Category: Solar PhotoVoltaics

If you look closely, you may notice the tiny contours and crinkles on the surface of a leaf. All those folds bend and absorb light better than if it was flat, helping it receive more rays. Inspired by that, engineers at Princeton University use similar micro-folds to improve the efficiency of plastic solar cells in solar panels.

These man-made energy-collectors are one example of the growing field of engineering known as biomimicry.

Inventors have been exploring biomimicry as early as the Renaissance era when Leonardo Da Vinci sketched out a bat-shaped wing contraption for human flight, called an ornithopter. Engineers take what they see in the natural world and integrate it into new technologies.

According to scienceline.org, entire research institutes and education programs dedicated to biomimicry are working on technologies that maximize efficiency and cut manufacturing costs. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology made cost efficient LED lights for flat screen televisions and mobile phones that emulate the glow of fireflies; the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington developed hydrogen-pumping fuel cells for powering buildings and cars, which copy natural enzymes found in microorganisms.

Princeton’s leaf-inspired solar cells generate 47 percent more electricity than existing plastic solar cells, according to their inventors. While still less efficient than the silicon-based solar cells that dominate the market, researchers have high hopes for the plastic cells because they’re cheaper to produce.

The shimmering scales covering butterfly wings have also been a source of inspiration. The way their scales scatter light inspired better solar panels and improved counterfeit identification on paper money. A research group at the University of Alabama is even exploring if the lightweight scales can contribute to aerodynamic efficiency in planes.

Biomimicry is even giving us a deeper insight into the imbalances we humans have introduced into our environment, and it may even help us correct them. One company, Calera, sequesters carbon dioxide to create a cement of calcium carbonate — the same compound found naturally in coral and shellfish shells. The technology was inspired by coral’s ability to convert the greenhouse gas into a vital mineral.

While environmentally-conscious biomimetic innovation continues to grow, there is still much to discover. A recent analysis of the biomimicry market published in the December 2014 issue of Biotechnology Advances revealed that anti-pollutant technologies and environmentally sustainable projects are the most untapped areas of biomimicry research.

Common leaves, butterflies and coral each evolved traits to survive in tandem with our environment. We are familiar with many living species that have inspired technology from grade school lessons or walks in the park. The key idea to tomorrow’s next big invention might be just outside our front door.

Researchers from the University of Windsor and a local solar technologies company have collaborated to prove the benefits of solar power in extending the driving range of electric cars.

By using solar energy, Unconquered Sun Solar Technologies founder and CEO Sean Moore says the driving range can be extended an average of 45 per cent further.

“Every second your foot’s not on the accelerator, when that vehicle’s in the sun, it’s charging,” Moore said, according to The Windsor Star. “This way, you have a generator … on your roof. Obviously if it’s nighttime or if it’s in a garage, you can just plug it in the wall and it recharges that way too.”

Associate professor Narayan Kar led a team of three PhD students, a master student and a senior undergraduate in studying the vehicle rooftop solar technology. He said months of research and testing — partially funded by a $20,000 federal research grant received almost a year ago — helped them prove the scientific benefits of solar panels and to show the financial benefits.

The University of Windsor Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and Green Energy (CHARGE) published a report Dec. 11 outlining the team’s findings. They are expected to publish further technical papers next month.

“What’s great about it is it validates the technology,” Moore said. “It really helps us gain traction in the market … all the research validating the extended range and all the different benefits of having a renewable energy generator on the roof of your car.”

Moore’s company focused on esthetic issues of the rooftop panels by using Lexan, a clear plastic material that is lighter in weight than the typical glass panels used for lamination of solar cells, and a thermal process to form the sheets to fit the radius of different vehicles.

“We have developed an app … that (Moore) can take … on his cellphone to his customers and he can demonstrate the benefits of having a solar panel on the rooftop,” Kar said. “If you have a solar panel and it is in the sun most of the time you will see many days of no (electric) charging needed.”

Moore said he’s hoping to launch sales of low-speed electric vehicles — a new Transport Canada classification in North America — with rooftop solar panels early this spring. Low-speed vehicles have an electric drive train, four wheels on the road and they are restricted to a top speed of 50 kilometres.

The cars, trucks and buses are also limited to a gross vehicle weight of approximately 1,300 kilograms.

“Electric vehicles and particularly low-speed vehicles, the market is expected to be $2.6 billion over the next three years,” Moore said. “With solar on the roofs, they cost literally pennies a month to operate.”

He expects initial demand to come from companies with fixed delivery routes and inter-urban commuters.

