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Finland’s largest solar power plant under construction in Oulu

Pilot results show that solar systems in Oulu produce as much electricity as those in northern Germany. Photo: Kalevi Rytkölä / Yle

Finland’s largest solar power plant, comprising of 1,600 solar panels producing 420 kilowatts of power, will be built in Oulu on the roof of the local printing plant this spring. The northern city of Oulu is quickly making a name for itself as a pioneer in the use of renewable energy sources.

According to yle.fi, Oulun Energia Group has announced plans to build a solar power unit on the roof of the local Kaleva newspaper’s printing plant in Oulu this spring. The 420-kilowatt unit will have 1,600 solar panels, combining to make a total panel surface area of approximately 2,400 square metres. Along with the support equipment, the setup will cover near to 3,200 square metres, which equals nearly half a football field.

System installation will begin in April, and the objective is for the unit to be operational by June 2015.

“On a clear summer day, we expect to gain up to 90 percent of the electricity required to run the Kaleva printing operations via solar. Annually, the solar energy obtained should cover about 10 percent of the printing house’s electricity costs,” says Kaleva’s CFO Esko Jokelainen.

The manufacture of solar panels in Finland is only in its early stages, so the panels for a project this large must be ordered from Germany. All of the other labour for the installation, from transport to assembly, will be carried out by local employees from the northern Finland region.

“Solar energy and other distributed energy production solutions will proliferate in the next few years and therefore create more jobs in northern Finland as well,” says Oulun Energia Group’s Sales Director Seppo Tuomi.

Oulun Energia Group generates, transmits, distributes and sells electricity and district heating in the Oulu region and is owned by the city of Oulu.

Why Oulu?

Located in North Ostrobothnia, Oulu is the largest city in northern Finland and the sixth largest city in the country, with a population over 200,000. It is one of the northernmost larger cities in the world. Situated this far north, one could wonder how a solar plant could be feasible with so many dark winter months in the year.

But the city of Oulu has taken on the role of a ‘living lab’, where residents experiment with new technologies from ICT to cleantech. Consequently, in per capita R&D spending, it ranks first in Finland and fifth in Europe. Oulu also has Europe’s largest technology park.

Oulun Energia Group conducted a pilot project for solar energy, testing the efficacy of 16 customer solar systems installed on local homes.

The pilot was surprisingly successful, producing results that were comparable to solar energy production conditions elsewhere. If properly situated, a 5-kilowatt system of 20 panels produced up to 4,500 kilowatts of electricity, which directly corresponds to a similar system in northern Germany.

In the Oulun Energia Group’s report on the pilot project, Tuomi is confident that there is significant potential for growth for photovoltaic systems in Finland.

“Solar energy systems are suitable for both businesses and consumers. Using them in the summer time to cool down property is particularly profitable. The cost of the panels is low, the payback period is reasonable and in ideal locations, the costs are clearly cheaper than grid electricity.”

The EU has set a climate target that 38 percent of member countries’ electricity consumption should be obtained from renewable energy sources by the year 2020.

China plans massive solar power plant in space by 2050

The Chinese solar space station is planned to be much more massive than the International Space Station. Photo: NASA via Instagram

China wants to put up a solar power station bigger than the International Space Station in orbit at 36,000 kms above the ground by 2050.

According to International Bussiness Times, the project would solve the energy crisis on Earth, the Chinese scientists behind the vision say.

An experimental space solar power station is planned to be in place by 2030, with a commercially viable one to be ready by 2050.

Wang Xiji, the 93-year-old academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an International Academy of Astronautics member, who has devoted over 50 years to space technology research, is an advocate for the station.

“An economically viable space power station would be really huge, with the total area of the solar panels reaching 5 to 6 sq km,” he told official media.

Being in orbit the station would be able to harness solar energy 99% of the time.

Space-based solar panels can generate ten times as much electricity as ground-based panels per unit area, say the experts.

The electricity generated would be converted to microwaves or lasers and transmitted to a collector on Earth. The efficiency of the transmission will have to cross 50% before the project becomes economically viable.

The idea was first mooted back in the last century by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in a short story titled “Reason”.

However, one of the chief hurdles in the realisation of the massive project is the need for a cheap heavy-lift launch vehicle, says Wang, who designed China’s first carrier rocket more than 40 years ago. “We also need to make very thin and light solar panels.”

