Duke Energy Builds 3 Solar Projects in North Carolina

         Duke Energy Renewables, a commercial business unit of Duke Energy, has begun construction of three utility-scale solar power projects totaling 30 megawatt solar energy in Eastern North Carolina. The 20 megawatt Dogwood Solar Power Project is located in Halifax County, near Scotland Neck. The company is also building two 5 megawatt projects, one in Bertie County near Windsor, named Windsor Copper Hill Solar; the other, Bethel Price Solar, is in Pitt County, near Bethel. 

          “We are pleased to be expanding our presence in Eastern North Carolina and bringing significant community development benefits to these counties,” said Duke Energy Renewables President Greg Wolf. “The projects generate valuable tax revenue, provide supplemental income for landowners and bring clean, renewable energy to the state.” Power from these projects will be sold through long-term fixed price contracts. SunEnergy1, a solar design, engineering and construction company based in Mooresville, North Carolina, is building the photovoltaic projects, which are expected to be complete by the end of 2013.

           “When the sun is shining and the plants are operating, the 30 megawatt of solar energy generated by the three projects will supply enough electricity to power about 6,000 homes,” said Kenny Habul, CEO of SunEnergy1. “We are proud to be partnered with Duke Energy and applaud their continued commitment to bring economic growth and renewable solar power to these counties that can repeat tangible benefits from the projects.”

 

Duke Energy Renewables’ 14 megawatt Blue Wing Solar Project in San Antonio, Texas, one of 20 solar farms the company owns across the U.S.

Duke Energy Builds 3 Solar Projects in North Carolina

         Duke Energy Renewables, a commercial business unit of Duke Energy, has begun construction of three utility-scale solar power projects totaling 30 megawatt solar energy in Eastern North Carolina. The 20 megawatt Dogwood Solar Power Project is located in Halifax County, near Scotland Neck. The company is also building two 5 megawatt projects, one in Bertie County near Windsor, named Windsor Copper Hill Solar; the other, Bethel Price Solar, is in Pitt County, near Bethel. 

          “We are pleased to be expanding our presence in Eastern North Carolina and bringing significant community development benefits to these counties,” said Duke Energy Renewables President Greg Wolf. “The projects generate valuable tax revenue, provide supplemental income for landowners and bring clean, renewable energy to the state.” Power from these projects will be sold through long-term fixed price contracts. SunEnergy1, a solar design, engineering and construction company based in Mooresville, North Carolina, is building the photovoltaic projects, which are expected to be complete by the end of 2013.

           “When the sun is shining and the plants are operating, the 30 megawatt of solar energy generated by the three projects will supply enough electricity to power about 6,000 homes,” said Kenny Habul, CEO of SunEnergy1. “We are proud to be partnered with Duke Energy and applaud their continued commitment to bring economic growth and renewable solar power to these counties that can repeat tangible benefits from the projects.”

 

Duke Energy Renewables’ 14 megawatt Blue Wing Solar Project in San Antonio, Texas, one of 20 solar farms the company owns across the U.S.

India + Renewable Energy = Positive Consequences

     India is growing in its expanding its clean energy opportunities, specifically solar, wind and other renewable energy projects, throughout India. In the last month, the Indian government had announced a $7.9 billion investment is to double its transmission capacity, which was designed to increase access to power from wind and solar projects. For instance, India’s installed solar energy capacity has jumped from a mere 17 megawatts in 2010, when India’s National Solar Mission was announced, to over 1.7 megawatts. Not only do these renewable energy projects increase India’s energy supply, but they also help create much needed jobs. 

 

Grid-connected concentrated solar power project under construction in India

  

     The Indian government and businesses around the country are making significant investments in renewable resources. The investment in transmission capacity and the next phase of the National Solar Mission are example policies to drive clean energy development. The motivations for these investments, in part, are to continue to power India’s rapid economic growth and increase energy access by providing modern electricity to the nearly 400 million population in India without access to modern electricity. 

Solar Headphones?!

 

         Solar panels thrive upon sunlight to function properly so why not start by using it on your head? This idea has been introduced by a United Kingdom-based Kickstarter campaign, aiming to provide communities with solar-powered headphones.

 

 

 

 

          The headphones, known as the “Onbeat Solar Headphones,” have a flexible strip of solar panels embedded where it will be exposed to ample amounts of sun’s rays, assuming you will be wearing it outdoors. The solar panel, then, will be used to charge a pair of lithium-ion batteries located inside the ear cups, where there will also be a USB port on one of the ear cups for outputting electronically charges for electronic devices. 

          Exactly how much of a charge you’ll be getting from such a small solar panel is still stated unclear, especially considering that the entire solar panel is not going to be exposed to the sun all at once (due to the curving shape around the head). However, OnBeat’s creators have proclaimed that the solar cell has a surface area of 55cm³ with a charge capacity of approximately 0.55 watts. 

