Making energy truly accessible

A creative way of selling solar energy is gaining traction in sub-Saharan Africa: customers can pay as they go.

Only one in six rural inhabitants in sub-Saharan Africa has access to electricity. For households living off the grid, kerosene lamps are the primary lighting source. The World Bank estimates that breathing kerosene fumes is the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and two thirds of adult females with lung cancer in developing nations are nonsmokers.

Some observers rightly point out how the poorest people in the world are not just paying a bit more for their energy, they’re paying a disproportionate amount! Across the U.S. and U.K. electricity from a utility costs between 10 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). A villager in rural Kenya or Rwanda, however, pays an equivalent cost of $8 per kWh for kerosene lighting. Often 30 percent or more a family's income is spent on kerosene. Charging a mobile phone is even more expensive. That same villager would pay nearly 400 times more to charge a mobile phone in rural Kenya than in the U.S.

Solar-powered charger kits are a promising alternative, but many rural families cannot afford the up-front cost of these systems, which start at $50.

With a Pay-As-You-Go model (PAYG) for solar kits, on the other hand, customers can instead pay an up-front fee of around $10 for a solar charger kit that includes a two- to five-watt solar panel and a control unit that powers LED lights and charges devices like mobile phones. Then they pay for energy when they need it—frequently in advance each week—or when they can (say, after a successful harvest). In practice, kits are paid off after about 18 months and subsequent electricity is free to the new owner. PAYG customers are finding that instead of paying $2 to $3 a week for kerosene, they pay less than half that for solar energy.

A US company has integrated an analog modem into their solar charger that “talks” with the customer’s mobile phone to authenticate a transaction.  Companies report that the PAYG business model replicates well from country to country. They reach rural communities by working with local distribution partners within each country, who also make money from each solar kit sale.

Yet challenges remain. Many PAYG start-ups are running into limits of working capital; companies front the initial cost of these solar kits and are not fully reimbursed for 18 months. This leads to cash flow constraints that intensify when customers default. 

But for now, the advantages are more, in terms of energy accessibility and reducing pollution from burning kerosene and firewood!

Solar bonanza

A new solar cell material has properties that might lead to solar cells more than twice as efficient as the best on the market today. The material—a modified form of a class of compounds called perovskites, promises to be a good choice though not experimentally used.

Researchers are making new perovskites using combinations of elements and molecules not seen in nature; many researchers see the materials as the next great hope for making solar power cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels. Perovskite-based solar cells have been improving at a remarkable pace. It took a decade or more for the major solar cell materials used today—silicon and cadmium telluride—to reach efficiency levels that have been demonstrated with perovskites in just four years.

The perovskite material described in the latest Nature has properties that could lead to solar cells that can convert over half of the energy in sunlight directly into electricity according to the center for energy innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.

That’s more than twice as efficient as conventional solar cells. Such high efficiency would cut in half the number of solar cells needed to produce a given amount of power. Besides reducing the cost of solar panels, this would greatly reduce installation costs, which now account for most of the cost of a new solar system.

Unlike conventional solar cell materials, the new material doesn’t require an electric field to produce an electrical current. This reduces the amount of material needed and produces higher voltages, which can help increase power output. While other materials have been shown to produce current without the aid of an electric field, the new material is the first to also respond well to visible light, making it relevant for solar cells.

The researchers also showed that it is relatively easy to modify the material so that it efficiently converts different wavelengths of light into electricity. It could be possible to form a solar cell with different layers, each designed for a specific part of the solar spectrum, something that could greatly improve efficiency compared to conventional solar cells.

The surge gains strength

The Brazilian state of São Paulo — the economic and industrial heart of the country — is currently aiming to possess a total of at least 1 GW of solar energy capacity by the year 2020, a goal which is very achievable, according to a solar atlas of the region that was recently released by the state’s energy secretariat. The state of São Paulo possesses twice the maximum global solar irradiation of the solar powerhouse Germany.

SãoPaulo, which in addition to being the economic heart of the country is also the most populous state in Brazil, has a total solar power generation potential of 12 TWh per year in the areas with the absolute highest annual solar radiation, according to the new solar atlas. The areas in question total 732 square kilometers — 0.3% of the state’s total area of 248,209 square kilometers. It’s estimated that these areas could host at least 9,100 MW (9.1 GW) of installed capacity.