Chinese space scientists believe the space station planned to be placed in orbit by 2020 will aid the solar project.

China is also expected to develop a new generation heavy-lift launch vehicle.

Besides avoiding the smog and pollution generated by its many fossil fuel power plants, the demand for energy is expected to be met by the space station. China is the world’s largest energy consumer as also the world’s top carbon emitter.

Israel installs solar panels at parliament to save energy

Israel’s Knesset unveils world’s largest parliament rooftop solar field. Photo: Courtesy Knesset

Israel has installed solar panels on the roof of its parliament building, creating what it calls the largest solar field of any national assembly in the world.

According to phys.org, the office of the parliament speaker says energy generated from some 1,500 solar panels will provide 10 percent of the electricity used at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

The Knesset is also advancing other energy-saving projects, like installing energy-saving lights, automatically shutting down lawmakers’ computers at the end of each workday, and using air conditioning systems to help irrigate the gardens surrounding the building.

The statement says the measures will reduce the Knesset’s energy use by a third.

Scientists will also conduct ecological research on the parliament roof.

Oil downturn slows progress in bringing solar power to mines

Solar power in mines

High oil prices spurred mining companies to look at renewable energy to cut their diesel fuel bills. With crude plunging, it’s a different story today.

According to Bloomberg, an almost 50 percent drop in crude oil in the past year has pushed diesel prices lower, leading mines and other energy users to delay adding solar and wind projects.

“There’s no doubt about it there are a lot of parts of the world that see the drop in price as a reason for them to stall the decision on whether to proceed,” said John Eccles, director of global hybrid generation at First Solar Inc., the largest U.S. solar panel manufacturer.

Global renewable energy investment in mining was forecast last year by Ernst & Young to rise almost twentyfold to $3.9 billion by 2022. Now that target will take longer to reach, according to the consultants.
“While oil prices remain lower, it will slow down the adoption rate of alternative energy,” Mike Elliott, the Sydney-based global mining and metals leader at Ernst & Young, said by phone.

“There will be some of those investment decisions that will still default to a conventional fuel source as opposed to a renewable source,” he said.

As miners expanded into more remote locations during the decade-long commodities boom, they grew more dependent on diesel to generate power at sites that aren’t connected to the electricity grid. Energy accounts for as much as 40 percent of the operating costs at some mines, according to Ernst & Young.

Remote Projects

There are fewer than 12 remote mining projects in the world that get at least half of their power from wind and solar, mostly ones in Chile that have been developed over the past couple of years, Elliott said.
When oil prices surged and renewable energy costs fell, it gave miners in countries from Chile to Australia a strong incentive to increase reliance on wind and solar to offset some of their diesel consumption.

The oil price drop may still benefit renewable energy. At least 27 nations are decreasing or ending the subsidies that hold down costs for fuels used to generate electricity, including coal and natural gas, the International Energy Agency said in November. That’s adding momentum to global efforts to limit greenhouse gases by increasing the use of clean energy.

Efforts globally to reduce carbon emissions will probably continue to lead miners to weigh wind and solar projects when making investment decisions, Elliott said.

Competitive

Even with the drop in oil, total diesel fuel bills remain higher in some regions due to a range of factors from taxes to transportation costs, increasing solar’s appeal as an energy source, said First Solar’s Eccles.
The number of solar-diesel hybrid projects is forecast to increase, according to Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar, which signed a deal last year to bring solar power to a Rio Tinto Group bauxite mine in Queensland state.

Solar photovoltaic technology over time “needs lower and lower fuel prices to be economically competitive,” Eccles said. “There’s a long investment horizon. It needs time to crystallize, and then you’ll see a more rapid uptake.”

About 40 to 50 power projects in remote locations across Australia, the world’s biggest exporter of iron ore, are seeking funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, its chief executive officer, Ivor Frischknecht, said in a phone interview.

“Some projects have slowed down a little bit in terms of how aggressively they are pursuing it” as the price of diesel declines, he said.

Scientists create a new type of solar cell

esearchers combine 2 types of photovoltaic material to make a cell that harnesses more sunlight

Researchers at MIT and Stanford University have developed a new kind of solar cell that combines two different layers of sunlight-absorbing material in order to harvest a broader range of the sun’s energy.

According to pddnet.com, the development could lead to photovoltaic cells that are more efficient than those currently used in solar-power installations, the researchers say.