Part of the attraction is the cost of the vehicles – estimated at $16,000 for a delivery truck or less than $10,000 for a three-seater passenger vehicle.

Kar, who is also Canada Research Chair in Electrified Transportation Systems, said the search is on for more funding for further research.

“This is not the biggest project in terms of money (for his department) but (it is) in terms of passion, dedication and the amount of time we have spent on this,” Kar said. “We really liked this project and we could really see the benefit of it.

“It was very productive from a research output point of view, student training point of view, relationship building point of view,” he said. “Research is never ending … there is always room for improvement. We have done good things but it could be better.”

Materials that may be cheaper and more efficient than silicon at converting the sun’s energy into electricity are the key to the next generation of solar panels, scientists say.

Perovskite, named for a 19th century Russian count, is now the most promising material for solar cells. Panels based on perovskites are surprising researchers by efficiently converting sunlight into electricity, says Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.

Perovskites are the future “not because of where they are, but because they’re getting better really, really fast,” said Chase. “The rate of progress in the lab has been astounding.”

According to The Herald Business Journal, most of the 52 gigawatts of solar power that was expected to be installed around the world in 2014 will use panels made of silicon mainly derived from sand. The best silicon-based solar cells from SunPower can convert as much as 24.2 percent of sunlight to electricity.

Solar cells made from perovskite are already nearing that level. They can convert more than 20 percent of sunlight into power.

With the 20 percent conversion rate, perovskites have achieved a measure “attained by only a handful of other technologies,” according to Martin Green, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Using the material in a hybrid cell may eventually boost efficiency to more than 40 percent, Green said.

A new formula that can improve the performance of perovskite solar cells is showing promise in the lab, according to a report on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Solar cells using perovskite exhibited “highly improved efficiency” converting “more than 20 percent” of sunlight into electricity, said Sang Il Seok, a researcher at the institute.

Perovskite cells may be produced by using a printing process, Seok said.

“We expect that fabrication cost will be reduced to below a third of silicon-based cells.”

First Solar, the largest U.S. photovoltaic panel manufacturer, uses cadmium telluride to produce solar panels that can convert 14.2 percent of sunlight into power.

Oxford Photovoltaics hopes to produce panels with perovskite-based solar cells in 2017, according to company co- founder and Oxford University researcher Henry Snaith. Saule Technologies in Warsaw is pursuing the same goal.

Both ventures must overcome the competitive advantage held by silicon-based panels, which have fallen more than 95 percent in price over the last decade.

“You don’t just need to be efficient, you need to be cheap,” said Chase. “It doesn’t necessarily matter how efficient you are when your feedstock is free. Anything that comes in now has to come down the cost curve really fast.”

Materials needed to make perovskite-based solar cells are cheap and perform better than silicon-based technology, Snaith said. Perovskite-based solar cells can absorb the spectrum of light that silicon-based cells miss, meaning that a hybrid cell could convert close to 30 percent of sunlight into electricity.
The technology will be be more efficient than silicon-based solar cells “in the relatively near-term,” Snaith said.

New methods of improving solar panels may be needed as the rate of improvement in panel efficiency slowed last year, according to a Jan. 4 report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Green, the professor who taught Suntech Power founder and former chief executive officer Shi Zhengrong, sees potential in using materials like perovskites to create hybrid cells. While the stability of perovskites-based solar cells needs to improve, he foresees the technology being commercialized “in five years at the earliest.”

Rayton Solar, an American solar company, has developed technology that can produce super-efficient solar power that’s cheaper than fossil fuels. Their new solar panel manufacturing technology uses 50 to 100 times less silicon than other technologies, cutting out large amounts of the most costly component of solar panels.

According to inhabitat.com, the company says its patent-pending process uses just four microns worth of silicon, leaving zero waste – while boosting efficiency to 24 percent. That means 25 percent higher than industry standard efficiency.

Their patent-pending solar PV modules can be manufactured in the United States at a cost of 60 percent less than the industry average, which is based on prices from places like China where the majority of solar panels are made.

During his recent visit to Romania, we had the opportunity to discuss with Velichko Dinov, Regional Manager Eastern Europe at Winaico  ̶ one of the best PV producers worldwide ̶ about European photovoltaic industry, the challenges in this sector, and some precious tips for us, the ones who wants to switch to clean energy.

What is like working and putting together solar panels for people who are starting to go green and looking to save some money?

The green energy started with people that are pioneers, and they like to do it. But, as we normally do, from a very nice idea to produce your own electricity and save the planet, we have made something that now in Europe, more or less, photovoltaic is a bad word because there is too much politics into it and a bad way to do it. Instead of having PV panels on roofs of commercial houses and then the residential, where you can actually produce and consume electricity, the boom started with the big installations that were used as financial instruments which created some kind of turmoil that actually people were going into it for quick money.