São Paulo is already well on its way to achieving its aforementioned goal of possessing 1 GW of solar energy capacity by 2020 — 207 MW of thermal solar capacity are already installed. The rest of the 1 GW target capacity will be split up thusly: a further 592 MW of thermal solar capacity, 50 MW of photovoltaic solar capacity, 50 MW of concentrated solar power, and 100 MW set aside for passive solar energy exploitation in the form of solar architecture projects.

Indian government announced a $7.9 billion investment to double its transmission capacity – designed to increase access to power from wind and solar projects. India’s installed solar energy has jumped from a mere 17 megawatts in 2010, when India’s National Solar Mission was announced, to over 1200 megawatts today. The second phase of JNNSM programme envisages development of cumulative capacity of 1,000 MW for off-grid solar power and targets 15 million sq mt collector area. The targets include improved energy access in remote areas, heating or cooling applications that would encourage employment generation opportunities, replacement of diesel and kerosene as in Telecom Towers, solar cities and solar cookers and steam generating systems.

Not only do these clean energy projects increase India’s energy supply, they also create much needed jobs. As India’s economy grows and develops, its energy consumption likewise is increasing rapidly: it increased 64 percent from 2001-02 to 2011-12 and is projected to grow an additional 72 percent by 2021-22, according to the Indian Planning Commission. To support India’s burgeoning renewable energy ecosystem, NRDC and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) are striving to bolster the case for clean energy by telling this story of job creation and economic benefits.

The surge should pick up likewise in all places that get good sunlight. 

New kid on the solar block

A new type of solar cell, made from a material that is dramatically cheaper to obtain and use than silicon, could generate as much power as today’s commodity solar cells. Solar cells can be made very cheaply but have the downside of being relatively inefficient. Lately, more researchers have focused on developing very high efficiency cells, even if they require more expensive manufacturing techniques. The new material could deliver solar cells that are highly efficient but also cheap to make.

Perovskites have been known for over a century, but no one thought to try them in solar cells until relatively recently. Very good at absorbing light the new solar cells use less than one micrometer of material to capture the same amount of sunlight. The pigment is a semiconductor that is also good at transporting the electric charge created when light hits it.

One group has produced the most efficient perovskite solar cells so far—they convert 15 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity, far more than other cheap-to-make solar cells. Based on its performance so far, and on its known light-conversion properties, researchers say its efficiency could easily rise as high as 20 to 25 percent, as good as the record efficiencies (typically achieved in labs) of the most common types of solar cells today. Perovskite in solar cells will likely prove to be a “forgiving” material that retains high efficiencies in mass production, since the manufacturing processes are simple.

Perovskites will have difficulty taking on silicon solar cells. The costs of silicon solar cells are falling, and some analysts think they could eventually fall as low as 25 cents per watt, which would eliminate most of the cost advantage of perovskites and lessen the incentive for investing in the new technology. But it might be possible to paint perovskites onto conventional silicon solar cells to improve their efficiency, and so lower the overall cost per watt for solar cells.

Combining solar PV & thermal could be the way

The Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy in the US is devoting $30 million to several demonstration projects that will attempt to combine photovoltaics with solar thermal. The effort seeks to solve the important problem of intermittency of solar electricity.

Currently, storing electricity from solar panels is either prohibitively expensive or, in some areas, unfeasible. Solar thermal power, which concentrates sunlight to heat water and make steam for turbines, can store energy by keeping heat in insulated containers. But overall, solar thermal power is twice as expensive as power from solar panels.

According to ARPA-E, there are several ways the two types of solar power might be combined. Some solar power systems involve concentrating sunlight on tiny, super-efficient solar cells. As they’re currently configured, the heat from the concentrated sunlight is quickly extracted and allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere. If it could be collected instead, it could be stored and used to generate electricity later. The challenge is that this approach would require operating solar cells at much higher temperatures than is normal, and this can damage them. Researchers are looking at ways to make solar cells more resistant to high temperatures.

Another possibility is to split up the solar spectrum. Solar cells are very good at converting certain wavelengths of light into electricity—but not others. It may be possible to redirect wavelengths that can’t be used efficiently, and to use these to heat up water and produce steam.