The new cell uses a layer of silicon — which forms the basis for most of today’s solar panels — but adds a semi-transparent layer of a material called perovskite, which can absorb higher-energy particles of light. Unlike an earlier “tandem” solar cell reported by members of the same team earlier this year — in which the two layers were physically stacked, but each had its own separate electrical connections — the new version has both layers connected together as a single device that needs only one control circuit.

The new findings are reported in the journal Applied Physics Letters by MIT graduate student Jonathan Mailoa; associate professor of mechanical engineering Tonio Buonassisi; Colin Bailie and Michael McGehee at Stanford; and four others.

“Different layers absorb different portions of the sunlight,” Mailoa explains. In the earlier tandem solar cell, the two layers of photovoltaic material could be operated independently of each other and required their own wiring and control circuits, allowing each cell to be tuned independently for optimal performance.

By contrast, the new combined version should be much simpler to make and install, Mailoa says. “It has advantages in terms of simplicity, because it looks and operates just like a single silicon cell,” he says, with only a single electrical control circuit needed.

One tradeoff is that the current produced is limited by the capacity of the lesser of the two layers. Electrical current, Buonassisi explains, can be thought of as analogous to the volume of water passing through a pipe, which is limited by the diameter of the pipe: If you connect two lengths of pipe of different diameters, one after the other, “the amount of water is limited by the narrowest pipe,” he says. Combining two solar cell layers in series has the same limiting effect on current.

To address that limitation, the team aims to match the current output of the two layers as precisely as possible. In this proof-of-concept solar cell, this means the total power output is about the same as that of conventional solar cells; the team is now working to optimize that output.

Perovskites have been studied for potential electronic uses including solar cells, but this is the first time they have been successfully paired with silicon cells in this configuration, a feat that posed numerous technical challenges. Now the team is focusing on increasing the power efficiency — the percentage of sunlight’s energy that gets converted to electricity — that is possible from the combined cell.

In this initial version, the efficiency is 13.7 percent, but the researchers say they have identified low-cost ways of improving this to about 30 percent — a substantial improvement over today’s commercial silicon-based solar cells — and they say this technology could ultimately achieve a power efficiency of more than 35 percent.

They will also explore how to easily manufacture the new type of device, but Buonassisi says that should be relatively straightforward, since the materials lend themselves to being made through methods very similar to conventional silicon-cell manufacturing.

One hurdle is making the material durable enough to be commercially viable: The perovskite material degrades quickly in open air, so it either needs to be modified to improve its inherent durability or encapsulated to prevent exposure to air — without adding significantly to manufacturing costs and without degrading performance.

This exact formulation may not turn out to be the most advantageous for better solar cells, Buonassisi says, but is one of several pathways worth exploring. “Our job at this point is to provide options to the world,” he says. “The market will select among them.”

“I think this work is very significant,” says Martin Green, a professor at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, who was not connected with this research. “The work is important in establishing a proof-of-concept and will stimulate higher efficiencies with this approach. … It’s an excellent starting point for further work in this area.”

The research team also included Eric Johlin PhD ’14 and postdoc Austin Akey at MIT, and Eric Hoke and William Nguyen of Stanford. It was supported by the Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium and the U.S. Department of Energy.

World’s first solar-powered cricket stadium

Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy stadium. Photo: India Today

This year’s edition of the Indian Premier League in Bengaluru will be played on what the state cricket association claims is the world’s only solar-powered cricket ground.

According to The Economic Times, the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has commissioned a 400-KW solar plant to power the entire M Chinnaswamy stadium, except for the high-intensity floodlights, before the IPL season commences next month. The company executing the project has proposed powering the floodlights too using solar energy as the next step in KSCA’s ‘go green’ mission.

“We are aiming to make this a green stadium,” said KSCA honorary secretary Brijesh Patel, a former India cricketer. “It makes economic sense for us to do this, and the additional power we generate will be offloaded to the grid.”

The Rs 4.5 crore project, commissioned in February and inspired by Germany’s fully solar-powered Freiburg football stadium, is expected to reduce KSCA ‘s power consumption drastically . The state cricket body is headquartered in the Chinnaswamy stadium.

At present, KSCA consumes about 18 lakh units per year. After the solar power project is implemented, it is expected to use about 6 lakh units a year through solar and sell any additional power to the Bangalore Electricity Supply Co grid.

