The European Union approves the new German Renewable Energy Law

EU approves the new German Renewable Energy Law

EU said yes to the Approval of Germany’s New BRUSSELS, fact that took place on Wednesday. The recent law was made with the purpose of helping Germany to not depend on nuclear and fossil fuel-generated power.

A few weeks ago, the European Commission reported that it had given backing to the plans after Berlin agreed to make some amendments to the law.

Earlier this month, the European Commission said The new law “paves the way for more market integration of renewables,” words belonging to Joaquín Almunia, the European Union’s antitrust commissioner.

“In the medium term, this should lead to lower costs for consumers. Also the progressive opening up of tenders to operators located in other member states is a very positive development for the internal energy market.”

The EU was worried that some companies from Germany in the green energy industry could have taken advantage of subsides. Moreover, the also think that a surcharge necessary for imported electricity equated to a customs duty and violated the bloc’s internal market regulations.

As a fallow-up, the German country was on board with letting foreign companies that import green power to benefit from the same advantages as Germany-based companies that deliver power domestically.

Germany’s energy and economics minister, Sigmar Gabriel, accepted the EU decision Wednesday, believing it will represent a beginning for further development of green energies and implementation of the “energy revolution,” an alternative to nuclear and conventional power sources.

“Companies in Germany are also being provided with the framework conditions to maintain our jobs and serve to strengthen industry in Europe,” Mr. Gabriel reports.

The German bill trims subsidies for new renewable power plants that vary from big wind farms to little solar panels situated on homeowner’s roofs. In addition to this, the power-price surcharge is booming as it has funded these subsidies more equally among businesses. The majority of firms had previously been exempt for reasons like operating energy-hungry industries or decided to put together their own power plants.

This law is valid starting next month and the yearly support can reach €20 billion.

SMA Launches the Sunny Boy Smart Energy

Niestetal, April 25, 2014—SMA Solar Technology AG (SMA) launches the new Sunny Boy Smart Energy in Germany. The first wall-mountable, mass-produced PV inverter with an integrated lithium-ion battery is immediately available for delivery.

The new inverter Sunny Boy

This new product awarded the Product Innovation Prize at Intersolar 2013 is currently the simplest storage solution available for typical residential PV applications. Furthermore, it can also be used as part of the SMA Integrated Storage System Solution.

Using solar electricity even longer

With the Sunny Boy Smart Energy, owner-operators can now use solar power even after sunset. Thanks to the integrated battery with a capacity of approximately 2 kWh, generated PV electricity that is not needed in the home can be stored for later use. This increases self-consumption—which makes a positive contribution to the environment and great sense financially—and therefore independence from rising electricity prices. “When combined with the Sunny Home Manager, self-sufficiency quotas of 50% are common on an annual average basis,” said Product Manager Thomas Thierschmidt.

Optimized battery capacity

The VDE-certified lithium-ion battery integrated in the Sunny Boy Smart Energy has an effective, application-oriented capacity of approximately 2 kWh. This value is crucial because it enables ideal economical operation of the battery. Because the increase in self-consumption levels off with increasing storage capacity, the battery utilization factor decreases. In addition, thanks to the battery, virtually all generated PV energy can be used, even with active power limitation. “Our long-standing expertise in storage systems shows us time and again that the small storage battery is not only extremely viable but also affordable,” said Thierschmidt.

A core component in the SMA Integrated Storage System

The Sunny Boy Smart Energy, which is available in power ranges of 3.6 kW and 5 kW, is one of the core components of the SMA Integrated Storage System alongside the Sunny Home Manager. As the first wall-mountable, mass-produced PV inverter with an integrated lithium-ion battery, this new product awarded the Product Innovation Prize at Intersolar 2013 is currently the simplest storage solution available for typical residential PV applications.

For greater independence, for the success of the energy transition

The Sunny Boy Smart Energy fosters greater independence in the scope of the intelligent energy management of SMA Smart Home. It is also perfectly designed to help fuel the energy transition, thanks to its storage function. “The future Smart Grid for the decentralized and renewable electricity supply must rely on electrical storage systems. To be able to establish a system-appropriate storage capacity within the utility grid capacity, an easy-to-install and affordable product is needed. In this respect, the Sunny Boy Smart Energy supports the energy transition unlike virtually any other device,” said Thierschmidt.

About SMA

The SMA Group generated sales of €932.5 million in 2013 and is the global market leader for solar inverters, a key component of all PV plants. As an energy management group, SMA offers innovative key technologies for future powersupply structures. It is headquartered in Niestetal, near Kassel, Germany, and is represented in 21 countries.