Yet another approach is being developed by Todd Otanicar, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Tulsa. He uses nanoparticles suspended in a translucent fluid to absorb certain wavelengths but allow others to pass through to a solar cell. As the nanoparticles absorb sunlight, they heat up, and the fluid can be used to generate steam.

ARPA-E is also considering funding novel energy storage technologies that use both heat and electricity. Adding heat to electrolysis, for example, might improve the economics of splitting water to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen could then be run through a fuel cell to generate electricity. Heat could also aid other electrochemical reactions, such as those that can be used to make liquid fuels for vehicles.

Upping the solar efficiency

Solar cells are inefficient because they are picky! If an incoming photon has too little energy, the cell won’t absorb it. If a photon has too much, the excess is wasted as heat. No matter what, a silicon solar cell can never generate more than one electron from a single photon. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Excitonics have published a compelling case that the key to greater solar efficiency might be an organic dye called pentacene.

A photovoltaic cell based on pentacene can generate two electrons from a single photon—more electricity from the same amount of sun. Previous research had accomplished similar tricks using quantum dots (tiny pieces of matter that behave like atoms) and deep-ultraviolet light. In addition to using visible light, the present work has shown that [this process] works very, very effectively in organic materials.

Yes, for now, the pentacene cell works only with an extremely narrow band of visible light. But the team hopes it should be possible to create a pentacene coating for silicon solar cells that boosts the total conversion efficiency from today’s 25 percent to a shade over 30 percent—a significant jump. Of course, it is all theory now. But science debvelops from theory to experiment and we can hope!

Sun shining bright!

Here is the third report in the recent weeks anticipating a bright future for the global solar market. Thanks to significant cost reductions and rising retail tariffs, households and commercial users are set to install solar systems to reduce electricity bills – without any subsidies, says Deutsche Bank in a newly released analysis. It concludes that the global solar market will become sustainable on its own terms by the end of 2014, no longer needing subsidies to continue performing.Looking at India, Deutsche Bank predicts that due to state and RPO programs, demand is likely to be strong, at between 1 to 2 GW. Meanwhile, it says, "grid parity has been reached in India even despite the high cost of capital of ~10-12%." Rooftop solar is looking especially robust, and sees strong demand in solar markets in India, China, Britain, Germany, India, and the United States. As a result, Deutsche Bank actually increased its forecast for solar demand in 2013 to 30 gigawatts — a 20 percent increase over 2012.
It points to India, where despite delays in the national solar program, huge demand for state based schemes has produced very competitive tenders, in the [12 cents per kilowatt hour] range. Given the country’s high solar radiation profile and high electricity prices paid by industrial customers, it says several conglomerates are considering large scale implementation of solar for self consumption.“Grid parity has been reached in India even despite the high cost of capital of around 10-12 percent,” Deutsche Bank notes, and also despite a slight rise in module prices of [3 to 5 cents per kilowatt] in recent months (good for manufacturers).Deutsche bank says demand expected in subsidised markets such as Japan and the UK, including Northern Ireland, is expected to be strong, the US is likely to introduce favourable legislation, including giving solar installations the same status as real estate investment trusts, strong pipelines in Africa and the Middle east, and unexpectedly strong demand in countries such as Mexico and Caribbean nations means that its forecasts for the year are likely to rise.

Toxic solar?

Is clean really clean? How about the waste produced in the manufacture process? Or the water required? Can we find a different route to clean energy? Do we have a benefits vs. hazards chart for assessment of new technology?

Only in four years, between 2007 and 2011, the solar panel manufacturers in California produced 46 million toxic wastes, of which they were able to ship only three percent to other states, the remaining 97% still need a home. Solar cell manufacturers have a real problem in their hands disposing of the hazardous waste—millions of pounds of polluted sludge and contaminated water.

Solar cell manufacturing technique utilizes plenty of water that becomes toxic in the process, generating a thick sludge composed of metals and other toxins in water. That sludge must be treated by expensive water treatment equipment, before the water can be released in nature.

Solar cell manufacturers normally send the toxic sledges to special water treatment plants in far away states, transporting it by truck or rail. Dustin Mulvaney, a San Jose State University environmental studies professor who analyses carbon footprint of energies from various sources such as solar, biofuel, and natural gas commented, “It would take one to three months of generating electricity to pay off the energy invested in driving those hazardous waste emissions out of state.”

