European Inverters Dominate Market in 2010

Power-One was the PV inverter market's largest share gainer in 2010, moving up to second in the global rankings, according to IMS Research's latest report on the inverter market.

In addition, for the first time, all of the top 10 suppliers to the market in 2010 were European - largely due to the explosive market growth in key European markets that these suppliers enjoyed. The top five gainers in market share in 2010 were Power-One, Siemens, Advanced Energy, Sungrow and Danfoss.

IMS Research's report also found that the global PV inverter market grew 140% in 2010, with core European markets Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and France serving as the main drivers. However, some suppliers performed significantly better than others.

"During 2010, exceptional demand meant that component shortages blighted the industry, and lead times for many suppliers extended up to 30 weeks," says PV market analyst Tom Haddon. "Suppliers that were able to source components benefited - with Power-One being a prime example."

"Growth of the small three-phase inverter market for units rated between 10 kW and 20 kW helped suppliers such as Danfoss Solar Inverters, Refu Elektronik and Siemens gain considerable share and move up the rankings," Haddon adds.

High growth is forecast for the North American market this year, which may benefit domestic suppliers such as Satcon and Advanced Energy, which already performed very well in 2010 and were the highest ranked non-European supplier and biggest ranking gainer, respectively. Advanced Energy was the third largest market share gainer last year, largely due to its earlier acquisition of rival PV Powered, IMS Research says.

This year presents very different opportunities and challenges for suppliers as the industry grapples with excess inventory due to oversupply in 2010 and a shifting balance in power toward Asia and North America.

"During 2010, the PV inverter market was very European-centric, with over 80 percent of shipments destined for [Europe]," says Haddon. "However, with faster growth now forecast in non-European emerging markets such as the U.S., China and India, opportunities for European-focused suppliers to gain share may be limited."

Photo: A solar power plant in Finsterwalde, Germany. Photo credit: Q-Cells SE.

PowerSaver Loans for Solar Installations Available for 30,000 US Homeowners

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced that 18 national, regional and local lenders will participate in the PowerSaver program. PowerSaver is a new two-year pilot program that will offer qualified borrowers living in certain parts of the country low-cost loans to make energy-saving home improvements, including the installation of PV systems.

Backed by the Federal Housing Administration, PowerSaver loans will offer homeowners up to $25,000 to make energy-efficient improvements of their choice. Initially, the PowerSaver pilot program is estimated to assist approximately 30,000 homeowners to finance energy-efficient upgrades, though higher market demand may increase this impact.

According to HUD projections, more than 3,000 jobs will be created through this pilot program, and the impact may be larger if market demand for the loan program increases over time.

PowerSaver has been designed to meet a need in the marketplace for borrowers who have the ability and motivation to take on modest additional debt to realize the savings over time from home energy improvements, according to HUD. PowerSaver loans are only available to borrowers with good credit, manageable debt and at least some equity in their home (maximum 100% combined loan-to-value).

Source:  Solar Industry

Namibia: Solar Energy Best for Rural Areas

MINES and Energy Minister Isak Katali says his ministry firmly believes that renewable energy can be part of a solution to provide electricity to rural areas. He said rural electrification remains a challenge.

"The infrastructure associated with rural electrification is very expensive, largely due to the low population density and low economic activities in the areas requiring electricity to support the cost of bringing the grid to these areas," Katali said.


He was speaking at the launch of the Solar Revolving Fund (SRF), an element of the Ministry's Off-Grid Energisation Master Plan for Namibia, in Windhoek yesterday.

The SRF allows people to buy solar-power systems by making use of revolving credit.

Technologies that have been financed so far include solar home systems, solar water pumping and solar water heating.

The Plan's objective is to promote off-grid rural electrification through the use of renewable energy.

Katali said, energy shops will be set up in every region and this was being coordinated by the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Institute at the Polytechnic of Namibia, with financial from the Finnish embassy.

The ministry's permanent secretary, Joseph Iita, said the SRF programme was established in 1996 and had been run by private fund administrators before it was taken over by the ministry again this year.

So far, Government has contributed about N$19 million to the SRF and about 1 500 people have benefited from it, borrowing about N$11 million, said Iita.

Applicants pay a minimum deposit of 5 per cent and an interest rate of 5 per cent annually. Loans are repaid within five years.

Source:   AllAfrica.com

Solar Energy Without Solar Cells

Semiconductor-Based Solar Cells Andrej Šalov via Wikimedia

One of the major barriers between solar energy and solar-derived electricity is solar cells themselves--commercial solar cells aren’t very efficient at converting sunlight to electricity, but they are the best thing we’ve got. Now, a team of University of Michigan researchers have potentially devised a better way to convert solar energy into electricity: get rid of the semiconductor-based solar cells altogether and tap into the magnetic effects of light.

The researcher say the’ve essentially found a way to make an “optical battery” by extracting a very strong magnetic field from light, which generally exhibits weak magnetic effects. Those effects are generally so weak that until now scientists ignored them altogether. But the Michigan team found that by running light through a non-conductive material at the right intensity, the light field can generate magnetic effects 100 million times stronger than previously thought.

