‘We have a great building to do this on, and we wanted to be the first kid on the block to get in on it,’ Vasser said. This helps a young industry grow into a mature one, helps reduce our dependence on oil, and produces electricity that does not increase carbon emissions into the air,’ he said of the multi million-dollar project.” Read the rest of this entry »

Solar energy currently generates .1% of the electricity used in the U.S. According to a study released today, this will change rapidly as the cost of electricity increases and the cost of solar energy drops.

The Utility Solar Assessment Study produced by Clean Edge and Co-op America finds that solar energy is already reaching cost parity with conventional sources in some areas of the U.S. where electric rates are highest. By 2015, this will be achieved in many more areas, including Boston, San Diego, and New York. By 2025, cost parity will be achieved throughout the U.S.

The implications of this are huge. The U.S. solar photovoltaic market now relies heavily on state incentives to lower the cost of solar energy. Many people utilize solar energy because it is “the right thing to do” or businesses like the positive publicity solar brings. Read the rest of this entry »

Seawater Greenhouse inventor Charles Paton teams with the Eden Project and Grimshaw Architects to create the Teatro del Agua.

I last posted on the Seawater Greenhouse in February. After writing that post I felt hopeful that this type of desalination plant would catch on, yet pessimistic that, based on the pictures I saw, it would neither reach the necessary scale to create enough clean water nor attract the type of investors needed to take this plant to the next level.

I’m very happy to find out that I was wrong.

I researched the Seawater Greenhouse again to look for breaking news because I decided back in February that I needed to post on this on a regular basis to spread the word on the technology. By the looks of the Seawater Greenhouse Inventor Charles Paton’s latest project, my effort will not be needed.

Just as the Prius will replace the Hummer on our nation’s roads, the Teatro del Agua shall replace the energy intensive desalination plants of old, worldwide. All the while supplying said world with an endless supply of water and creating an outdoor venue for theatrical performances. Afterall, you can’t spell WATER without A-R-T. (below average pun–my apologies)
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A couple weeks ago Apple filed a patent to explore the use of solar power in their next generation of mobile devices. With battery life being a long running issue for Apple’s laptops and mobile phones, solar power could help extend use time without having to plug in.

The patent filing discusses placing the solar technology behind the LCD screen of the devices so that the panels would absorb ambient light without adding additional width and bulk to the device. While the technology could be difficult to implement (Motorola filed a similar patent for their mobile devices in 2001 but is yet to be able to successfully integrate solar technology into their devices), having a company as large and influential as Apple roll it out could mean cross product integration with iPods and MacBooks in addition to the iPhone.

The company takes a lot of knocks for not being environmentally conscientious, but downloading tracks and movies instead of buying copies and using maps on mobile instead of printing directions does help limit impact. Making their products more energy efficient is a winning venture for the mega-brand.

The planets may be aligned to finally make solar competitive with coal, according to an article in Bloomberg.com by Greg Chang. Rising natural gas prices, the extension of tax credits for solar investment, and the near-certainty that carbon emissions caps will be imposed by the next U.S. administration, will make it happen. A concentrated solar thermal plant in California’s Mojave Desert, run by FPL, Inc., uses 550,000 mirrors to concentrate solar power.

“At noon on a typical workday, technicians in a two-story control room monitor a dozen screens showing the heat generated by each array of mirrors. As temperatures creep past 700 degrees, icons blink to red from green, indicating the center is ready to feed electricity to the California grid.”

The resulting steam turns turbines that generate electricity — enough to power 112,55 L.A.-area homes. Concentrated solar thermal’s potential has not escaped the attention of forward-thinking investors with big money:

“Chevron, Goldman Sachs, FPL, PG&E and other companies have filed more than 50 applications with the Bureau of Land Management to lease government-owned desert property for solar power systems. Google’s philantropic division put $10 million into eSolar, a start-up in Pasadena, California.” –Greg Chang, Bloomberg.com