There is, however, positive news breaking all the time in the frontier of solar cell manufacturing technology. New processes continually reduce carbon foot prints. Not so long ago, solar cells used to have efficiency of three to five percent. In January this year, a new world record for solar cell efficiency has been claimed by a team of scientists led by Ayodhya N. Tiwari that also included PhD students Adrian Chirila and Fabian Pianezzi, at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology.

The new product is thin film solar cells based on flexible polymer foils. This has pushed solar cell efficiency to over twenty percent for the first time. These solar cells are based on CIGS semiconducting material (copper indium gallium di-selenide). This new process will significantly reduce cost of solar cells production, and will also bring down carbon foot print through increase of efficiency in conversion of light to electricity.

Muscle to CSP

The storage capacity of concentrating solar power (CSP) can add significant value to a utility company's optimal mix of energy sources, a new report by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggests.

The report found that CSP with a six-hour storage capacity can lower peak net loads when the sun isn't shining, enough to add $35.80 per megawatt hour to the capacity and operational value of the utility, compared to photovoltaic (PV) solar power alone, and even higher extra value when compared to CSP without storage.

The net load is the normal load minus variable renewables such as photovoltaic and wind. The additional value comes because thermal storage allows CSP to displace more expensive gas-fired generation during peak loads, rather than displacing lower-priced coal; and because it can continue to flatten the peak load in the evenings when PV isn't contributing to the mix because the sun has set.

The report, "Simulating the Value of Concentrating Solar Power with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) in a Production Cost Model,"  noted that the $35.80 per megawatt extra value would come in a scenario in which there is relatively high penetration of renewables into the utility's mix, about 34 percent. If the penetration was lower, the extra value would be lessened.

CSP with TES, with an ability to store thermal energy in, say, molten salt, can use its heat-energy to drive turbines at power plants over much longer stretches of the day. Compared to other renewable options, at high penetration levels CSP with TES can be dispatched to displace natural gas rather than coal. This is important because electricity produced from natural gas fired generators is typically more costly than that produced from coal.

Direct grants for solar projects

India has just released a draft policy with the goal of building 9,000 megawatts of grid-connected solar plants by 2017, more than eight times its current capacity. Plans include auctioning 1,650 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity by the central government in the next financial year, grants to cut project costs and loosening curbs on the purchase of equipment from overseas, according to the draft published on the website of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

The solar industry will be funded with direct grants covering as much as 40 percent of the upfront cost of building projects. That model has previously been used to build roads, ports, railways and fossil-fuel plants in India, says the Bloomberg report.

Since India began its National Solar Mission in 2010 the many players have managed to cut average costs of photovoltaic power 51 percent. The program has sought to drive down the cost of solar power to the level of other forms of grid-supplied electricity by 2017. But private lenders have been slow to fund solar because of a lack of confidence in the technology, according to the draft.

Higher interest rates and the short-term lending available for renewable projects in India add as much as 32 percent to the cost of clean power compared with similar projects in the U.S. and Europe, according to a report released today by the Climate Policy Initiative and the Indian School of Business. Developers submitting bids that need the least funding will win solar auctions, according to proposed rules. Grants would be paid in stages as projects reach milestones to prevent developers from bidding too low and ignoring plant performance.

That approach seeks to avoid the large, drawn-out subsidies taken on by European governments that pay fixed premium tariffs to clean-energy plants for as long as 20 years. Germany, Italy and the U.K. have rolled backed support as the cost of their subsidies ballooned as installations boomed.

The draft raises the possibility of doing away with a rule that requires projects to buy crystalline cells and panels from local manufacturers. Those companies have filed a complaint alleging foreign competitors are dumping equipment below cost in India.

Sunlit

When millions of Indians were in the dark, those in remote parts unaccessed by the grid had a different story thanks to solar power. And that's what economist Jeremy Rifkin meant when he said, India is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy sources and, if properly utilized, India can realize its place in the world as a great power. 'Political will', he said is what holds the key.

Solar panel prices have dropped by over 50% during the past year, and those of the supporting hardware — including cables, connectors, inverters — will continue to drop at a slower rate. Overall, system prices now are practically at “grid parity” — the price per unit of electricity is comparable to the price of coal-based power.

But, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is mostly focused on using solar energy, like any other fuel source, to feed the grid. Solutions that feed power to the grid are important, but they only augment an over-stressed grid. They do not help the millions without any grid power. Distributed generation, rooftop panels or community grids are ignored.

Clean energy technologies are seeing unprecedented innovations. Bloomberg New Energy Finance studies show the patent growth in this space has accelerated so much that, around 2005, clean energy patents surpassed the patents generated in all other technologies combined. India can be a part of this innovation boom, but for this it is felt that the government must get out of the way. Do you agree? Will political will take the leap? Should the government keep out?

Dimming prospects for solar

Things have not been looking good for the solar energy industry, what with some infamous companies and unpopular policies!

According to EnergyTrend, 2012 will be the year for the global solar industry to face an arduous challenge and weed out the weak. The policies will focus on the total installation volume control and decreasing subsidies. Additionally, policies for the emerging markets have been mapped out, but it will require some time for them to take effect.

On the other hand, the spot prices from wafers to modules remain low, and the slim margin has caused most manufacturers to hang by a thread.

Based on EnergyTrend’s estimate, the 2011 global solar installation capacity will reach 19GW, but the overall inventory amount, including semi-finished and finished products, will reach as high as 10GW. Therefore, the market is still severely oversupplied.

EnergyTrend forecasts that the demand in the solar market will amount to approximately 19GW for 2012; the stagnant demand is due to the decreasing demand in Italy , Germany and the United Kingdom , which are caused by the subsidy policies changes in Europe.

As for the Asian markets, benefiting from the subsidy policies, China , Japan , Malaysia and Thailand will see slight demand surges in 2012. EnergyTrend expects no rapid growth for the solar market until 2013.

The Indian market will depend on the government’s efficiency and financial health together with the enforcement of the Local Content Requirement policy, which do not look good!

Good, bad and ugly

Here is some good and bad news. Germany is that the country got 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources in 2011, and that it’s energy consumption dropped 4.8%. On the contrary, we have a Canada which not only refuses to do its bit to mitigate climate change but is bullish about going on the fossil fuel rampage!

Canada formally notified the world that they were withdrawing from the global warming pollution targets they had taken on under the Kyoto Protocol. Canada has unleashed on the world the dirtiest oil on the planet in the form of tar sands. Back in 2002, Canada formally ratified the Kyoto Protocol and committed internationally to reduce its emissions to six percent below 1990 levels for the period 2008-2012.

Oil from tar sands emits three times as much global warming pollution as conventional oil. Since 1990, Canada’s global warming pollution has increased by over 23 percent and is projected to continue to skyrocket driven by the expansion of tar sands.

More bad news comes from Shell in Nigeria where an oil spill that is likely to be the worst in the area for a decade, saw up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil spilt while it was transferred from a floating oil platform to a tanker 75 miles off the coast of the Niger delta. Satellite pictures obtained by independent monitors Skytruth suggested that the spill was 70km-long and was spread over 923 square kilometers (356 sq miles).

And solar woes for firms continues as BP bowed out of the solar market saying it “simply can’t make any money from solar.” One of the reasons for these global solar struggles is thanks to Chinese solar manufacturers, which flooded the market with low-priced solar cells and created an oversupply. Global solar makers are having to sell solar below cost to just survive. But of course, for buyers this is the best time!

Go ahead and pick your good, bad and ugly.

Solar deadline advanced

India has firmly embraced solar power, advancing the target date by five years for selling solar-generated electricity at the same rate as electricity generated by fossil fuel plants, from 2022 to 2017.

The reason for moving the date forward is plummeting tariffs in the latest solar development projects, a trend expected to continue.

Some big names from India have proved that a large investment will soon be possible in solar projects, as huge as 2,000 megawatts, according to the ministry of new and renewable energy. There are other reasons as well. Internationally, the price of solar cells has come down and with improved technology, the cost of operation as a whole has been reduced, thereby increasing the efficiency.

All is not yet completely sunny for India's solar energy drive, however. Several solar projects benefiting under a state program offering favorable tariffs to build 20,000 megawatts of capacity have already been delayed.