 

For more details, please visit here.

 

Students use Solar Power for “Sun Grand Pix”

       

         Friday, June 28, 2013, was featured the hottest day of the year, defining that it was also one of the best days to solar race at the Circuit of the Americas track in Texas. The event was known as the “Formula Sun Grand Pix.” The cars are made by college students from 11 universities, who are putting their young engineers to the test. 

         “If we had another month and another $10,000, it would probably look slick, but we had neither of those things so we use duct tape,” Raul Molina with the University of Texas Solar Team said. The students design, build, and raise funds for their teams, just as any other business technique would be used for their own products. 

          “There is a reason that the company is having you look at this and it’s to make profit for the company and not for you to test out your cool little widget,” race organizer Gail Luek said. Joel Thongson with Western Michigan University had to combine his book knowledge with a little elbow grease to get the job done. “This really applies to what most of us are going to do in our jobs so it is really great real world experience,” he said. 

            The solar cars have the capacity to reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour, but they were only hitting about 35 on Friday. The race continues today (Saturday, June 29, 2013) at the track from 9am to 5pm EST. 

Solar Power Helps Pump Oil

      Built by GlassPoint Solar, a Fremont company that uses renewable power to squeeze oil from the ground, a new solar steam plant has been developed in the Middle East, specifically the Omani desert. GlassPoint Solar, raising approximately $32 million in venue capital, has a small pilot plant in Kern County that has been generating steam for two years. Known as the Oman plant, it is 27 times bigger than the relatively small pilot plant, producing a average of 50 tons of steam per day.

       “Oman doesn’t have the massive oil reserves of some of its neighbors, and its production started declining more than 10 years ago,” said John O’Donnell, GlassPoint’s Vice President of Business Development. “Steam-flooding an old field can help boost production. Plus, Oman has heavy oil deposits that are hard to develop without steam.” O’Donnell added, “most steam-flooding operations burn natural gas to generate the steam, but Oman doesn’t have large gas reserves of its own. And the price of importing it is high, more than three times its current cost in the United States.”

         GlassPoint’s technology is a low-cost twist on the conventional display of solar power plants in the past. GlassPoint’s mirrors are made from thin, lightweight and inexpensive aluminium sheets. A decent breeze could knock the mirrors out of alignment so GlassPoint has them inside of glass greenhouses. Most of the materials can be bought from shelves from many suppliers. “Solar will be, by far, the cheapest way of complying with the standard,” O’Donnell said. “As that develops, obviously we’ll be keenly interested. We’re a California company.”

 

GlassPoint Solar

ABB bets on Solar Energy of $1 Billion

      

     Swiss Industrial group ABB, also known as the world’s biggest supplier of industrial motors and power grids, had announced recently on Monday that it had agreed to pay $6.35 per share in cash for Power-One Inc., the second-largest maker of solar inverters which allows solar power to be fed into the power grids. The offer price is claimed to be 57% above Power-One’s closing price on Friday, boosted by $266 million in net cash held by debt-free Power-One Inc. However, if the asset value is to be quoted without the cash involved, Power-One’s enterprise value would amount to a total of $762 million.

     As solar power is steadily rising to compete with conventional forms of energy such as gas and coal, demand for solar power is also increasing. There is a similar pattern towards solar inverters as well as they are needed to feed that power into large electric grids from commercial panel installations and smaller units found in factories and homes. “We consider the acquisition of Power-One as a smart strategic move for ABB to broaden its solar power portfolio at the right time,” Vontobel analysts noted. 

     Mainly because of solar power’s relatively complex technology, solar inverters are to be one of the last profitable parts of the solar value chain (for makers of solar cells and panels have suffered drastically from the fact that their products are easy to replicate). However, ABB believes that the solar market is set to grow its way out of overcapacity as electricity costs rise and solar power systems make it a more competitive source of energy. “ABB is currently buying into solar energy because it sees a shift in demand towards emerging markets such as China and the Middle East,” said Ulrich Spiesshofer, Head of ABB and Motion, a business that includes ABB’s solar activities. “Solar is, long-term, the fastest-growing renewable generation market in the world. ABB believes in this market,” Spiesshofer claims in a company video. 

Nanotechnology used to make Solar Energy 25% more efficient

        Sol Voltaics has announced recently that by using nanotechnology, it is helping build solar cell modules to be 25% more efficient than the solar cells marketed in society today. If the company is able to deliver SolInk as how it is perceived in advertisements, then this could mean it would help make it excessively cheaper to introduce solar cells to a more broader set of customers. 

