It’s  big news for everybody that solar cells can be created from agriculture wastes such as cut grass and dead leaves, which have been proved by Andreas Mershin, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He added that it will be possible to mix some grass clippings into a bag of cheap chemicals, and utilise the mixture to paint your roof, which will produce electricity.

Recalling high school biology classes, he said that you must remember a process know as photosynthesis, where plants use to turn sunlight into energy. Mershin has discovered a process that extracts the photosynthesizing molecules, called Photosystem I, from plant matter. Photosystem I  contains chlorophyll that is the protein responsible for converting photons to a flow of electrons.

The plant’s molecules are spread on a glass substrate that is covered in a forest of zinc oxide nanowires and titanium dioxide “sponges”, after striking by sunlight the panels both the titanium dioxide and the new material absorb light and turn it into electricity, and the nanowires carry the electricity away.

Basic difference between the conventional photovoltaic cells and these green photovoltaic cells are that the layer of silicon has been replaced by suspension of photosynthesizing molecules, which appear like an electric nanoforest.

The electricity produced by such a process has a very low efficiency of 0.1%, which has the capacity to light a single LED light. In order to illuminate the entire house, the efficiency of 1 or 2% is needed. Mershin said that the team will concentrate on increasing the efficiency of such cells.

Such a useful invention will pave a new way for power generation, especially in low-density areas that are off the grid and developing nations.

As a result of strong government support for budding domestic PV clean energy and growing green awareness, Europe has emerged as a centre of attraction for all solar product manufacturers across the world.

There is no confusion to agree with the statement that the European Union is one of the leading markets as well stepping on the path of progress. With a broad prospective of growth, JA Solar Holdings Co Ltd is ready to open its wings in Germany, where the technology is spread in the atmosphere.

Earlier Chinese companies had to send photovoltaic products to a third party testing organisation to obtain certification because of EU regulations. To cut time-consuming and costly affairs of selling products in Europe, On December 2011, JA Solar has signed a deal with the Munich-based technical service provider, TV SD Group for technology testing and certification. Also it has established partnerships with German companies and organizations in 2011.

JA Solar, the first Chinese PV producer, is all set to establish a TV SD certified TMP (Testing at Manufacturers’ Premises) laboratory, which will enable it to do much faster and more reasonable product certifications. It has sign a deal with the Bund Deutscher Radfather (BDR)/ the Germany Cycling Union to hold its work as a corporate sponsor for the next three years. With this agreement, JA Solar enlists its name as ‘the first Chinese PV company to translate its support of low carbon movement into action,’ as well the BDR denotes its presence for the first time by establishing a long-term sponsorship with a Chinese enterprise.

Fang Peng, CEO of JA Solar said that the company has invested in cycling sports for significant reasons. He mentioned: “Cycling is a sport of zero carbon emissions, which is in line with a concept supported by JA,” as well as “Cycling emphasizes endurance and skills. JA remains competitive with continuous product innovations to maintain a leading position in the sector.”

With the advent of JA Solar in Germany, it sprawls its wings by becoming the exclusive PV module supplier for Solarhybrid AG’s Allstedt I project. According to the agreement, the company has to provide 19 megawatts of PV modules for one of Solarhybrid’s solar power plants in the city of Halle in eastern Germany.

Image Credit/ GbbIT

With increasing interference of Chinese  manufacturers, the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) has issued an evaluation of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection data that depicts “Chinese manufacturers more than doubled imports  of crystalline solar cells and panels into the country in the latter half of 2011”.

According to the CASM, this step is an attempt to avoid a possible increase of tariffs on solar components by the United States. It also appealed to the U.S. Department of Commerce to apply retro-active duties to the imports on Chinese solar products.

The publicly-available data from the Customs and Border Protection’s Port Import Export Reporting Service by the Coalition’s investigation puts  light on evidence of malfeasance by many Chinese manufacturers. The  CASM added that their research contains examples of companies stockpiling “dumped and illegally subsidized” Chinese solar imports.

Gordon Brinser, a spokesman of the CASM and president of SolarWorld Industries said that the ITC and Dept. of Commerce must take some actions as well as protect the right of the U.S. Solar manufacturers.