Experts believe solar has the same potential as personal computers had in 1970s.
Support for India's solar ambitions comes from some heavyweight fiscal analytical groups. Ernest and Young has noted that the extent of price reduction since 2008 has been very sharp.

India being an emerging market and one of the few countries where solar energy is encouraged at such a massive level has clearly been a reason for the surge. There is also the National Solar Mission whose objective is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible.

The program aims to boost the nation's solar capacity by the equivalent of about 18 nuclear power plants by 2022, and that has now been brought forward by five years.

The solar pie - big or small?

The International Energy Agency, known to be conservative on projections for renewable energy, has of late been toeing the clean energy line to address climate change and peak oil. In fact, the renewable energy head at IEA says we could get up to one third of our global energy supply from solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, and solar hot water by 2060!

That's no small leap considering solar constitutes a mere 3-4 percent of the global energy mix.

According to Paolo Frankl the strength of solar is the incredible variety and flexibility of applications, from small scale to big scale. Economic activity will shift toward the sunnier zones around the equator by 2050, making solar energy a viable power source for most of the global economy, quoted a Bloomberg report.

Those regions will be home to almost 80 percent of the human race by the middle of the century, compared with about 70 percent today, and their energy needs will be higher as living standards in countries such as Brazil and India approach those of the U.S. and Europe.

But as a climate change expert notes, these areas will be wilting under global warming making them unsuitable for habitation. So?

Ironically, the IEA in its World Energy Outlook published this year does not give solar much attention. The organization predicted fairly modest growth in the solar PV and CSP sector through 2035, with a projection that it would only make up 4.5% of electricity supply.

Perhaps one neds to read the difference between 'could' and 'would' in such discrepancies!

Nano-antenna solar panel

Tel Aviv University's Department of Physical Electronics and its innovative new Renewable Energy Center are now developing a solar panel composed of nano-antennas instead of semiconductors. By adapting classic metallic antennas to absorb light waves at optical frequencies, a much higher conversion rate from light into useable energy could be achieved. Such efficiency, combined with a lower material cost, would mean a cost-effective way to harvest and utilize "green" energy.

Traditionally, detectors based on semiconducting materials like silicon are used to interface with light, while radio waves are captured by antenna. For optimal absorption, the antenna dimensions must correspond to the light's very short wavelength. Initial tests indicate that 95 percent of the wattage going into the antenna comes out, meaning that only five percent is wasted.

The solar spectrum is very broad with UV or infrared rays ranging from ten microns to less than two hundred nanometers. No semiconductor can handle this broad a spectrum, and they absorb only a fraction of the available energy. A group of antennas, however, can be manufactured in different lengths with the same materials and process, exploiting the entire available spectrum of light.

When finished, the team's new solar panels will be large sheets of plastic which, with the use of a nano-imprinting lithography machine, will be imprinted with varying lengths and shapes of metallic antennas.

Solar sees innovations every day, and that despite disappointing news like the cut in feed in tariff in UK which has many householders vexed about their plans to generate energy at home.

Place them panels below power lines!

Instead of building new infrastructure or searching for land, how about using existing ones? That is what energy experts are thinking out in the US.

Transmission right-of-way, providing 20% of U.S. electricity from solar, is just one piece of the puzzle, with another 20% possible using existing rooftops and a solar potential of nearly 100% from solar on highway right-of-way.

What if the U.S. could get 20 percent of its power from solar, near transmission lines, and without covering virgin desert? It could.

Transmission right-of-way corridors, vast swaths of vegetation-free landscape to protect high-voltage power lines, could provide enough space for over 600,000 megawatts of solar PV. These arrays could provide enough electricity to meet 20% of the country’s electric needs.

There are 155,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in the United States(defined as lines 230 kilovolts and higher). According to at least two major utilities (Duke Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority), such power lines require a minimum of 150 feet of right-of-way, land generally cleared of all significant vegetation that might come in contact with the power lines.

That’s 4,400 square miles of already developed (or denuded) land for solar power, right under existing grid infrastructure. But given that the lines would amke for some shading, and assuming that half of transmission line right-of-way is unsuitable for solar, even then it leaves 2,200 square miles of available land for solar.

