AMSC Launches Its SolarTie(TM) Grid Interconnection Solution for Photovoltaic Power Plants

American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC), a global power technologies company, has recently announced at the Solar Power International 2010 exhibition the launch of its SolarTie Grid Interconnection Solution. The SolarTie solution combines two of AMSC’s proven and proprietary technologies – D-VAR^(R) STATCOM solutions and PowerModule(TM) power converter systems – that are today connecting over 15 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy to the grid. This new offering is a utility-scale grid interconnection system designed specifically for megawatt-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants. By coupling best-in-class power converter capabilities with AMSC’s world-renowned dynamic reactive compensation technology, the SolarTie product represents the industry’s first fully optimized solution for utility-scale PV power plant developers. The addressable market for SolarTie solutions is expected by industry analysts to be approximately $2 billion by 2015.

With a base rating of 1.4 megawatts (MW) and a turn-on voltage of up to 1,000 volts (VDC), the SolarTie solution is one of the most robust power inverter systems on the market. In addition, SolarTie customers will benefit from:

• The services of AMSC’s highly skilled and experienced Network Planning and Applications Group;
• Solar inverters based on AMSC’s proven PowerModule(TM) platform;
• The ability to dynamically control real and reactive power at the Point of Interconnection;
• AMSC’s proprietary Smart Grid Interface (SGI) Controller, which directs SolarTie inverters and reactive power elements to provide efficient energy production and precise regulation at the Point Of Interconnection (POI); and
• Easy integration with STATCOMs and/or capacitor and reactor shunt banks for additional reactive support if installed as part of the system.

The market for utility-scale solutions is forecasted for impressive growth. Industry research firm IMS Research expects annual shipments of solar PV inverters to quadruple from approximately 8 GW at the end of 2009 to 32 GW in 2014. During this period, the utility-scale solar inverter market is expected to grow at a much faster pace than the commercial and residential solar inverter markets.

"AMSC’s SolarTie solution offers grid-management support, reactive compensation and grid interconnection, all of which are required by utility-scale PV plant developers," said Ash Sharma, Research Director at IMS Research. "As a result, AMSC’s product appears well positioned for this growing market."

Similar to wind farms, solar power plants often must meet requirements in a growing number of countries for dynamic reactive compensation. Employing the same technology as AMSC’s proven D-VAR system, which is connecting more than 70 wind farms worldwide to the grid, the SolarTie solution provides instantaneous detection, accurate response and immediate results, ensuring efficient energy production and precise grid management. For example, if a disturbance occurs (voltage sag or swell, passing clouds or other event) the SGI will command the PV plant’s SolarTie inverters to provide the needed reactive support to control the voltage at the POI. AMSC’s SolarTie solution provides sub-cycle (less than 16 milliseconds) detection and response to grid disturbances while many competing interconnection solutions have response times of 10 to 20 seconds.

"Over the course of the past decade, AMSC has established itself as a leader in the renewable energy market with a wide range of solutions," said AMSC President and Chief Operating Officer Dan McGahn. "In fact, our power technologies are now enabling nearly 10% of the world’s wind generated electricity. We are proud to utilize this tremendous experience base to field a highly optimized, high power grid interconnection solution for PV solar power plant developers. AMSC’s SolarTie solution sets a new standard for the industry by simplifying implementation, reducing project cost and enhancing plant reliability."

For more information about AMSC’s SolarTie solution, please visit AMSC at booth #4553 at Solar Power International or visit www.amsc.com/products/solartie.html.

AMSC offers an array of proprietary technologies and solutions spanning the electric power infrastructure – from generation to delivery to end use. The company is a leader in renewable energy, providing proven, megawatt-scale wind turbine designs and electrical control systems. The company also offers a host of Smart Grid technologies for power grid operators that enhance the reliability, efficiency and capacity of the grid, and seamlessly integrate renewable energy sources into the power infrastructure. These include superconductor power cable systems, grid-level surge protectors and power electronics-based voltage stabilization systems. AMSC’s technologies are protected by a broad and deep intellectual property portfolio consisting of hundreds of patents and licenses worldwide. More information is available at www.amsc.com.