“In a matter of four years, the KSCA will get its returns,” said H Nandi, founder of city-based technology solutions firm MRO-TEK that’s implementing the project.”It would also be able to generate Rs 70-80 lakh revenue with the power it generates.”

MRO-TEK’s next target is the floodlights at the stadium. “Each floodlight consumes about 1 MW power, with each bulb carrying 1,000 watts of power. It can be replaced with 200 watt LED bulbs, which we plan to do experimentally without disturbing other floodlights. With this, power consumption would drastically reduce,” Nandi said.

Australia’s biggest solar farm starts generating to the grid

Nyngan solar farm. Source: Reneweconomy

The Nyngan solar plant in western New South Wales began generating power into the National Electricity Market, with the first of the 25MW completed to date feeding into the Australia’s main grid.

According to Reneweconomy, far 350,000 solar PV panels have been installed by First Solar, with four times that much to be completed in the coming the months to take its nominated capacity to 102MW.

It is the first of two plants being built by AGL Energy, with the 53MW Broken Hill plant also under construction.

Nyngan is the first solar plant to be visible on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s market, as this graph provided by NEM Watch shows.

It is thought that there are several dozen large scale solar projects in planning mode – ranging from several MWs to “mega projects such as a 2GW plan for western Queensland, but most are on hold because of uncertainty about there renewable energy target.

The Nyngan and Broken Hill projects are being supported by funding under the government’s now defunct solar flagships program, with the funds now managed by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. The only other large solar plants being constructed are in the ACT, under the territory’s solar auction process.

AGL’s head of merchant energy, Anthony Fowler, said this is a significant milestone for Australia’s largest utility-scale solar PV plant.

“First generation represents a great achievement for all the project stakeholders. It has required close coordination between local electricity distributor Essential Energy, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), project partner First Solar and AGL to facilitiate this successful milestone,” Mr Fowler said.

The NSW Government, which contributed $64.9 million towards the $290 million plant, said it was strongly committed to the transition to renewable energy through projects such as this.

NSW Environment minister Rob Stokes said there are an estimated 13,000 jobs supported by renewable energy in NSW, mostly in regional areas. “The development of projects in regional NSW has the potential to provide traditional farming communities with alternative income streams that are not rainfall dependent,” Stokes said.

Jack Curtis, First Solar’s Asia-Pacific regional manager said the first generation at Nyngan represents an important milestone, especially as it relates to the broader power sector’s adoption of utility-scale solar as a meaningful contributor to Australia’s generation mix.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht congratulated AGL on the achievement and said the project is paving the way for more large-scale solar plants to be built in Australia.

“AGL’s solar project will help bring down the cost of similar plants, making them more competitive. In addition to creating jobs, boosting skills and contributing to local communities, the development of utility-scale solar is vital to a diverse energy future,” Frischknecht said.

Bring your innovative ideas to The Thin-Film Solar Awards Competition

The Thin-Film Solar Awards Competition, which is open to anyone, is offering cash prizes, incubator sponsorship, and production support for those submitting great thin-film solar product ideas.

Are you one of those people who’s always coming up with great ideas, even if you never do anything with them? Do you have a notebook full of ideas for inventions or product designs that have never seen the light of day? Do you often find yourself thinking about how to improve everyday products so they work better for you, or for others?

Have you ever said, “if you could only put solar on it…,” and meant it?

If you can answer yes to any of the above (or maybe even if you’ve ever thought “I wish there was such a thing as a solar-powered ________.”), then you might want to submit an idea or two to the Hanergy Thin-Film Solar Product Global Innovation Competition.

According to Tree Hugger, Hanergy, said to be the world’s largest thin-film solar power company, is looking for some bright ideas for innovative applications of its thin-film products on everyday items, and is offering cash prizes, production support, sponsorship at an incubator, and more, to the winners of the competition.

The concepts for submissions can be from across a wide spectrum of thin-film solar applications, from construction to mobile electronics to homes to vehicles and beyond, and don’t have to include a prototype or technical brief, which makes the competition open to just about anyone. In fact, if you need or want help with submitting your proposal, you can connect with the team first and they’ll help you to find the right resources or the right network to find the people who can help you.

The awards will include a $160,000 USD Grand Prize, as well as a number of other cash prizes, starting at $16,000 USD. Along with the money, the big winner will get a trip to a solar R&D lab, an opportunity for employment and profit-sharing, and production support from Hanergy. Plus, the thin-film solar ideas of today could turn out to revolutionize how we use, make, and think about mobile energy, so winners could be a part of a world-changing movement.