So, the renewable idea was just left back. But there are some people working in this renewable field that do believe in what they do, and I know that these days things are going to happen. After these 5-6 years of booming and financial instruments and so on, photovoltaic energy will be part of everybody’s life. I think like within the next several years, especially because of the drop of the prices and the installation costs – in the last five years dropt like probably in half. So, now, even if you have an installation that cost something, with the electricity prices of the moment, your return of investment will be something like 10 years. And of course we know that electricity price will be heading up.

It’s a matter of changing people minds, especially the government’s mind, because this big producers of electricity that were until now, are threatened by it, and of course they will do anything not to let anybody in their business. This leads to a lot of tension everywhere because they have the money, they have the opportunity to change the law and to make pressure. Step by step, this is something that cannot be stopped. If the politicians won’t make the laws in a way they are supposed to, people will start to improvise their own installations.

And the other thing, especially for this field, we are a very young industry. We are an industry with a track record of 10 years. This means that we are very young and, unfortunately, because of the easy money and because of the financial instruments, when you have a PV plan there is the professionalism and the quality in all across the equipment that corresponds to the maturity of our industry. So there are not so many people that actually know about what they are selling, know about what they are doing, or about technology. Just an example: everybody is talking about the efficiency of the modules, but efficiency of the modules tells you nothing. Efficiency of a PV module is the installed power compared to square meter. So, 100% efficiency would be if you have one kilowatt on one square meter. That’s all!

People have the strange feeling that if your panel has a 30% efficiency it will be better and it will produce more than a panel that is 17% efficient. It doesn’t have to be true. It means that I will use a bigger space to install this power, but if the module has a higher quality, the module with less efficiency will produce with the modules with higher efficiency when it corresponds to installed power. This means kilowatt-hour per kilowatt peak. Until now, I would say things are changing, but when you see a seals person or a technician or whatever, everybody cares about price per watt peak. That’s all they know. They don’t know anything else, which is very sad at the end of the day.

What should we do about it? What’s the solution?

At the moment, there is nothing much you can do, I mean it’s like being a baby, you wear diapers, you don’t know anything about the world. Then you learn how to walk, you become a teenager…So this is just a normal thing, I would say. But the main problem of the industry that industry itself has to solve is the threshold of entering the production, especially for PV modules, which is very, very low.

The IEC standard that gets your modules tested, according to certain standards so you can sell it on the market, are made so low that actually we can sit here, we can buy some PV cells and with a chewing gum or whatever we can make a module and send it for certification. And yeah, 50% it will pass!

Who makes the standard?

The IEC standard was made by people from industry, and some technical guys, I think 8 years ago. And the threshold is so low that it has to be changed. But, because the PV industry, until now, was donated, you know, “you get money for free, why should I care? I just want the cheapest thing, the government or others will pay for it and I am fine with it”.

But, when it comes to putting panels on my own roof, thinking about quality, if the panels will not burn or somebody will be walking on my roof, there is something different. The problem is that the industry has to solve this issue with the standard, because when you talk with other certification companies that actually make tests so panels producers can get the certifications, they say “of course it’s low, but we are not the only ones that make the certifications”. This has to come from people from the industry, politicians. Now, there’s a group working on a new standard, but the new standard will come in 4 years. So, until then, we have a standard that is quite low and they say “even if we put a stress test with 10% more stress on the modules, more than half of the modules will not pass.”

If you put just the UV test for getting the certification is something like 15 kilowatts, which even where the polar bears live we have something like 20-30 kilowatts. So, actually the UV test is like you put on the module, you turn on the light then you turn off the light. “Oh, look, UV test passed”.

Unfortunately, it is harder for costumers and for investors to get orientated. In the next year they will face quality issues coming from bad products.

I understood that your company has different testing standards…

This has to be done by every producer in order to know where his quality is. Actually, in house, we triple the test that we supposed to do. We make the test three times harder so we now that our modules will not only comply to the IEC standard, but they, in the real world, will have a chance of surviving.

It’s very important what materials you are using, who is your supplier, how you handle it, how your operators do it and so on. They say for people all the modules are the same, they have the same standards, so what’s the difference? If, for example, Trabant and Mercedes both have the same security standards, it would mean that you can burn or crash your car, nobody cares. But this industry has been there for about 100 years and they are more mature, and we, unfortunately, even the end customers, are not aware of this.