UK at the top of the list in European PV: largest market of the year

UK PV market

Who would have said that a country where is mostly rains would end up being so solar-friendly? Well apparently it is possible as U.K is rapidly moving towards the top on the list with the largest markets of the year. Developing more than 120 big scale PV farms, UK grew the attraction for project developers, as NPD Solarbuzz says.

UK at the top in EU PV market, as the ground-mounted solar PV farms develop

Over 100 large-scale solar PV farms in the British country have been approved and are said to be finished this year as NPD Solarbuzz UK Deal Tracker reports.

NPD Solarbuzz Vice President, Finlay Colville, says “In the past six months, the Department of Energy and Climate Change released the United Kingdom’s Solar PV Roadmap and Solar PV Strategy reports, restating aspirations to hit 20 GW of cumulative capacity by 2020.”

As far as the amount of new solar PV capacity is concerned, the analysts say that U.K is at 2.875 GW for 2014, meaning that approximately 1.72 GW will be added in this semester.

Even the last leader of the market, Germany, didn’t reach this figure as it has 2.6 GW.

Future plans for the UK PV market

The main purposes of the solar market leader will also concern rooftop and ground-mounted systems and solar PV farms are said to be the main provider in 2014.

Until the end of the month , over 325 PV farms in the 10 MW category will be completed. This means over 60 different sites will be installed. Moreover, 444 large-scale ground-mounted solar PV farms are being installer at the time, with the help of Renewable Obligation scheme. The last one are to be completed until the beginning of the next year.

“With the U.K. projected to be the largest solar PV market in Europe in 2014, global component suppliers and project developers need to quickly understand the dynamics of the U.K. solar PV industry,” added Colville. “Aligning with suitable partners and choosing the most attractive PV projects in the pipeline will ultimately determine the winners and losers over the next 12 months.”

European scientists just made the first “green” jet fuel that uses sunlight

Green jet fuel

The project is called Solar-Jet and it exploits the sun for heating metal oxide. After that, 700 °C water and carbon monoxide go into the reactor. This leads to the creation of a synthetic gas that combines of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The final step is the compression of that and the conversion into a fuel that imitates kerosene.

If this works on a bigger scale, it can lead to a source of sustainable and ascendable supply of fuel for planes, cars and some other vehicles.

With the purpose of reducing toxic emissions, Europeans created the first renewable jet fuel that works on water and carbon dioxide

If this is proved on a larger scale, this project could mean a new beginning in the renewable energy industry by making possible an on-demand reserve of fuel that are used in planes, cars and other different type of vehicles.

The achievement was made public by the researchers that have been working on the Solar-Jet project for the past four years and spent the last years developing a solar reactor that utilizes focused sunlight to heat up metal oxide.

The renewable jet fuel could be useful to planes, cars and other vehicles

“The basic idea is to reverse the combustion process. What we do is take carbon dioxide and water vapour, and introduce energy to produce fuel” said the person in charge of at the DLR Institute of Combustion Technology in Stuttgart, Patrick Le Clercq, according to dailymail.

The fallowing step is the compression. After that the gas is sent to Shell, where it is converted into a hydrocarbon fuel that is a lot like kerosene during a process called Fischer-Tropsch.

“This large-scale method is already in widespread use throughout the world and has been certified for aviation purposes. This means the fuel produced using this technique will not need to undergo any new, extensive testing and certification procedures,” added Le Clercq.

The project is currently at the experimental stage and only has a glassful of jet fuel produced in laboratory conditions that use simulated rays. Still, scientists think that this could represent a way cheaper and environmentally-friendly fuel.

Solar-Jet collaborates with German Aerospace Center (DLR), ETH Zürich, Bauhaus Luftfahrt and Shell.

Russia is going put $4.2 billion in the solar sector until 2020

Solar PV blooms in Russia

The technology giant in the state’s propriety, Rusnano, together with the conglomerate Renova are important pieces the European – Asian country’s solar energy field.

PV devlelopers in Russia are willing to install PV plants in sunny southern regions

The main investing in this sector is said to be made by both state and private parts, as the The Russian Ministry of Energy expects. Taking all this into account, Russia will get to RUB 150 billion (US$ 4.2 billion) by 2020.

