WORLD – Page 5 – Solar Magazine

IKEA to build Missouri’s largest rooftop solar array

IKEA’s 42nd solar project in the U.S

IKEA has selected Inovateus Solar for the development and installation of 1.28 MW customized solar power system. PV installation will begin this spring with the store opening scheduled for the fall 2015, which will be Missouri’s largest rooftop solar array.

The 259,000 square-foot solar array will incorporate 4,085 panels that are expected to produce approximately 1.78 GWh of electricity annually for the store. The generated power will be equivalent to reducing 1,227 tons of carbon emission annually, Greentech Lead writes.

This installation will be IKEA’s 42nd solar project in the U.S, contributing to the IKEA roof top solar presence around 90 percent of its U.S. locations, with a total generation goal of 40 MW.

IKEA operates its own solar PV energy system atop the buildings and has so far installed around 700,000 roof top solar panels and 157 wind turbines across Europe and Canada.

In addition, IKEA has planned a global renewable energy investment of $1.8 billion through 2015, with a target of becoming totally energy independent by 2020.

Last month, IKEA projected plans for a possible store in the City of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee increasing its presence in the Southeastern United States as its first store in the state.

In another development, IKEA proposed plans to increase the solar array atop its Detroit-area store in Canton, MI. The new panels will be installed from spring 2015 with a completion expected by summer.

Besides, IKEA has plans to produce only LED bulbs by 2016 and also has installed electric vehicle charging stations at 13 stores, with further plan for more locations.

There are currently more than 360 IKEA stores in 47 countries, including 40 in the U.S. IKEA incorporates sustainability into day-to-day business and supports initiatives that benefit children and the environment.

London phones are going green and they will help you charge your phone with solar power

Solarbox in London

Everyone is familiar with the red phone boxes around London, as they are one of the main characteristics of the British capital city. Lately, they haven’t been used so often, but that is going to change as they will be converted into solar power stations and will be painted green.

The very first of the six Solarboxes is situated on Tottenham Court Road. This box is used to provide power free of charge to all your phones, as they can be adapted to work with different types of phones.

They contain an 86cm solar panel that can charge 100 phones every day. It doesn’t take long either, as your battery will be charged 20% in 10 minutes, as BBC says.

Until now, about six people have entered the boxes every hour. Even if they are free of charge, they boxes are used for advertising. This is how they can exist. Still, about 30% of the advertising space is dedicated to community projects.

This new way of people using a phone box to make a call is amazing, just like in the past, only with fancy devices.

One of the project creators, Harold Cranston, a former geography student, reports “There are 8,000 of these lying unused in London and we must be able to find a use for them.”

Another five boxes will be available starting on the 15th of April 2015.

Solarcentury will construct the biggest solar carport in Africa at Garden City, Nairobi

The biggest solar PV carport at a car park

Solarcentury (London, UK) will build the biggest solar PV carport at a car park at Garden City Mall, that is sittuated on 32-acre retail park, residential area and office development Nairobi’s Thika Superhighway. Solar energy harvested by the 858 kWp PV system will go to the retail tenants.

“We are incredibly proud to be bringing our second dual-mode solar system to Kenya, this time to build East Africa’s largest rooftop system,” commented Dr. Dan Davies, Director for Solarcentury in East Africa.

The new carport is going to be designed with the financial help of NVI Energy’s Solar4Africa, a 12 year financed solution that enables Garden City to harness the power of renewable energy, overcoming many of the barriers that can frequently beset commercial solar projects.

Besides helping with the shading, over 3000 solar panels will bring 1.256 MWh of solar energy every year and reduce carbon emissions by 745 tonnes every year.

The solution they came up with is a new one as it brings solar energy during the day and when the grid is down at night, the system also diminishes the need of diacutting the bills of Garden City’s retail tenants.

This is ideal for cities as there is few space left and the energy needs grow. The panels are useful because they are situated on an unused space. The technology also works in East Africa, on the biggest ground mount system for Williamson Tea in Kenya.

The solar system will also contribute to Garden City’s achievements in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

Half the energy in Scotland is renewable

Half of Scotland’s power sources are clean

About half of Scotland’s power sources are now green. That comes from the bad weather. Still, some of the renewable heat technologies are unreachable, as the industry group Scottish Renewables reports.

The latest statistics from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) says that renewables reached a milestone. That means the use of electricity has come from 46.4% in the last year, evolving from 39.9% a year before. The Scottish Government believes their country will succeed with its target of 50% until next year, and 100% will be reached in 2020.

The recent growth is possible thanks to hydro-electricity generation growing by 50% thanks to the high rainfall. Wind power also increased by 20%.