It’s just the same as the IT industry has started. There were times that in every garage everybody was putting together computers. If the computer broke in three or six months, nobody cared. At the moment, you don’t go to a garage, you go for a brand, and you always know what you’re buying. You know your hardware, you know your software, you know everything about it.

I’ve been telling this so many times, especially for big investors, even for small installations. Example: I want to buy a car so I go to the first auto salon, and the second auto salon, I read some articles on the internet, I ask my neighbor, I go for a test drive then I say “ok, I want diesel, I want gasoline, I what this security, that security”, and so on. This is a process that last between three to six months, probably a year, and it’s a thing that you are buying for 15-20.000 euros.

But when it comes to this big PV installations, where you put millions of euros, your decision comes from a data sheet from the producer and an excel sheet from your CFO. I don’t understand it. I put one million euros and I say “ok, this is the cheapest, fine, oh very nice excel table, oh and my return will be in four years”. But then things happen, the modules brake, inverter brakes, mounting structures are barely done, and then you have all kind of things and you start sponsoring your PV plant.

The IEC requirements; for example the IEC 61215 requires 200 circles, and you pass. We do 600 circles, we make electroluminescence inspection to see the micro-cracks. The tamp-heat, to pass the IEC, means they put it in a chamber at 85 degrees and 85% humidity for 1.000 hours. And then they measure your Pmax declaration and it’s fine. I mean, at the moment, 100% of the modules pass. We do it three times. We have a chamber and we do it for 3.000 hours. We talk to the certification companies and say yes, if we do it three times, it will probably be ,let’s say, ok, and the threshold for quality will be higher. And yes, 50-60% of the panels will not pass.

The problem is that until now, especially the Chinese producers, have some kind of Chinese policy of the government, and they support the production of PV modules. And the PV producers receive very cheap financing. More or less, “we give you money if you make a lot or you don’t, who cares?” It’s important that China will export a lot of PV modules and so on. So, at the end of the day, somebody gives me money and I don’t care if I make profit or not, and I sell it for a lower price so probably it’s a good business case for me but not for the end customer.

Everybody is looking at the money behind it, and nobody is looking for a solution for the future. Those installations have to be there not just for 20-25 years. If the installation works for another 25 years, I get 85% of power I was getting at the beginning, why should I destroy the power plant? You can go on for another 10-20 years. Who cares?

So, we are talking about generation decision and all of a sudden we make this generation solution made on Google and a data sheet. This is just ridiculous. But that’s the thing and that’s why a lot of big investors rent third party companies that make factory checks and make their own test installations and so on. I always say to my customers — the only thing that really matters is the real life data. Nothing else. All the certification are all fine, but it’s just papers. And, also, there is one important thing — if something happens to my modules, like after five years from installation I go to the certification company and I say “ok, my friends, this is what happened, you certified the modules and I bought them because I trusted you, are you going to pay my money?” They say no, we are not liable. Ok, and in this case, what’s the idea of having a certification? That’s how things work.

Do you think that most of Europe will switch from grid-tied energy to solar energy in the next 10 years?

Making forecasts is quite hard. The problem is very complex because the energy is a key for our lives. So, switching to solar would be a dream for me, but on the other hand we need to think about the social impact of switching directly to solar instead of having this big coal mines. For example, let’s take Poland. Until now, they depend more or less on coal. A lot of people are working in coal mines and if you switch to renewables, what do you do with this people? They lose their jobs and then you have pressure and it’s not easy. So, things have to go step by step.

Of course, photovoltaic is not just something out of this whole industry, so if we go together with the battery systems, with electromobility, those things all have to be combined together. And also, can you imagine the impact for the Arabian countries or for Russia if in Europe we decrease our dependency on diesel or petrol with 15%, for example? This will have huge impact on them. So, this is also something you have to consider and you will have to know that we are living on one planet, it would be very nice if everybody produces electricity for itself but, on the other hand, we all know we have no chance.

I think we’ve already destroyed the planet, so we can only lower the impact of what we have done. People, as societies, don’t change until they reach the breakpoint of extinction. When it’s going to be a huge problem, we will change. Until then, we say it’s ok, it’s fine. After something bad happens everybody will run for it, but I’m afraid we are already late, so, we will see.

How can a solar panel producer survive on the market?

It’s very challenging. Especially at the moment, I read an article that only in Europe, in the last two-three years, 20.000 companies connected with PV have closed down. 20.000! Installers, project companies, producers of whatever. We are facing a huge overcapacity of PV panels, probably let’s say 60 GW in manufacturing capacities worldwide, but the demand is for 20 GW. It’s a big difference and actually, as I said, in every beginning of every company, let’s say within five years, from ten companies only one survives in any other industry.