The corporate affairs director at Hevel Solar, Anton Usachev is certain that solar power plants will find their home in the southern and southwestern Russian regions of Altai, Bashkortostan, Orenburg, Samara and Omsk in upcoming six years. This words come from Russia’s biggest module producer. He also states that until 2020, approximately 1.5 GW of solar are going to function in the country.

Rusian solar boosts with the help of companies collaborations

The above mentioned company, a collaboration between state-owned tech giant Rusnano and Russian conglomerate Renova, is also planning to settle PV manufacturing plants in Russia. The biggest one is said to be commissioning in June in Chuvashia with an expected capacity of more than 100 MW a year.

Another company included in Renove and France’s Schneider Electric Avelar Energy Group, is willing to launch an inverter production facility in the upcoming years.

Not a long time ago, things were the invested sum in solar energy development did not exceed a $1 billion a year. Besides that, almost 90% had gone to biomass processing projects. But this is going o change along with the arrival of PV in the country.

Solar-Panel Windows closer to reality thanks to Quantum Dot Breakthrough

Solar panels that also work as windows are getting closer to become a fact as a big boost in quantum dot research could imply important ways in which the solar rays are captured in the future. The Los Alamos National Laboratory and University of Milano-Bicocca’s researchers arranged a better way of inserting a new generation of quantum in a thin polymer to capture the sun’s energy.

Qantum dot discoveries help solar-based windows become a fact

Solar power windows

The nanocrystals consisted of semiconductor materials, quantum dots, are being utilized in solar panel systems thanks to the low-cost and mechanical benefits, and transistors, LEDs and lasers also.

“The key accomplishment is the demonstration of large-area luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) that use a new generation of specially engineered quantum dots,” said Victor Klimov, lead researcher at the Centre of Advanced Solar Photophysics at Los Alamos.

The new discoveries were published in Nature Photonics and they prove that a transparent LSC material is able to harvest and transport solar energy with the help of quantum dots.

“The LSC serves as a light-harvesting antenna which concentrates solar radiation collected from a large area onto a much smaller solar cell, and this increases its power output,” said Klimov.

The harvested light is diverged through the LSC and guided to a tiny solar cell the slab’s edge, that grows the power performance in a way that could have developed applications in future solar cells.

Gained eficiency with Quantum Dot

Sergio Brovelli, a researcher involved in the study at the University of Milano-Bicocca, said: “LSCs are especially attractive because in addition to gains in efficiency, they can enable new interesting concepts, such as photovoltaic windows that can transform house facades into large-area energy generation units.”

The gorvernment in Poland prepared green energy bills

In Poland, 90% of the electricity is produced from conventional sources, coal to be specific. Still, the country is looking forward to grow the green energy level by 15% by 2020 in order to respect the European Union’s targets.

The parliament in Poland and its president needs to decide on the new draft law.

Solar energy bills to be introduced in Poland

Poland prepares renewable energy bills

The country’s government decided to agree on a bill during this week, a bill regarding green energy projects that have the purpose to help reach the European Union climate targets and bring electricity costs for consumers down.

If the parliament and Bronisław Komorowski, the country’s president, accept the law, it means that planners and holders of recently developed renewable installations can sell the produced electricity at sell-offs for a formerly announced price that will not change for 15 years as a Reuters report says.

Green energy power developers that are already in the business have the freedom to preserve their subsidies or choose to join the auctions.

The new voted laws have been discussed by the government for two years now

The European country produces almost 100% of the electric power from coal and it’s obliged to bring up the level of clean energy to at least 15% of the total until 2020 to be in line with Eu regulations on carbon emissions.

Green energy supporters have been criticizing Poland’s foggy legal environment that has been standing in the way of new investments and preventing a major development in renewable projects.

The country’s former subsidy program did not supply long-term guarantees. European governments have been reducing subsidies and the European Commission this week announced new guidelines, that will be valid starting from July and market-based initiatives will be replacing renewable energy subsidies.

SmartFlex wants to totally change the personalized PV elements

Custom made PV elements

SmartFlex is a European program that wants to help with the development of “a prototype production line capable of manufacturing photovoltaic modules in accordance with architects individual requirements”. The project receives a €2.9 million support from the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

The first production line is going to take into account the users preferences for different shapes colors, sizes, and materials, then process the individually personalized PV elements for mass production.

ProTech, Photovoltaik-Institut Berlin, Glassbel, Mondragon Assembly, Via Solis, the Swiss BIPV Competence Centre, Creative Amadeo, and Sunbeam Communications are also a part of the program.