That’s more than a few orders of magnitude, and plenty to make those once-negligible magnetic effects quite interesting from an energy standpoint. By focusing this magnetic field on a material, it can be used to separate the positive and negative charges within the material, setting up a voltage. The discovery could lead to a new kind of solar cell that dispenses with semiconductors, instead relying on cheap and abundant glass for most of the components.

The technique is not perfect. To work, the sunlight must be focused to an intensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter. That’s pretty intense--way more intense than natural sunlight--but the researchers are looking for other materials that could work at lower intensities. With better materials--and the researchers think they are out there--the technique could achieve 10 percent efficiency: on par with today’s commercial semiconductor cells, minus the costly semiconductors.

[University of Michigan]

Philippines Pushes Towards Major Support for Solar Energy

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago is pushing for the massive use and installation of solar energy systems in private homes, schools, and government offices around the country to help reduce expenses on electricity and mitigate global warming and air pollution. 

In filing Senate Bill 2751, Santiago said investing in solar power can only lead to greater energy stability and energy dependence and added economic benefits such as increased jobs and lower energy bills. 

“The Philippines will benefit greatly from solar power due to the high levels of sunlight it receives throughout most of the year. Harnessing clean and renewable energy such as solar power can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and protect the environment,” Santiago said.

She said solar photovoltaic technologies are moving rapidly worldwide from serving off-grid niche markets like remote locations to becoming mainstream electricity source. 

Developed countries such as the United States and Japan actively promote the use of these technologies in residential homes and commercial businesses, she said.

Santiago batted for government incentives for individual homeowners and business groups to make solar power cost-competitive with traditional electricity sources.

SB 2751 seeks to provide competitive grants to local governments for rebates, loans and other incentives to eligible individuals or entities for the purchase and installation of solar energy systems for properties located in the Philippines.

Under the proposed law, which shall be known as “Solar Roofs Act of 2010,” a homeowner, business entity, school, college or university, and other individuals who may be deemed by the Energy secretary as appropriate, shall be considered as an “eligible participant.”

In general, Santiago said the solar power program should be administered by the Energy secretary, who shall adopt and implement criteria for awarding grants to local governments that would provide maximum leverage of government funds and maximum deployment of solar energy, and ensure that grants are awarded to a diversity of geographic locations, and recipients with different population sizes. 

“It is the goal, through this Act and any appropriate incentive or research and development program, to install distributed solar energy systems on not less than one million properties located in the Philippines by Dec. 31, 2021,” Santiago said.

Source:  The Philippine Star

Google Invests $168 MIllion in Ivanpah Solar Thermal Plant

Google announced this week that it will be making its largest renewable energy investment to date by investing $168 million in Brightsource Energy's Ivanpah solar thermal power plant in the Mojave desert. The plant will have an installed capacity of 392 MW.

The Ivanpah plant began construction last year and should be completed in 2013. It will employ 173,000 heliostats, each with two mirrors, to concentrate solar energy onto a tower where the heat will make steam that turns a turbine and creates electricity. While other solar thermal projects are in the works in the Southwest, Ivanpah is the largest solar tower project so far.

This type of solar power technology is one that Google is trying to improve upon themselves. The company announced last year that it was working on a more efficient mirror technology that could lower the cost of solar thermal plants.

This latest investment brings Google's total renewable energy investments up to $250 million.

via:   Google & Ecogeek

Google and Facebook Invest in Solar Power

Google announced yesterday a $100 million investment in the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon. The massive wind power facility, expected to be the largest on shore plant in the world upon completion, will generate 845 MW of clean electricity - enough to power more than 235,000 homes.

Google's latest renewable energy splurge brings its recent investments in clean power generation to more than USD$350 million. In the last couple of weeks, the search giant has also invested in a solar farm in Germany and sunk USD$168 million in the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project, currently under construction in in the Mojave Desert in California. Google has also made prior investments in green energy, including powering some of its own facilities with solar power.

The other 900 pound gorilla of the online world, Facebook, is also taking some tentative steps towards powering facilities with renewable energy. According to Data Center Knowledge, a 100kw solar panel array has been constructed at Facebook's new 28,000 square meter data center in Prineville, Oregon. The solar power system is expected to generate 204,000 kilowatt hours of solar electricity a year. Facebook will be monitoring the solar farm's performance, with view to perhaps rolling out similar installations at other facilities.

While FaceBook has been heavily criticised for sourcing power for its data centers from coal-fired power generation sources, the company has been placing a special focus on energy efficiency - and sharing that knowledge with the industry.

Facebook set itself a goal to build one of the most efficient and economical computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost and as a result, their Oregon data center uses servers that are 38% more efficient and 24% less expensive to build and operate. The company has released specifications and mechanical drawings through the Open Compute Project.

Source:   Energy Matters