Still, the DECC’s figures also say that just three per cent of the country’s warmth is due to “renewable heat” – biomass, solar thermal panels, energy from waste and heat pumps – in 2012. Evolving from 2% in 2012. The target is 11% until 2020, but this domain has been left behind, as Stephanie Clark Policy Manager at Scottish Renewables says: “While Scotland has made great strides towards its 100 per cent 2020 renewable electricity target, our objective of generating 11 per cent of heat from renewables remains worryingly out of reach. Renewable heat has been left behind.

“Half the energy we use goes on creating warmth, but a sector which has such an important role to play in combating climate change and reducing fuel poverty is not even considered important enough to be included as one of the Scottish Government’s National Indicators of progress.

A different study tells us that Scotland’s final energy consumption went down by two per cent in 2012 and was 11 per cent down on the average over the years 2005-2007.

As far as wind is concerned, the energy will grow with 2,451 onshore turbines currently operational, 416 being built and a further 1,435 already consented, as Renewable UK’s Wind Energy Database shows.

Sweden recycles almost 100% of its garbage

Zero waste for Sweden

Sweden is witness to a “recycling revolution”, a country that could easily reach zero waste.

There’s a “recycling revolution” happening in Sweden – one that has pushed the country closer to zero waste than ever before. In fact, less than one per cent of Sweden’s household garbage ends up in landfills today.

The northern country has reached a managing point where they are able to import garbage from UK, Italy, Norway and Ireland in order to support their 32 waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, thing they’ve been doing for years.

“Waste today is a commodity in a different way than it has been. It’s not only waste, it’s a business,” explained Swedish Waste Management communications director Anna-Carin Gripwell in a statement.

Each year, a person from Sweden makes only 461 kilograms of waste, a number that is about half of the rest of the European countries. Sweden is also special because of the controversial program that incinerates almost two million tons of trash every year. It is the same process that transforms the garbage into power.

“When waste sits in landfills, leaking methane gas and other greenhouse gasses, it is obviously not good for the environment,” Gripwell said of traditional dump sites. So Sweden focused on developing alternatives to reduce the amount of toxins seeping into the ground.

Before the waste goes to the incinerator plants, it is sorted regarding home and business owners, organic waste is collected, paper is collected, and things that can be used are filtered.

According to Swedish law, producers have to take all costs that is related to the disposal and recycling.

Green energy the new source of power for villages?

Clean energy for villages

Villages could be powered with Cheap solar, wind or hydroelectricity

There are quite a few countries where energy infrastructure is not doing great. As a fallow-up, 1.4 billion people can’t enjoy the benefits of electric power. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, just 8% of the population in villages are connected to electricity. All that could become a past problem as mini-grids – localised generation, transmission and distribution of power can resolve that.

The good news is the fact that solar power in the African continent and parts of India are incredibly low nowadays. So, a mini-grid is a cheap way to go.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) has just been awarded a $5m low-cost loan to the government of Mauritania, a place where only 1% of rural locations are powered. This loan can pay for four powered fishing communities in Mauritania’s northern coast.

The people of Bellewakh, Lemcid, Loubeir and Lemhaijratt are now lighten by candles, kerosene lamps and car batteries. Moreover, in order to power their power refrigeration units, they use canisters of butane which are not safe. The recently developed mini-grid will be made of 18 wind turbines of 15kW and will provide electricity for households, schools, health facilities, civic buildings, a desalination plant to produce drinking water and an ice-making plant.

Frank Wouters, director of Irena believes that a project like this is always welcomed. His company has $50m a year to invest in low cost loans but the last year was an exception and reached a billion. Irena was able to help six projects and refuse 80.

If mini-grids are a fact but are now powered by diesel Wouters says it is now a no-brainer for them to switch to turn green: “Where people are using diesel to generate electricity any renewable source of energy is at the moment more cost effective.”

Hydroelectricty is by far the cheapest – where it is available – followed by windpower, and only then solar panels. A report by the Alliance for Rural Electrification says that towns could save up to 60% of their costs if they turned to hydroelectricity or 16% if they turned to solar.

The low costs of green power made a change in the marketplace. Until now, Wouter says the people believed “solar is nice for [communities that are] off-grid, but it’s expensive, but that is not true anymore. It’s now cheap as well as being reliable, clean and low maintenance.”

So what is the problem with green mini-grids?

Wouters thinks that the first challenge the awareness of the low prices “When something halves in price every two years it’s hard to catch up, but I think that we’ve reached the point where people understand. “There is a big focus by the Asia Development Bank on mini-grids and the Islamic Development Bank; all the development banks are looking at this as a very interesting, scalable opportunity for them to put their money to work.”

Moreover, there is no infrastructure in some places.

Still, African savings are growing. And as Wouters says, every issue that comes together with the development will not disappear just like that, but the solutions are not so expensive anymore.