        This nanotechnology is said to have the capacity to make solar power in residential areas and business environments more affordable, which can be necessary to increase adoption of solar energy and to help compete at the same cost of electricity produced from fossil fuel plants. This argument alone has helped Sol Voltaics raise $11 million in funding from public and private Scandinavian investors. 

         CEO of Sol Voltaics, Dave Epstein, has claims that with nanotechnology, “we can increase the efficiency of energy capture, conversion and storage. There’s no smoke and mirrors here.” With two advances, it is made possible. The team, led by founder Lars Samuelson (a Lund University professor), created a technology known as Aerotaxy, which makes it cheaper to create nanomaterials. With this, they are able to create gallium arsenide nanowires that can serve as solar collectors and that they can integrate directly into solar wafers, known commonly as solar cells. 

          As a material, gallium arsenide has been used in solar for years because of its high reliability and high efficiency at converting light into electricity. However, gallium arsenide is expensive to manufacture. SolInk dramatically reduces the cost by minimizing the amount of materials being used. In addition to SolInk’s benefits, rivals such as Innovalight (bought by DuPont) can boost a solar panel’s efficiency from 15% to almost 16.1% while SolInk is claimed to build the efficiency from 15% to almost 19% or from 20% to 25%. The theoretical limit in converting sunlight to electricity is approximately 27% to 29%. 

         With Aerotaxy, it helps build nanomaterials by mixing vapors in the air in just a second. The active materials, then, bond to form larger, uniform structures while in motion. Nanowires are literally able to grow in the air. Also, with Aerotaxy, it helps generate tens of billions of nanowires per second on a continuous basis. “It’s like cranking out nanowires with a popcorn popper instead of a craftsman. That’s the makings of an affordable and scalable technology for mass production,” said Epstein. 

          According to Greentech Media, demand for solar is growing globally as we know it, with the total number of gigawatts expected at 29.8 in 2012 to 50.8 gigawatts in 2016. Epstein figures that solar is here to stay, since the sun is the only resource that will surely outlast fossil fuels, wind, and other clean energy sources in the run. “In spite of what you might hear, solar is a healthy market,” said Epstein. 

 

CEO of Sol Voltaics, Dave Epstein

Walmart in Ohio is now powered by solar!

Walmart has announced that it has worked with SolarCity on progressing towards 12 Walmart stores & Sam’s Clubs all over Ohio with installing solar panels that generates up to 6,000,000 kWh of energy, enough to power more than 820 homes and is also apprehended to accumulate about 5-20% of each store’s energy consumption. Walmart has committed to increasing the use of renewable energy on all the stores in Ohio and across the country. Pretty effective knowing almost all Walmart stores are open 24 hours and finally being able to say bye bye to those outrageous electric bills.

 

“Walmart’s installation of solar on 12 store rooftops is the largest solar commitment ever made by a retail business in Ohio,” said Bill Spratley

Shopping for Solar Panels are easy!

      Are you interested in obtaining a solar panel onto your rooftop to save money on those utility bills that just never seems like it’s going to end? Well, maybe this will help your matters: there is a new free online solar panel shopping service that can help you research and shop for solar power systems from solar power companies that will offer the best incentives for you.

      It is known as the Online Solar PV Marketplace, which Distributed Energy Research & Solutions, Inc. (EnergySage) had announced and released recently. It has been developed for the convenience of interested consumers, forming an open-market platform between potential customers and solar panel installers and for President Obama’s Sunspot Initiative. The term “sunspot” has been formed as the President’s call for a “Sputnik movement” to stimulate American innovation as the foundation for economic revival. It originally was developed in the year 2011 to make solar power as cheap and accessible as fossil fuels. Simply put, it tries to obtain information for potential solar consumers, which as said, Online Solar PV Marketplace offers.

     Because of this development which no longer barricades the opportunities between solar consumers and solar providers, EnergySage has been awarded $500,000 from the Department of Energy as a Sunshot startup investment. “EnergySage is thrilled to receive this Sunshot award,” said Vikram Aggarwal, CEO of EnergySage. He also claims “by making it easier for consumers to navigate the solar PV system purchase process, we are lowering customer acquisition costs, lowering prices, helping installers improve profitability and ultimately, expanding the market exponentially.”

     As you may be curious in the shopping experience, it opens as you take an online survey to outline relevant details about your property. You are, then, able to list your property on the marketplace and EnergySage’s preselected network of solar companies will start bidding on your job. Instead of having to compare different types of variables from different companies, you will receive all bids in clear, standard format for easy access to be able to decipher. EnergySage only participates in this relationship by obtaining a small commission fee from the solar companies, which you do not have to worry about because the marketplace is, once again, free for use to businesses, nonprofit organizations, or even residential buildings.

Check the marketplace out here to start looking!