He pointed out: “This most recent surge of Chinese solar imports gives the U.S. Department of Commerce the evidence it needs not only to make a preliminary determination in our favour, but also to apply a critical-circumstances finding to address this last-minute import surge.”

The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) has strongly boycotted CASM’s claims. It added that the protectionism will raise the price of solar electricity as well left a negative impact on more than 5,000 American solar companies and over 100,000 American jobs.

The CASE stated that “the potential counteraction from countries being targeted, such as China, against American solar exports would also hurt America’s global leadership in selling solar equipment and raw materials to countries around the world.” It explained that the CASM’s activities are largely focused on Chinese solar companies, although the SolarWorld is a German company.

Image Credit: Creativecommons/ Rama

With a massive development going in the field of solar power production, it’s great news that IKEA has planned to install the solar energy system on top of its Cincinnati-area store.

According to the report, the 128,000-square-foot photo-voltaic array composed of 4,186 panels comprises a 1,026-kilowatt system. The array, which is installed on the world’s leading home furnishing retailer’s West Chester Township store, has the capacity to produce about 1.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity yearly.

The generation of electricity by such a reformative way is a huge step, which is estimated to cut down 1,014 tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as well the capacity to power 115 homes once a year.

The installation of solar energy system will add a new script in IKEA’s history as well as the West Chester location will become its 14th completed project in the United States. There are more than 23 locations in progress.

Heather Spatz, IKEA West Chester store manager: “Our mission is to create a better everyday life for many people, and at IKEA West Chester, we just added to this effort.” He added, “A solar energy system will help reduce our store’s carbon footprint and represents another investment toward our future in this community.”

California-based REC Solar is an active participant in such a wonderful footstep by developing, designing and installing the solar power system at many IKEA locations. Since 2008, IKEA has opened a new corridor by installing 344,000-square-foot store at the corner of Allen and Muhlhauser roads.

Image Credit:  Creative commons/Al McDougall

In Spain, Andalusia, near Seville, a high 100 metres tower is surrounded by gargantuan mirrors, that run about the tower in concentric circles. These rippling mirrors are able to track sunlight throughout the day and reflect it on to the tower where it is converted into solar energy. The energy created at the plant is sufficient enough to power 6000 homes. The name of the site is PS10.

There are few such CSP (Concentrated Solar Power)  sites in the world. The Proponents of CSP state that the technology has the potential to generate energy for the entire United States. However, land and large quantities of sunlight are necessary for its application.

A CSP plant that makes use of less land and is able to concentrate more sunlight has been designed by MIT in collaboration with RWTH Aachen University in Germany. This design reduces the carbon footprint of a solar plant by 20% and also increases its energy producing potential. It also allows for a more compact layout and lowers the heliostat shading and blocking from neighbouring mirrors. The researchers of the project have already filed for a patent. However, the concentric circles around the mirror result in higher shading thus reducing the amount of sunlight reflected to the tower.

The research team tried to overcome this obstacle by looking for alternative designs for the arrangement of mirrors. The heliostat layout was played with. Mirrors were placed close together which resulted in a more compact design without compromising on the ability of the mirrors to reflect sunlight towards the tower. The new design echoes the pattern of a sunflower. The florets in a sunflower are laid out in a spiraling pattern which is known as a Fermat spiral. The florets are placed at a golden angle of 137 degrees with respect to its neighboring floret. This design reduces the land requirement by 20% and also minimizes shading and blocking. The innovative design would also result in huge cost savings.

On 17th of January 2012, the First Solar Inc. announced that it has set a new world record by using cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic solar module, which has achieved the record breaking 14.4% total area efficiency.

The world record has been confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab, which has measured the prior record of 13.4%. It’s great to know that the company is able to break its own record. Hence, it has paved a way for others that are associated with the production of solar panels.

Just after six months duration setting the world record for CdTe solar cell efficiency with a mark of 17.3 percent, Dave Eaglesham, chief technology officer of the First Solar at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi announced the company record beating performance.

It’s a grand time for more than 1000 workers that constructed the cell and module record setters with the help of commercial scale manufacturing equipment and materials at the company’s production unit in Perrysburg.

Image Credit: Creativecommons/ Isofoton.es

The maximum efficiency of silicon solar cell used today is 31 percent. But this discovery would benefit lowering the cost and trigger the efficiency of solar-to-electric power conversion to as high as around 66 percent, said Zhu.

