Solar

South Africa is at a critical turning point. An uncertain environment for private investment, escalating electricity prices, and a lack of available power threaten South Africa’s position as an attractive investment destination for many of the country’s most important industries. Power has been placed at the forefront of the government’s agenda, but South Africa needs a collaborative effort to meet the country’s energy demands and diversify its generation portfolio in order to drive economic growth.

The current largest photovoltaic plant in the U.S., the 48-MW Copper Mountain Solar 1, utilizes approximately 775,000 solar panels to generate emission-free electricity for about 14,000 homes without the use of water. The facility was constructed in less than a year—an unprecedented achievement for a project of this size.

The 5-MW Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Station is the first to use compact linear Fresnel reflector technology developed to generate continuous superheated steam, a key element for higher-efficiency power generation and integration with new and existing plants. The facility’s innovative technology helps deliver power even during periods of transient cloud cover.

In the past few years, nuclear concerns, rising oil prices, and a growing understanding of our environmental impact has given energy issues a higher profile worldwide. In this report on the Continental Nordic countries, we look at the efforts being made in much of the Nordic region to secure a sustainable energy supply for the future and at the extent to which the innovative solutions of these countries can be exported around the globe.

Over the past 18 months, four solar energy equipment companies have closed their doors. Each one blamed poor market conditions for its economic woes, even though each had fundamental weaknesses that went unaddressed. It now appears that the Department of Energy (DOE) did insufficient due diligence before backstopping one of those four companies, Solyndra, with a $535 million loan guarantee.

The plummeting cost of photovoltaic (PV) panels—resulting from lower costs for high-grade silicon and advancements in thin-film technology, solar storage, and electronic control technologies—has a slew of firms rethinking concentrating solar power (CSP) projects. Although there is a CSP project pipeline (including both CSP and concentrating PV) of more than 9 GW in the U.S., […]

There’s lots of reason for optimism about clean technologies, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told a packed crowd on Tuesday afternoon at the RETECH 2011 Keynote Session. New ideas are emerging, costs are coming down and deployment is increasing, she noted—all welcome developments for America’s energy supply and the global environment. The rapid growth of the renewables is partially due to federal policies, but much of the progress has been a "direct result of your creativity and determination."

I examined the magnitude of electricity subsidies for renewables compared with conventional generation technologies in my May 2011 editorial, based on data from a 2008 report prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). An updated EIA report released in July determined that federal government subsidies have risen substantially during the past three years. In fact, overall renewable energy subsidies have almost tripled, increasing from $5.1 billion to $14.7 billion. In my opinion, we aren’t getting value for the money spent.

In Spain this June, a new 19.9-MW concentrated solar power (CSP) tower in Fuentes de Andalucía, Seville, reached the unprecedented milestone of storing thermal energy to its fullest capacity and supply power for an uninterrupted 24-hour period.

The major economic hurdle for renewable power generation technologies continues to be substantial installation costs. But another cost is associated with continuous load-balancing, made possible by backstopping that variable generation with dispatchable generators that typically consume expensive fossil fuels. Bottom line: Who pays for the capacity firming or backstopping resources?