10 Green European Cities to inspire from

The most important Green European Cities

Some European cities wanted to stand up and make efforts that count for green energy world. This includes lowering their carbon footprint, grow the green power supply or increase efficiency of the power distribution and handling systems. So, more than 160 green technology good practices from different European areas are to be found on www.greenitnet.com. Some of the most wonderful project to look up to, considering energy systems, smart grids and renewable energy are to be found there.

Nowadays, those initiatives are being spread around all cities in order to start working on their own green projects.

Here are the 10 initiatives cities should look up to:

1. Amsterdam Vehicle 2 Grid, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: the first Household Smart Energy Network Where green power is distributed, stored in a vehicle and given to homeowners or the grid in the metropolitan area of Amsterdam.

2. Ice Wish, Rome, Italy: Intelligent control system (smart metering, wireless technology, cloud computing, and user-oriented display information) in order to generate power and water wastage reductions in social housing.

3. RELoadIT, Zaanstad, Amsterdam Region, the Netherlands: a little local smart grid connecting green power, an energy marketplace and e-vehicles.

4. E-car4ll, Amersfoort & Utrecht, the Netherlands: introducing a local smart e-transport e-grid, forecasting, producing and consuming clean power in green transport.

5. Green practices adopted at MITA, St.Venera, Malta: a renewable datacenter facilitating e-services and education applications.

6. Energia 4, Częstochowa, Poland: an electricity management system for data exchange.

7. Local biogas cogeneration, Riga, Latvia: local biogas cogeneration with the heat utilized for greenhomes.

8. AlpStore Project, Kranj, Slovenia: Sun, water and biomass are part of the Alpine Space. It is necessary to utilize them for energy generating. Pilot tests can reveal the feasibility of mobile and stationary storage in public infrastructure, business parks, enterprises and smart houses.

9. HeatMatcher, Amsterdam region, the Netherlands: Algorithm application bringing balanced heat for all components and optimized management and distribution and for improved low cost operations. Actual application zone is collective systems for heating and hot water use in residential areas.

10. LED Street Lighting, Częstochowa, Poland: Street lighting updated projects for lowering power usage and costs for the municipality.

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.

World highest solar parking space is situated in Tibet. The Solar Mounting System is secured by Schletter

Lhasa, known as the “city of sunshine” has a special solar parking space

The area enjoys over 3,000 hours of sun every year. No wonder Lhasa is also known as the “city of sunshine” or “sun city”. As you can imagine, there you can find the finest setting for harvesting solar energy.

The project belongs to Beijing Corona, a company that chose the modular parking space Park@Sol, that can host a 1-row vehicle in this area. It is said that the solar power plant will start functioning this month. The exact location of the parking lot is in the north of Himalaya, Lhasa, also named capital of the Autonomous Territory of Tibet in the People´s Republic of China.

The spots altitude is 3,650 meters over the sea level, a number that gives Lhasa the title of the highest capital in the world. Still, because of this aspect, the people involved in the project, often had respiratory problems. Even considering this, the project for BEIJING CORONA SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD will be finished as announced. The solar parking space can keep safe 54 vehicles and measures 103 kWp.

Another interesting fact about Lhasa is the fact that it hosts the Tibet Museum since 1996, one of the main attractions of the country. Here tourists can find artefacts from the beautiful history of Tibet, culture and Tibetan Buddhism. The museum will also enjoy the benefits of solar power, as the energy harvested by the carport will also provide for it.

At present, Lhasa can be proud of hosting the highest railroad, the highest brewery and the highest carport in the world. This couldn’t have been possible without Schletter.

Next generation of Photovoltaics to boom this year

PV market is growing with a new wave of PV

New wave of PV to be used this year

The new generation of photovoltaics are said to enter the clean energy market in 2014 as analysts predict and since investments are coming back.

Analysts at IHS Technology believe that the new wave of PV technologies like n-type substrates and diamond wire will be more available this year since solar companies boost the capital expenditure.

Resilience and trust in global solar markets, combined with new spending cycles, will do much for solar’s transition from nowadays technologies to next-generation PV, as analysts say. They also announce that people will spend $3.4 billion in 2014 on PV this year.

“Innovative technologies will be atop the agendas of major solar manufacturers globally now that supply and demand has come to closer alignment,” reports IHS solar demand analyst, Jon Campos.

“While most experts thought that overcapacity issues would remain significantly longer, the fundamental assumptions made by IHS were that the industry would move toward market equilibrium behind increasing demand in the emerging markets, and that PV manufacturers would turn to advanced technologies to compete with traditional forms of energy production – assumptions that are now coming to fruition,” he added.

Diamond wire, n-type and CdTe are going up. A report IHS made this year says that solar producers that have made it through the past year and a half is are searching for more profitable ways to get slicing tools. Taking this into account, diamond wire is going to take the place of steel wire. Moreover, industry norms will also move in the monocrystalline market, where N-type cells will start to substitute p-type substrates because of the bigger tolerance to common impurities and high minority carrier diffusion lengths.