With approximately 275 megawatts (MW) installed per square mile, over 600,000 MW of solar could occupy the available right-of-way, providing enough electricity (over 720billion kilowatt-hours) to supply 20 percent of U.S. power demands. Howzatt??

Now that should apply for many places the world over. Pronto, you have the place you have been searching for to set up panels, right?

Solar on top of the world!

Here's a question for you: which is the best place to capture solar energy?

Desert? Right, for obvious reasons. But wait, a recent study has found another more optimal place and that's the mountains!

It concludes that some of the world's coldest landscapes -- including the Himalaya Mountains, the Andes, and even Antarctica -- could become Saudi Arabias of solar. The research appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Many hot regions such as the U.S. desert southwest are ideal locations for solar arrays. However, they also found that many cold regions at high elevations receive a lot of sunlight -- so much so that their potential for producing power from the sun is even higher than in some desert areas.

The team found, for instance, that the Himalayas, which include Mt. Everest, could be an ideal locale for solar fields that generate electricity for the fast-expanding economy of the People's Republic of China. Chances are that the Chinese, on hearing this will start building a massive solar array for the Himalayas! The roadways and railways are almost in place anyway (in fact, the holy Kailash will soon see motorised parikrama!)

CSP in India: mixed prospect

Is CSP a good option for India? Maps from NASA and Meteonorm show a range of approximately 1800-2200 kWh/m2/year for DNI across India, an annual DNI resource comparable to the best European sites such as Spain, though lower than the best sites in the USA and Australia. The northwest of India is widely recognised as having the best sites in the country. Jodhpur, on the edge of the Thar desert, is almost exactly comparable on an annual average basis to Granada, one of the best Spanish sites.

However, the Indian Renewable Energy Status Report notes that there is no established capability in India for CSP manufacture and there is a gap in Engineering, Procurement and Construction capability for setting up and running CSP plants. In examining the barriers to technology transfer for renewable energy technologies for India, the report identifies: product suitability to Indian conditions, difficulty in accessing market information for foreign companies, limitations in infrastructure availability, and difficulty of financing.

Published cost estimates for India vary by a factor of nearly 80 percent from lowest to highest. High current costs are an immediate barrier. Prior to the closing of the Solar Mission's phase 1 applications in December 2010, potential developers suggested that the Solar Mission CSP tariff was not sufficient. The fact that the Request for Selection was oversubscribed and that the shortlist of developers offered discounts on the tariff ranging from around Rs.3 to 5 off the Rs.15.3/kWh cap would suggest that some developers believe that cost is not an insurmountable barrier.

The World Bank's analysis of CSP costs versus the Solar Mission phase 1 tariff cap concluded that with either tower or trough technology and either wet or dry cooling, projects would not be viable even under the maximum allowed tariff. If this is the case, then cost remains a large barrier to CSP in India. On a positive note, a range of financial and regulatory incentives were analysed and it was concluded that all measures taken together were sufficient to make projects viable.

Does nature have the answers?

Sometimes wonders can happen if we only spent some time looking around and wondering. But it's another question who has the time 'to stand and stare'?

Check out what this 7th grade boy did as he stared at trees and wondered.

Aidan Dwyer puxzzled about the way trees branch out and the angles at which they did so. He found a pattern in the Fibanocci series 1,2,3,5, 8, 13,... and accordingly designed his tree with solar panels set at those angles. He then compared the energy output from his solar tree to a flat panel row and found the tree gave almsot 20-50 percent more!

He also saw the maximum output was in December with the sun at its lowest point in the sky. He got 50 percent more energy.

Sure is going to have some manufacturers build trees!

Meanwhile, more solar news. Berthed at Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong is a ship with a difference. The Tûranor PlanetSolar is a vessel that is circumnavigating the globe to prove that solar energy can power water transportation.

Designed in New Zealand, built in Germany and flying a Swiss flag, the 102-foot boat has completed about two-thirds of a voyage that began in Monaco last September. So far it has sailed nearly 24,000 miles.

With its upper deck covered with over 5,300 square feet of photovoltaic solar panels, the Tûranor PlanetSolar uses lithium batteries that store solar energy and allow the ship to continue sailing through the night, or when the sky is overcast, at a speed of up to about 15 miles per hour.

Sun God Ra is for surely smiling as the wise species finally have recognised his might.