Australia’s CSIRO has partnered with Chinese company Thermal Focus in an agreement which will see Australian concentrating solar thermal technology used in China.
This article originally published on RenewEconomy Hot on the heels of ARENA’s decision against supporting Alinta’s development of solar thermal power generation in Port Augusta, the federal government has launched a set of online tools, funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, aimed at helping researchers, developers and financiers assess the commercial … [continued]
One of the global leaders in concentrating solar thermal technology, BrightSource Energy, has now raised another $80 million dollars in additional equity financing. Its total equity financing now totals more than $615 million, opening up many possibilities for the company to significantly expand and grow. “BrightSource’s unique technology combines … [continued]
As you may have noticed in the story on the huge NREL study just published showing that 80% of US electricity could easily come from renewable sources, concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) would play a big part in that. But would such clean technology run into problematic material constraints? … [continued]
Some recent solar energy news we haven’t hit yet: 1. Agendas for the 7th Annual Photovoltaics Summit and 4th Annual Concentrating Solar Thermal Power, scheduled for April 17-19 in San Diego, have been announced. 2. Kyocera has now launched “its highest-output solar module, the 80-cell KD 315,” the company notes. “The new module is ideal for large-scale … [continued]
Saint-Gobain Solar announced that construction of its solar thermal mirror plant in Goodyear, Arizona has begun. The plant is slated to start production in this year’s fourth quarter, creating 50 permanent jobs and manufacturing millions of square feet of solar mirrors used in solar thermal and concentrating solar power (CSP) installations, including solar concentration towers and liner Fresnel lenses.
Concentrating solar has promised big additions to renewable energy production with the additional benefit of energy storage – saving sun power for nighttime – but there’s a catch. Most of the new power plants are big water users despite being planned for desert locations.
I announced yesterday that Google’s investing $5 million into a solar power project in Germany. That’s big, and it’s Google’s first cleantech investment outside the United States. But before we get too pessimistic and down about our dysfunctional political situation and how it’s limiting our cleantech growth, let’s remember that while a Tea-Party-ruined Congress can’t get much done, a number of states are supporting cleantech quite a bit on their own. One such state, as we all know, is California.
The new SunCatcher solar power dishes at a Sandia National Laboratories test facility in New Mexico could bring new life to the ailing automobile industry. Made of stamped sheet metal, the SunCatcher can be produced in a process similar to that of car manufacturing. That’s no accident: Stirling Energy Systems … [continued]