Already so many are closing down, especially European producers, because they are exposed on a big pressure from China, so many of them close down, and now it’ the Chinese turn, we know some companies that have big problems and probably they will restart, or probably not. We will see. Expectation is from the companies that are now in the market after five years.

For us, surviving on the market is quite challenging, so you have to keep a low profile, you have to be careful about your margins, you have to be careful about your costs and your profit, be very careful with the bank and so on. For us, the main thing is our belief that quality is the only thing that can survive, so people who work with us and have installed our panels, know very well how things work. And we survive together. Of course, I’m not a dreamer, I don’t think about one day everybody thinking about quality, because somebody will always sell you something bad.

Can you tell us a little bit more about Winaico and your capacities?

Let’s go a little bit backwards. Win Win Precision Technology, which is our sister company, started in 2003 in the field of semiconductors, because Taiwan — probably you know — produce like 80 to 90% of the worldwide semiconductors. Three out of four chips for computers, mobile phones and so on are produced in Taiwan. So it’s somehow the semiconductor biggest market in the world.

In 2003, Win Win Precision Technology started in this field, and in 2008 we started our first production line, so our first modules were produced in 2008.

Recently, we installed two more stringers and at the moment we reached a capacity of 250 MW per year. We will see, we want to have like 330-350 MW by 2016, but everything depends of how the market works.

We have global companies but, of course, the PV market is uncertain so we need to leverage our production. Our big market, at the moment, is Japan (I think it’s everybody’s market) and Australia. US, at the moment, is challenging because they made antidumping policies to all Taiwanese and Chinese producers.

Normally, our modules are not so known because we don’t work with global distributors, we work directly with installers, so this means we go directly to the companies that install the modules, and we have a better understanding of what they do, we have very quick feedback from the market and 1.000-1.500 companies that are buying on a regular basis from us and this give us a nice base of surviving, because we are not dependent on a couple of big projects which if they happen you are fine, but if they don’t, you have big problems.

Also, we won PV Taiwan Excellence Award, the standards are quite high so this is actually very important for us, and I think even with the older tests we were leaders. We try to be as open as possible, and it’s up to our way to persuade people to go for quality, but it’s not easy.

What’s your main advantage against the other companies? Is it quality?

I would say quality, first of all. Second of all, we sell directly to the installers, so they have direct contact with the producer, there is nobody in between; and thirdly, all of our panels come with a two years insurance of the system, which comes for free, and it’s from one of the biggest insurance companies in Europe, the German Ergo.

The important thing is that this insurance is between the end customer, the investor, and Ergo. Winaico has nothing in between, this insurance can be made for 10 years and this means that everything that happens in 10 years, even if Winaico change his name or gets bankrupted, the customer is covered.

Also, this insurance covers 90% of his yield, so if his installation produces less, then the insurance company pays him his loses. This is very important because there are others companies that come with the same type of insurances but the problem is that the insurance is between them and the insurance company. So, if one day they go bankrupt and if I go to the insurance company they will tell me “ok, you have no contract with us.”

There are so many things to say about quality, but the easiest way is to look at the test in Australia, on the ratings, and you can see that we are always on the top.

What are your latest developments and expansion plans?

When it comes to technology, we created our own patent, it’s called HeatCap, it’s a special print we do on the back of the products cells at the moment, which is a monocell, and the monocells are very fragile, and they are very exposed to risk of micro-craks. This print that we do lowers the possibility of having this micro-craks with 18-20%, and also it’s called HeatCap because it dissipates the heat from the module, so the operation temperature of the cell is around 7% lower than a module without this. So, if you have a rate of 0.4% per Celsius grade, then you have 3-4% higher yield every year.

For expansion, we recently opened an office in Mexico, we have our agent in South Africa, and yes, the world is so big…

Talking about technology, which development surprised you the most in the last years?

Actually, nothing surprises me that much. I mean there are so many talks about higher efficiency cells and so on, but when you see the world map, the efficiency of the modules goes up like let’s say 5-10 watts per year, not more. So there are no big jumps like “ok, we had 130 but now we have 500″, because technologies settled down and we know what to expect from it.

I’m a little bit let’s say disappointed with the technology progress of the batteries, because they are still very expensive, and they are still inefficient. One of my friends said it’s better to you put your energy in chocolate, it has the same efficiency as putting it in a battery. This is another reason why PV hasn’t become a major producer of electricity, because you cannot predict when the sun will shine. When you have a reasonable solution for batteries, the PV industry can be better. We are still waiting for a big boom, but nothing happens.