Source:  Renewable Energy Sources

CIGS Modules Starting To Ship in Quantity

The ongoing saga of copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide photovoltaics provided one of the talking-point touchstones of this year’s Solar Power International show. Will solar historians look back to 2010 as the beginning of the Production Age of CIGS? That may be presumptuous and premature, since the thin-film PV’s slice of the overall solar shipment/deployment pie remains small. 

But a growing number of companies have signed large supply deals and have been shipping megawatts of modules every month for rooftop and ground-mount projects. Manufacturing capabilities and capacities have increased many-fold and will continue to do so, while the nascent commercialization of flexible CIGS panels points to the disruptive possibility of a building-integrated PV market insurgency. 


Using the time-honored method of issuing press releases in conjunction with a major tradeshow, a host of companies both familiar and surprising tapped into the CIGS newswire during SPI 2010. During the course of the week, I spoke with several key players from the sector who offered updates on their own companies’ progress in the market.

Korean megacorp Hyundai Heavy Industries will join forces with fellow multinational and current CIGS player (via its Avancis unit) and big-time glass supplier Saint-Gobain to build a 100MW fab in South Korea.

Showa Shell subsidiary Solar Frontier will be supplying GE with private-branded versions of its CIS modules, and in return the PV manufacturer will benefit from GE’s prodigious chops in the utility-scale power plant business.

Ascent Solar scored a certification coup, becoming the first flexible CIGS panelist to achieve the full IEC 61646 environmental testing stamp of approval.

Another large corporate entity participating in the CIGS sector, 3M, officially launched its Ultra Barrier film, arguably the key enabling material set for roll-to-roll processed, flex CIGS, CdTe, and organic PV thin-film modules.

The rap against flexible CIGS has been its lack of durability and the photoactive film stack’s extreme allergy to even trace amounts of moisture. 3M’s transparent compound protects the CIGS absorber layers from the wet stuff, and has been engineered for the long haul to weather the elements found in rooftop settings. 


Source:  PV-Tech.org   to read the full article click here

First Solar Announces Plans to Build Two New Plants

First Solar is planning to build two new four-line manufacturing plants that will boost the company’s annual manufacturing capacity by nearly 500 MW to help meet strong demand for its advanced thin-film photovoltaic modules.


The plants are expected to be built in the United States and Vietnam and completed in 2012. Each new plant will create approximately 600 green jobs and will be designed to accommodate additional production capacity. Negotiations and site assessments are ongoing in both countries and will be finalized and announced at a later date.


The new factories will further extend First Solar’s previously announced capacity additions, including eight lines at its Kulim, Malaysia facility, four lines in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, and two lines in Blanquefort, France. Earlier this year the company also completed an expansion of its Perrysburg, Ohio, manufacturing plant, which serves as First Solar’s primary hub for engineering, research and development, and employs more than 1,100 of First Solar’s 1,500+ U.S.-based associates. The new plants announced today, combined with these previously announced expansions, will nearly double production capacity from 1.4 GW in 2010 to more than 2.7 GW in 2012.


“These expansions provide proximity to growing U.S. demand while supporting our roadmap to drive down the cost of clean, sustainable solar electricity,” said First Solar CEO Rob Gillette. “Effective government policies provide long-term visibility and enable sustainable markets.”


In addition to the increase in manufacturing employment, First Solar expects to generate over 1,000 construction jobs through the installation of solar power plants from the company’s 2.2 GW North American project pipeline.


Souirce:  Solarbuzz

North Africa’s Sun King

For decades, Morocco, the only North African nation without large quantities of oil, combed the surrounding desert in search of fossil fuels. But roughly a year and a half ago, the country shifted gears and turned to a resource that exists in abundance across the region: the sun.

Now Europe—long dependent on Middle Eastern oil and Russian natural gas—has begun to look toward the heat of the Sahara for some of its long-term energy needs. By 2050, roughly 15 percent of European energy could be generated by wind and solar-thermal power in North Africa and parts of the Middle East, according to Dii, widely known as Desertec, a group of mostly European companies such as Siemens that are developing clean-energy technology in the region. Although the effort—projected to cost $510 billion—is still in its infancy, analysts say Morocco has far more aggressive investment plans than its regional rivals and is well positioned to become North Africa’s leading provider of renewable energy, especially solar-thermal.