“All the business models built around steam-engines and baseload power are being disrupted by standard silicon solar modules. Imagine what will happen when we can provide electricity at the point of use with small applications of solar power appropriate to the load. It will put portable power into the hands of the people. The creative designers who enter this competition will have a chance to make history with their powerful new ideas.” – Danny Kennedy, founder of SfunCube solar incubator

JAM IN THE VAN, the solar-powered mobile music studio

JAM IN THE VAN. Photo: Abran Rubiner

JAM IN THE VAN is a solar-powered mobile music studio and discovery platform that is set to travel over 10,000 miles this year. Housed inside an RV, it greatly differs from typical music studio setups and is able to hit the road in search of music to record.

The one-of-a-kind platform was founded in 2011 by music fans Dave Bell, Jake Cotler, and Louis Peek in Venice, California. The RV was outfitted with a full HD audio/video production suite, enabling it to capture unique live music performances at festivals and other venues across the country.

According to psfk.com, over five hundred sessions have taken place inside the mobile music studio, with a mix of both emerging and already established musical acts including Gary Clark Jr., George Clinton, Matisyahu, Misterwives, Allen Stone, ZZ Ward, Robert DeLong, and The Orwells.

JAM IN THE VAN has helped introduce music fans to some great new acts, putting on shows in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Bonnaroo and SXSW. When not on the road, the bright and colorful RV hosts musicians in its hometown, and all of the performances can be seen on their official YouTube channel.

This year looks set to be a big one for the solar-powered mobile studio, which will be traveling over 10,000 miles to bring music fans more than two hundred sessions from buzzworthy bands at festivals across the U.S. They are taking over SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas this month and have partnered with GQ to showcase over forty bands at the ‘GQ x JAM IN THE VAN HOUSE’. The founders said:

“2015 will be the most prolific year to date for JAM IN THE VAN. We’ll travel more miles and discover more great music than ever before. We plan to expand our content slate and increase our reach to cover a broader fan base than ever before.”

You can get a good look at JAM IN THE VAN and see some musicians performing in the unique studio below:

[VIDEO] Scientists use solar film to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen…without exploding

Researcher Ke Sun, an author of the new study holds a sample of the film that he helped develop. Photo: Lance Hayashida/Caltech

Hydrogen powered cars are slowly accelerating in popularity with boosts from infrastructure development and car manufacturers. But getting eco-friendly hydrogen is still a bit of a challenge. Right now, a lot of hydrogen is produced through mixing steam and natural gas. An alternative to using natural gas is electrolysis, using an electric current to pull apart the oxygen and hydrogen in water, but current methods use way too much energy to make it worth it.

Scientists around the country are working on making the process simpler, using AAA batteries, chemical reactions and other methods to make hydrogen a greener choice.

Of course, one of the greenest methods is to act like a leaf, and use the sun for energy.

According to Popular Science, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences announces the development of a transparent film that uses energy from the sun to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, without some of the dangerous side effects inherent in the process.

Author Nate Lewis and his colleagues at Caltech created a thin coating of nickel oxide that can be applied to semi-conductors made of silicon or other materials–a setup that acts like an artificial leaf, using sunlight to power the system. When introduced to water, one side of the ‘leaf’ oxidizes the water, releasing oxygen, while the other side gathers the hydrogen.

A membrane keeps the newly separated hydrogen and oxygen isolated from each other, which helps reduce the risk of explosion. If heat (or electricity) is added to a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen the results can be incredibly explosive, much more so than each gas on its own. Check out the differences in burning oxygen, hydrogen, and a mix of the two in the video below.

“Without a membrane, the photoanode and photocathode are close enough to each other to conduct electricity, and if you also have bubbles of highly reactive hydrogen and oxygen gases being produced in the same place at the same time, that is a recipe for disaster,” Lewis says. “With our film, you can build a safe device that will not explode, and that lasts and is efficient, all at once.”

The film has other benefits too. Other research groups have also developed solar powered water-splitters, but those tend to have a very short shelf life, breaking down quickly. In addition to not exploding (always good) the new coating is transparent, which helps get sunlight to the leaf, and it is also rust-resistant, meaning that the material can work for a long time without degrading.