What’s your opinion about grid parity?

In Europe, especially, we already have grid parity. But, as we mentioned at the beginning, it’s a political decision that has to say “ok guys, you can install your panels, you can install your wind turbines on this and this conditions, but whatever you produce over you will not receive money.”

And then people will think about self-consumption. If this happens, I mean our world is so dynamic that if you look at the mobiles, Nokia disappeared. It was one of the biggest companies ever and now Nokia does not exist because it was bought by Microsoft. The same thing can happen to CEZ. If this is allowed, and the grid parity exists at the moment, they can be lower than half that they are now within a couple of years.

They don’t want this and they have the power to postpone it. It’s a kind of social contract we have to do so everybody gets a piece of the action, but in countries that don’t have another option it’s hard. For example, Egypt. They must put PV because they are almost bankrupted, they don’t have credit to buy petrol and their grid is in terrible condition. So, if you have a factory, you need electricity to run and your only option is to put PV.

In Romania, in the Czech Republic, in Bulgaria, everywhere it’s just the same. There are factories that would like to have predictions for the next 10 years, but they cannot predict the price of electricity. If you look only on the price of electricity and the inflation for the last 10 years, you can see that the price of electricity rises between 10 and 15% every year. How can you make your cash roll for the future if you cannot predict the price of electricity?

There are factories that say “ok, if I put on my roof this and this, I want to know, for the next 10 years, the price of electricity.” So, we have grid parity now, but we have to wait for the political solution.

How did you started to work with Romanian installer company solar-service?

I met Robert Szabo in Bucharest, three years ago, and then, step by step, he ordered something, then another something, and so on. Solar-service is like a rare breath, the guys just want to do their job properly. I don’t know why, but it’s like that, so this is the only way actually any company can survive.

We need to understand that our name is the only thing we have in our lives, and once you do a bad thing, then everybody knows about it, especially with Facebook and all the social media. You have to be very careful what you do, especially in small markets like Romania, with 20 million, but at the end of the day it’s not a very big country.

I like it, because Robert asks questions all the time, he wants to know, he wants to learn, and this is the only way you can go forward.

Which other small countries are you focusing on, beside Romania?

This year, we sold panels for 10 different countries. I have very good partners in Cyprus, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia and Czech Republic, Poland is coming — I think this will be a very interesting market—, some things come from Croatia, and Bosnia will be opening up. Eastern Europe is a big place, but when it comes to PV market there are not so many countries you can work with, so, at the moment, I’m focusing mainly on Poland, because it’s starting there and we shall see.

In your view, what’s the biggest challenge for a person who wants to install a solar system?

Because I work only with installers and I know very well their pain every day, their biggest challenge, as the end customers — and the most of the end customers are very uneducated — all the time they have to challenge the same thing: the price. “Why are you two times more expensive than my friend who lives two streets away and makes everything in the garage?”

It’s a big effort, it’s an everyday fight, but the biggest challenge for me is to sell a product, to sell yourself and to sell the quality that comes with you.

Installers know how to do their job, but when it comes to sales, and selling themselves and challenging the customer on quality and materials they use, they are very passive, and because they are hungry to get the job, they don’t do a step or two steps to explain to the customer how things work, and make him buy a better solution. They just say “ok, if you want it fine, I will do it for you.”

Especially in the PV, for a professional company it’s very challenging to fight the companies that come in and go out after the boom is gone. In the booming countries, there are companies that are doing roofs, plumbers, bakers, I don’t know. Everybody was a PV installer, because they thought that it is very easy, you know, it’s not nuclear science, so there are so many companies that were installing this PV because the demand was bigger, and now the companies are out, they just go back on their pluming or baking or whatever, and the customer who had the installation have to go again to a professional company to repair de damage that was done.

When the installation was done, they said that professional companies are too expensive, and the things were like “I know a guy, he will do it.” And after just one year, the installation is not working and you go back to solar-service or to another company that is professional and you say “please, now do something.”

And they have to start from scratch because you know, he bought the inverter somewhere, the modules from another place and then everything is twice as expensive.

It’s just like I’m taking my car to an unprofessional guy, he changes something, my motor breaks and I will have to go to another shop to repair it.

So, what’s your advice for people who want to go solar?

For the people that want to go solar, it’s like with everything — don’t go with the cheapest price! Listen to your technical adviser, what he is telling you, and make your own search. You don’t have to believe the data sheet, because the data sheet is a piece of paper. You know, ask around. There are so many PV forums on the internet, so many measurements that can be done, but mostly do believe the professionals. This is their job.