Driving the early success has been sheer necessity. In 2008, when global oil prices hit record highs, Morocco—which imports the bulk of its power—saw energy costs nearly double, to roughly $9 billion annually. Soon after, King Mohamed VI issued a royal decree making the development of alternative energy one of his top priorities. He also put a legal framework in place to encourage European investment and has managed to limit instability in a region known for political tumult.

Another advantage for Morocco: geography. The sun over the Sahara is far stronger than it is in Europe. But what distinguishes the country from its desert-dwelling neighbors is its close proximity to Spain. The two countries are separated by less than 16km at some points, and they’re connected by an energy transmission line. Currently the line sends energy from Spain to Morocco, but it could work both ways, and analysts say the line’s existence gives Morocco an edge over its neighbors for access to the European market.

Getting a foothold in that market may take some time, however, due to a shortage of funding. By 2020, Morocco hopes to invest several billion dollars in solar-thermal power and use the technology to drastically increase its domestic energy production. But unlike, say, wind power, which is economically competitive with fossil fuels, solar-thermal often is not, despite subsidies from various international financial institutions. Analysts say the costs of solar-thermal will come down, eventually. “Morocco won’t be a major player in the green-energy market next year,” says Johann Scheidt of Esound Energy, a U.S. consulting firm. “But the pieces are there. This is coming.”

Source:  Newsweek Education Site

The Big Question: Will the UK's FiT Ensure its Solar Sector's Future?

 Given recent developments in Germany and Spain, will the UK's solar feed-in tariff be enough to engender a long-term sustainable solar manufacturing and installation industry in Britain? If not, then how can this be achieved? And how should the UK's policymakers seek to avert a boom-and-bust-scenario?

Leading players in the British solar industry share their views on the likely impact of the UK's feed-in tariff, which came into effect in April 2010.

Source:   Renewable Energy World     To read the full article click here.

Study shines new light on Sun's role in Earth's climate

London, England (CNN) -- A new study has shed light on the sun's impact on the Earth's climate, confounding current thinking about solar cycles and how they influence temperatures on Earth. Previously scientists had thought that radiation reaching the Earth rises and falls in line with the Sun's activity, which during the 11-year solar cycle goes though periods of low and high activity.


But research by Imperial College, London and the University of Colorado in the U.S. examining solar radiation levels from 2004 to 2007 -- a period of declining solar activity -- revealed that levels of visible radiation reaching the Earth actually increased during the period.


Using data collected by NASA's SORCE (SOlar Radiation and Climate Experiment) satellite, which launched in 2003, the scientists were able to scrutinize the full solar spectrum -- x-ray, ultraviolet (UV), visible (VR), near-infrared, and total solar radiation -- and compare it to earlier, less comprehensive data.


Joanna Haigh, leader author of the study published in the journal Nature told CNN: "What the data has shown, rather unexpectedly, is that the decline in ultra-violet radiation is much larger than anticipated. But more surprisingly the visible radiation actually increased as solar activity was declining."


Haigh, a professor of atmospheric physics, says that UV radiation is mostly absorbed in the stratosphere but visible radiation gets through to the earth's surface. The observed increase in VR, despite declining solar activity, may have caused small rises in temperature.


But, as Haigh points out, the research, which covers a short period, comes with some caveats.
"The sun has been behaving very strangely. Its magnetic activity is lower than it has been for several hundred years, perhaps. And so the fact that it's doing strange things in its spectrum is perhaps not that unexpected," she said.


It's also just starting to come out of a very long period (two years) of minimum activity, she says. As the Sun's activity starts to increase, "it will also be very, very interesting to see if the visible radiation starts to decline," Haigh says.


Haigh is aware that research which contradicts existing ideas about how the Sun's activity affects the Earth's climate is likely to fuel some climate skepticism.


But she says the solar cycles cancel each other out, going up and down over roughly an 11-year period.
"They [the solar cycles] are contributing nothing to long-term global warming," she said, "and it has no bearing on what we understand about greenhouse gases and their influence on climate."


Robert von Fay-Siebenburgen, a solar physicist from the UK's University of Sheffield told CNN: "What has been published is very interesting and a little unexpected, to be honest."


But he says that despite the Sun being our closest star, scientists still know very little about it.
"We have a better understanding of the internal processes -- what is below the surface of the Sun. However, what is above that and how it affects the Earth's climate is very poorly understood," he said."But what Professor Haigh has found is very exciting and an important step towards increasing our understanding."


Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London said in a statement: "Studies like this are vital for helping us create a clear picture of how our climate is changing and through this, to work out how we can best protect our planet."


Source:  CNN

CEC Approves 959 MW of Solar

Following the recent success of licensing solar energy facilities, the California Energy Commission today approved nearly 1,000 megawatts (MW) of solar power in Southern California.

The Genesis Solar Energy Project and the Imperial Valley Solar Project, totaling 959 MW, are now the fifth and sixth solar power plants that the Energy Commission has licensed in the past five weeks. Since late August, the Commission has licensed 2,829 MW of renewable solar power in the California desert.

In two separate unanimous votes, the Energy Commission adopted the presiding member's proposed decisions (PMPD) that recommended licensing the 250-MW Genesis project in Riverside County and the 709-MW Imperial Valley project in Imperial County. In order to qualify for federal stimulus funds, the projects needed to be approved by the Energy Commission before December 31, 2010.

These projects are a direct result of the successful partnership between California and the Department of the Interior (DOI). In October 2009, California was the first state to sign a memo of understanding with the DOI to develop long-term renewable energy plans through state and federal permitting processes that can receive 30 percent federal tax credits under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The two projects would be among the first commercial solar thermal power plants permitted on federal public land in the United States. Both projects still require decisions from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which approves the use of federal public lands, before they can proceed. The BLM's actions are scheduled for October.

The Genesis Solar Energy Project is being proposed by Genesis Solar LLC, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC. The project site is located in eastern Riverside County about 25 miles west of Blythe. The project is north of Ford Dry Lake and Interstate 10. The project is seeking a right-of-way grant from the BLM for 4,640 acres, with construction and operation of the facility taking up about 1,800 acres.

The proposed project would use parabolic trough technology where parabolic mirrors are used to heat a transfer fluid which is then used to generate steam. Electricity is produced from the steam expanding through steam turbine generators.

The Imperial Valley Solar Project is being developed by Imperial Valley Solar, LLC, a subsidiary of Tessera Solar, in Imperial County. The project is located about 14 miles west of El Centro.

The project would be located on approximately 6,140 acres of land managed by the BLM and about 360 acres of privately-owned land.

The facility would use solar dish Stirling systems, or "SunCatchers", consisting of a solar receiver heat exchanger and a closed-cycle, high efficiency engine designed to convert solar power to rotary power, then driving an electrical generator to produce electricity.

The Genesis and Imperial Valley projects are among nine large solar thermal projects scheduled to go before the Commission before the end of the year. More than 4,100 megawatts of solar power will be added if all nine projects are approved. The nine projects would provide more than 8,000 construction jobs and more than 1,000 operational jobs.

The four previously licensed plants are: the 250-MW Beacon Solar Energy Project (Aug. 25); the 250-MW Abengoa Mojave Solar Project (Sept. 8); the 1,000-MW Blythe Solar Power Project (Sept. 15); and the 370-MW Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project (Sept. 22). The 663.5-MW Calico Solar Project is scheduled for the Oct. 28 meeting. Two other projects, the 500-MW Palen Solar Power Project and the 150-MW Rice Solar Energy Project, are still under review.

The PMPDs for the Genesis and Imperial Valley projects said the facilities, even with mitigation measures, will have significant impacts on cultural resources, land use, and visual resources. The Imperial Valley project also will have significant impact on biological resources and would be inconsistent with an Imperial County land use ordinance.

However, the benefits of the projects would override those impacts. The Genesis project will require a peak workforce of 1,085 during construction, with another 50 jobs when the plant is in operation. The Imperial Valley project will need a peak workforce of 731 during construction, with another 164 operational jobs.

The PMPDs were based solely on the record of facts that were established during the facilities' certification proceedings.

The proposed solar thermal power projects that the Energy Commission is considering will help meet the state's Renewables Portfolio Standard, which requires California's electricity utility companies to use renewable energy to produce 20 percent of their power by 2010 and 33 percent by 2020. Solar energy is a main source of renewable power.

The federal government and the State of California have established the need to increase the development and use of renewable energy in order to enhance the nation's energy independence, meet environmental goals, and create new economic growth opportunities.

Source:   Renewable Energy World