Personalised PV is developing

“What makes the project unique is its aim to produce these remarkable solar elements using an automated process, reducing manual operations to a minimum. Such an approach has never been seen before as, to date, only standard modules have been manufactured in bulk and customized solar products have always been painstakingly produced by hand. SmartFlex is striving to find a way of manufacturing modules on a large scale using an extremely smart and flexible process that makes even tailored solar elements fully affordable” are Paul Grunow’ s words, director of the Photovoltaik-Institut Berlin.

Lithuania is the country where the first tests are being run. To be precise, at Glassbel’s headquarters. There, approximately 20 PV elements are being certified. Those element include modules up to 3.5 meters in length with 750 watts peak output. The mounting systems are ready to use and some of the inverters are also being approved.

Domestic PV in danger because of the Ukraine crisis

Not a good time for domestic PV as the Ukraine crisis moves on

Ukrain PV in times of trouble

The situation in Ukraine is threatening the European country’s incipient PV industry as the necessary changes in Crimea take place. Employees in the PV industry’s is not the greatest position and the people there have been wrecked by the country’s crisis. PV magazine reveals the opinions of two anonymous employees from Activ Solar. As one of them reports, Vienna-based Activ Solar has no future projects and they are cutting people off. “A lot of people were already fired. For me, the last day in this company is known as well,” were his words. The other source said the same thing and he added that “the company is now optimizing costs at all levels with no additional staff, except maintenance for the existing plants.”

The company finished the work on a 69.7 MW PV facility in Crimea. Moreover, Activ Solar was amog the best PV developers in Ukraine as they planted 127 MW of capacity only in Q1 2013.

The most Active domestic PV company in Ukraine has troubles

As far as the future plans are concerned, the company says: “The current political instability and the ensuing tensions have caused a severe disruption of economic activity in Ukraine. We are closely monitoring the ongoing political discussions and developments. We expect the situation to remain difficult for the foreseeable future causing a slowdown in economic activities. In this environment of sustained uncertainty, Activ Solar remains cautious regarding undertaking new projects until the situation in the country stabilizes,” as PV magazine reports.

The ongoing projects are not being stopped but the future ones don’t have the same fate. “The current Crimean government has already commented on solar parks in Crimea, saying that now they are a vital part of the energy infrastructure in the peninsula and will continue to generate power. However, the question is open as to who pays for the solar electricity and at what rate. Most of the solar projects in Crimea were financed by Russian banks so I would assume that very soon we will see a sudden growth of the cumulative solar capacity in Russia.”

PV in Crimees no longer bought

Energorynok’s officially announced this month that they no longer buying energy made in Crimea. The energy company in Ukraine says that the country adopted the draft resolution with 9 out of 9 votes.

The COO at Hamburg-based Enerparc, the company that installed Russia’s biggest power plant says that. “All the power plants in Crimea have been annexed by the Russians so they are not being paid by the Ukrainian government. And there is no discussion as to what will happen with the plants if they degrade, even if the plants are now Russian.”

Southend Airport in Britain planted 496 solar panels as a part of the £10m expantion

London Southern Airport Solar Panels

Clean energy is at home at Southend Airport in Britain as almost 500 panels were installed at the new terminal building. The solar power plant is part of the £10million terminal extension that opened its gates in March and provided the airport with more check-in desks, a bigger departure lounge and a larger variety of shops for travelers. The 496 solar panels are there to provide the airport with green electricity for many years from now.

Clean energy provided by London airport

The airport operations director, David Lister, declared: “We are delighted to add the provision of clean solar electricity to a range of ‘green’ initiatives we’ve introduced as the terminal has developed. Environmentally friendly initiatives are very important to us and the whole building has been designed to incorporate a number of them, including sustainable drainage, specialist coating to improve insulation, extensive glazing to enhance natural lighting and slow start escalators.”

The solar panels are provided by Conergy and planted by Photon Energy on the terminal’s curved roofs. They will help the airport diminish the carbon emissions by approximately around 1,000 tons in the next 20 years.

Solar PV for Britain

The managing director of Photon Energy managing director, says that: “Solar is Britain’s favorite renewable energy and it’s great Southend Airport has shown its commitment to self-generation. You can’t necessarily see the panels from the ground, but millions of people will get a bird’s eye view of them as they take off or come in to land.”

He also believes that airport terminals are a perfect location for solar panels because the space they provide is more than enough for green electricity.

The Stobart Group invested more than £120million into the airport since they purchased it in 2008.