If I go to a doctor, I don’t tell my doctor how to treat me, because he has studied years and years. So, be very careful at the person you give your installation to be done. Check the company.

In your opinion, what’s the most important improvement governments can make for solar customers?

The best thing is they stop intervening all the time. Just leave the people and the installers to their job, and don’t put so many administrations because there were times and I think there’s still times when you make 5 kilowatt installation or 500 kilowatt installation and the paperwork is the same. They want the construction permit, they want your neighbor, they want your grandmother, everybody to say something about something that I put on my roof.

Administration has to be lowered to a level that it has to be controlled somehow, but doesn’t have to be over administrated, and when the law comes just please take into consideration that we need to do something that will lower our footprints for this planet.

We don’t need to destroy the network, it has to be there, somebody has to take care of it, but it doesn’t have to be in favor only of the big players. So, when the law comes, I don’t know how they are going to do it, I have never seen it, I think the best thing is just to make a grid parity and keep a normal business case.

I want electricity, either I buy it or I produce it. And that’s my decision. From the very beginning of the business, free competition is the best thing that can happen to all. So, minimum interference from the government and the local governments would be the answer. Try letting the market decide.

Roxana Muntean

Yoav Ben-Dov designed a special tree, a eTree that can collect solar energy from the sun. The invention is located in HaNadiv Gardens near Zichron Ya’akov, Israel.

This new device was conceived by a Israeli company, Sologic, a solar energy based company. They say “eTree is a social enterprise which aims to promote environmental awareness and sustainability, to create a link between the community environment.”

It’s designed to look like a natural tree and can also be used for shade. Still, it’s purpose does not end here. It is build out of metal tubes that stand for branches and as for leaves, it has large solar panels, constructed out of tempered glass that can deal with any weather. So not only can the tree be used all year long, but can also be o source of free WI fi.

This type of energy provider can be useful for schools, parks of private houses.

And even if the country does not “enjoy” oils as its neighbors do, it can harvest a lot of energy, clean energy from the sun. SO, a lot of their rooftops are also homes for solar panels.

“I wanted to integrate the idea of solar energy to the community by creating the eTree,” Sologic chairman Michael Lasry reports for NBC News. “The tree is made of metal pipes and the leaves are solar panels.”

Sologic says its purpose is to be a guidance in using and preserving sources of renewable energy, particularly solar energy. Sologic was founded by Michael Lasry an Israeli entrepreneur. Solgic’s mission includes making a greener future.

Scientists at Ohio State University (OSU) have made a dye-sensitized solar cell that gathers its power by using air to dissolve and re-form lithium peroxide. The researchers think that the gadget, that immediately merges a battery and a solar cells in one, is able to bring down energy costs by 25%.

“The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy,” explains OSU professor Yiying Wu. “We’ve integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost.”

This new creation works with the help of three electrodes, while the other with four. At the base there is a lithium plate where there is a layer of electrolyte, a thin sheet of porous carbon and then another layer of electrolyte. On top there is a permeable titanium gauze mesh houses a dye-sensitive titanium dioxide photoelectrode, that is similar to blades of grass at the 1 μm scale and makes triiodide ions under illumination. After that, the ions go to the oxygen electrode surface with an iodide “shuttle,” where they oxidize into lithium peroxide.

Electrons in the related battery chemically split the lithium peroxide into lithium ions and oxygen, with the oxygen that goes into the air and lithium ions stored as lithium metal. During the time that battery goes low on power, it gathers the oxygen from the environment and consumes it to re-form lithium peroxide – and that it starts again.

The scientists tested the device with a hematite (rust) photoelectrode in order to substitute the dye-sensitized titanium oxide, and brings the same efficiency and strength that can ensure a similar lifetime as existing rechargeable batteries have. If they can find a material that can provide similar efficiency as this titanium oxide version and work for a number of years, the OSU scientists’ design could mean a lot for the green power world.

The superb shades of blue and aqua coat with iridescent lips of giant clams are useful in the solar power domain. They gather the sunlight and are a source of light for the algae in there.

The algae then use the sun rays for photosynthesis that gives energy to the clam. “It ends up being a large part of the energy budget of the clams,” said study researcher Alison Sweeney, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mainly, the big mollusks, that are about 4 feet, bring the sun power naturally in their shells.

The majority of iridescent cells are dead and have a similar structure to nails and hair. But the the iridescent cells of squid and giant clams live.

So, the researchers asked themselves, “What on Earth is a giant clam doing with a living iridescent cell?” Sweeney said.