The research of Prof. Zhu and his team about hot electrons was published in Science magazine in 2010.  Zhu says that the actual implementation  based on that research technology is more challenging.

Prof. Zhu also added that studying and working more on the mechanism could increase the efficiency. During the process of a photon producing a dark quantum “shadow state”, the two electrons can be captured and be used to generate more energy, said the professor.

Wai-lun Chan, a postdoctoral fellow in Zhu’s group led the research team with the help of postdoctoral fellows Askat Jailaubekov, Manuel Ligges, Luis Miaja-Avila and Loren Kaake. The National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy supported the research.

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants like Gemsolar and PS10 employ the heliostat layouts to focus a large area of sunrays onto a small area. The concentrated light so collected is converted into heat to generate electricity. However, large areas are required to make CSP plants economically feasible which is not always a logical solution.

Researchers at  MIT and RWTH Aachen University in Germany have devised a nature inspired design that occupies a much smaller area but at the same time captures more sunlight than the current CSP plants.

As the designs of heliostat layouts were reworked at MIT, researchers noted that the layouts functioned efficiently because of the spiral elements which were similar to the ones found in nature. The researchers also found that focusing the array of mirrors similar to the spiral patterns on the face of the sunflower helps increase the possible amount of energy generation. Furthermore, the land needed to arrange the heliostats also crunched by 33% of conventional CSP plants.

Along with allowing for a compact layout, the sunflower pattern removed obstacles like blocking and shading by neighboring heliostats. According to the calculations made by the researchers, the florets on the sunflower head occurring in a natural Fermat spiral pattern, tilt at an angle of 137°. This pattern helped eradicate the shading and blocking issue commonly faced by heliostats in most CSP fields.

MIT’s Alexander Mitsos, the Rockwell International Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Corey Noone SM ‘11, along with with Manuel Torrilhon of RWTH Aachen carried out the research which will be published in the Solar Energy journal. The team has also filed for patent protection for their results.

Solar panels embedded in electronic devices has been a long drawn tradition without much desired effect. But the new solar energy powered Kindle cover, uncovered at CES 2012 in Las Vegas states otherwise.

It seems that the SolarKindle solar panel cover integrated with the digital reader weighs just 215 grams, is flexible and able to charge even in indirect sunlight. According to the company that created the cover, an hour charge in direct sunlight would provide three days of reading time to the Kindle.

After providing power to the Kindle, the solar panel inevitably switches to powering the 1500mA reserve battery of the SolarKindle which requires eight hours of charging in direct sunlight and provides 80% of back up power to the Kindle. The built-in booklight incorporated in the device for reading in the dark also draws power from the back-up battery. If the reserve battery is used for the reading light alone, it can power the light for up to 50 hours.

Manufactured by SolarFocus Technology, the SolarKindle is available online and through authorized resellers in France, Canada and The Netherlands.

Image Credit: Creative Commons/Jon ‘ShakataGaNai’ Davis

It’s immense pleasure to hear that a new solar farm in Osgoode at last got operating approvals from the Ontario Energy Board on 6th of December 2011. The project has been approved to install 10 megawatts solar farm at Parkway and Yorks Corners roads with a license to generate electricity for 20 years.

According to the GS One-Parkway Solar Farm LP, Robert Rudd, a manager for industrial giant Sharp Electronics, San Francisco, name was there on the application to the Ontario Energy Board including the details for a limited partnership licence.

Rudd said that he is not enough mature to say anything about this proposal. The licence says: “the point of the solar farm is simply to generate and sell power to the Ontario grid through the Ontario Power Authority, which says it’s had a contract with the operator since 2008, to take power whenever the plant entered service.”

This is a leap step for the province by undertaking such a big green energy program. However, it pays a subsidised rate for solar and other renewable power.

Generating 10 megawatts electricity by a solar farm is a middling-to-small capacity for the province that utilizes more than 20,000 megawatts on an ordinary day. However, it is a big footstep to follow the provincial government’s Green Energy Act objectives.

To minimise dependence on coal, gas and nuclear plants, the provincial government pays a premium for clean energy by boosting several smaller installations in order to cut off the pollution.