Huge clams contain a dull outer shell and a weighted shell hinge useful for pointing their lips to the light. The scientists say that iridocytes have on optical function.

They went to Palau island in Philippines to research the clams. “We put this into a computer model about how we think light propagates through the clams,” Sweeney said. “[But] nobody actually believed it,” she also said.

They went back there to develop their study and measure the light inside the clams — Tridacna derasa, T. maxima and T. crocea — with a fiber-optic probe. The iridescent cells reflected a big quantity of light into the clam, more than the scientists had firstly believed, Sweeney said. Clam tissue with iridocytes contains fivefold more particles of light, called photons, deep inside the tissue than clam tissue without iridocytes does, they say.

“We’re very excited by our surprising discovery,” said study researcher Dan Morse, a professor of biomolecular science and engineering, and director of the Marine Biotechnology Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“The brilliantly reflective cells of the giant clam actually redirect photons from sunlight deeper into the clam’s tissue, gently and uniformly illuminating millions of symbiotic algae that live there, so they can provide nutrients to their animal host by photosynthesis,” Morse wrote in an email to Live Science.

The configuration of the algae is also good. But if they would spread horizontally, only their top would receive light. But the clam doesn’t have this problem, as it has vertical columns.

The study is “very interesting,” Euichi Hirose, a professor of invertebrate biology at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan, told Live Science in an email.

“Now, we know the giant-clam mantle has a more sophisticated function than we expected,” said Hirose, who was not involved in the current study. “The colorful mantle reflects useless light for photosynthesis (green and yellow) and scatters useful light (red and blue) forward, and laterally, into deep tissue.”

This clams’ can become an inspiration for new green inventions. For example, traditional solar cells function properly in direct sunlight, but not when they overheat. But with this design, a reflective sheen could ensure solar cells stay cool even when they receive intense sunlight, Sweeney said.

The study can be found in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The very first “drop-in” machine can harvest renewable energy, water and heat to stand alone communities.

It is all possible with the help of a 10-metre-high sun-tracking device that has been create so that it fist in one shipping container. The project belongs to Airlight Energy of Biasca, Switzerland. Besides all this, the plant can also provide refrigeration.

The technology consists of a water-cooled solar panel made by Bruno Michel and his colleagues at IBM, for which Airlight has a patent. The procedure is very simple mirrors lead the sun rays onto 6 panels and the sunlight is amplified 2000 times.

Every panel is made of 25 photovoltaic chips cooled with the help of water found in microchannels. They take care of the heat and provide an optimal temperature. This means the Sunflower functions better than solar panel generators and is uses four times fewer panles for the same amount of power. This also means they are less expensive.

The project is made to be low-cost. The mirrors are usually made of heavy, expensive polished glass, but in this case, every 1-metre mirror consists of metallised foil. “The same material potato chip and chocolate wrapping is made of,” says Ilaria Besozzi of Airlight. The company is now looking for ways of storing the energy.

Sunflower needs help, says Erik Harvey, who is responsible for global programs such as borehole well provision at the London-based charity Water Aid. “Inventions like these create dependencies on supplies of spare parts, skills and consumables. Without a supply chain to provide those things the technology might not be sustainable once it is in place.” Airlight also announced taht the Sunflower’s does not require much maintenance.

Can you picture floors that transform the energy of walking into power? Well, it is possible. The electricity comes from pedestrians and solar panels. The two companies says that a range of products will be destined to citizens and the public sector.

This concept first saw the light of day five years ago and it was called sustainable dance floor. Sustainable energy floor accomplishes this “by means of a patented electromechanical system that converts kinetic energy of walking people into usable electricity.

The Sustainable Energy Floor (SEF) is the world’s most efficient energy converting pedestrian floor system. One step or move on a tile can generate between 2-20 Joules, depending on the weight of the person, type of movement and maximum deflection”, as the definition says.

The many processes implied together with OTEM2000 highlight the fact that novelties can bring benefits to both the efficiency and green energy in general.

As Antoni Orti, product and project manager at OTEM2000, says, “energy Floors has loads of experience with these kind of products; they developed the best technology to harness energy from human movement. In addition to that, the Hybrid Energyfloor® has the potential to create amazing spaces that fulfill a green cause whilst also communicating a cool and green message. All kinds of public areas can benefit greatly from these flooring systems.”

Until now, methods that use kinetic energy can be found on dance floors, train stations, speed bumps, and soccer balls. A good place for kinetic energy to be found is the school. That is why students are present all day. For example, at Webster University a kinetic energy mobile device charging station can be found on the campus in St. Louis; the “EnGo” is the innovation of a New York company called The Volta Group.