Solar power is the most Abundant energy source on earth

Did you know that there's enough solar energy hitting the earth every hour to meet all of humanity;s power needs for an entire year.   Every ounce of oil, every lump of coal, and every cubic foot of natural gas could be left in the ground if only we could capture one hour's worth of solar energy each year.   That's the scale of the opportunity.   To put it into a different perspective, if we covered the Mojave Desert with solar arrays, it would generate more than twice as much electricity as the U.S. uses annually.

Solar Ready Vets: Preparing Our Veterans to Join the Growing Solar Workforce

The transition from military service into the civilian workforce can be a vulnerable moment.

Many veterans indicate that finding a job is one of the greatest challenges they face in their return to civilian life, and one aspect of that challenge is translating military skills and experience in a marketable way for civilian employers.

At the Department of Energy, we like to say we’re solutions people. And there is a great opportunity here to help by connecting our talented veterans with a dynamic sector in our economy that needs them. Solar electricity generation doubled last year alone, and the solar industry is adding jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy. That’s why the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense joined forces to create the Solar Ready Vets program, which provides training to help military personnel translate and build on their skill sets and transition to careers in this thriving renewable energy field.

http://energy.gov/articles/solar-ready-vets-preparing-our-veterans-join-growing-solar-workforce-0

Amazing New Solar Panels Are Completely Transparent

Just so we’re totally clear, this is a huge deal. (Get it?)

posted on Aug. 27, 2014, at 3:51 p.m.

Kasia Galazka

BuzzFeed Staff

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kasiagalazka/transparent-solar-panels#.ou6byrdMk

Find Financing for Energy Efficient Upgrades

http://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/find-financing-energy-efficiency-upgrades

Top 6 Things You Didn't Know About Solar Energy

This article is part of the Energy.gov series highlighting the "Top Things You Didn't Know About..." series. Be sure to check back for more entries soon. 6. Solar energy is the most abundant energy resource on earth – 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use. 5. The first silicon solar cell, the precursor of all solar-powered devices, was built by Bell Laboratories in 1954. On page one of its April 26, 1954 issue, The New York Times proclaimed the milestone, “the beginning of a new era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams -- the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.” 4. The space industry was an early adopter of solar technology. In the 1960s the space industry began to use solar technology to provide power aboard spacecrafts. The Vanguard 1 -- the first artificial earth satellite powered by solar cells -- remains the oldest manmade satellite in orbit – logging more than 6 billion miles. 3. Fast track to today and demand for solar in the United States is at an all time high. In the first quarter of 2012, developers installed 85 percent more solar panels compared to the first quarter of last year. Total U.S. installations may reach 3,300 megawatts this year – putting the country on track to be the fourth largest solar market in the world. 2. As prices continue to fall, solar energy is increasingly becoming an economical energy choice for American homeowners and businesses. Still, the biggest hurdle to affordable solar energy remains the soft costs – like permitting, zoning, and hooking a solar system up to the power gird. On average local permitting and inspection processes add more than $2,500 to the total cost of a solar energy system. The Energy Department SunShot Initiative works to aggressively drive down these soft costs – making it faster and cheaper for families and businesses to go solar. 1. In California’s Mojave Desert, the largest solar energy project in the world is currently under construction. The project relies on a technology known as solar thermal energy. Once the project is complete 350,000 mirrors will reflect light onto boilers. When the water boils, the steam turns a turbine, creating electricity. The project is expected to provide clean, renewable energy for 140,000 homes and is supported by an Energy Department loan guarantee. More details on the Energy Department’s investments in large scale, innovative renewable energy projects in this slideshow. Want more solar? The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Energy Information Administration, and Solar Energy Technologies Program are all great solar energy resources – for kids and adults alike.

40 Facts About Solar Energy - Conserve Energy Future

40 Facts About Solar Energy - Conserve Energy Future

Rural Energy for America Program - Renewable Energy System and Energy Efficiency Improvement Guaranteed Loan and Grant Program

The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) provides financial assistance to agricultural producers and rural small businesses in rural America to purchase, install, and construct renewable energy systems; make energy efficiency improvements to non-residential buildings and facilities; use renewable technologies that reduce energy consumption; and participate in energy audits, renewable energy development assistance, and feasibility studies.

http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/BCP_ReapResEei.html

IEA Report Predicts Solar Power Domination by 2050

Two reports released simultaneously last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA) say that by the year 2050, solar power could eclipse fossil fuels, hydro, wind and nuclear as the world’s most widely used source of electricity generation.

Vince Font, Contributing Editor 
October 08, 2014  |  

Utah, USA -- According to the IEA, solar PV could conceivably be used to generate as much as 16 percent of the world’s electricity needs by mid-century, with solar thermal electricity generated by concentrating solar plants (CSP) accounting for another 11 percent.

The reports state that when combined, PV and CSP could cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by more than 6 billion tonnes – effectively equaling the current output of worldwide transportation emissions and exceeding all CO2 emissions produced in the U.S. today.

According to Technology Roadmap: Solar Photovoltaic Energy, a decrease in the emission of 4 billion tonnes of CO2 per year could occur with worldwide installation of 4,600 GW of PV capacity by 2050. In order for this to occur, total PV capacity will have to reach an average of 124 GW per year, rising to 200 GW per year between 2025 and 2040.

Scott Sklar, chair of the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Energy Coalition and president of The Stella Group, says these targets in PV capacity are entirely within the realm of possibility. “I do think PV can hit these growth levels,” Sklar said, adding that a combination of “reduced loads and storage” – in addition to the use of other renewable energy sources like biomass – will have to be factored into the overall equation to achieve round-the-clock power generation.

By the beginning of 2014, total worldwide PV capacity had surpassed 150 GW and the IEA reports an estimated 100 GW of capacity being installed on a daily basis throughout 2014. “Massive cost reductions” were cited for the exponential growth, which saw more PV capacity installed in the last four years than in the last 40 years combined. The IEA believes the cost of PV will continue to drop, eventually hitting a cost decrease of 65 percent by 2050.

Sklar is also confident PV cost will plunge, if not quite by the margins predicted by the IEA. “Just by the aggregation of purchasing of materials, and scale-up of both module manufacturing and delivery chain, we can reduce costs at least by 50 percent by 2050,” Sklar said. “Possibly more.”

The second report, Technology Roadmap: Solar Thermal Electricity, stresses the inherent abilities of concentrating solar plants (CSP) to store thermal energy and provide necessary backup power on during peak times, on cloudy days, and overnight. Currently, the sum total of global solar thermal deployment is 4 GW – but the report projects with the installation of 1,000 GW of CSP capacity by 2050, 2.1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions could be eliminated every year.

Additional deployment is expected to occur as a result of developing markets throughout Africa, Australia, China, India, the Middle East, and North and South America.

Frequently looked on as two competing technologies, the IEA sees PV and solar thermal energy ultimately achieving a complementary relationship that will serve to make up for the shortcomings of PV on overcast days and through non-daylight hours.

SPREAD THE WORD

A friend of mine asked me:

Do You Need to Install Solar Panels in Direct Sunlight?

Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels are widely regarded as an ideal method of generating electricity. The materials in the panels, usually silicon, create an electric current when met with natural daylight and this current is then used as standard electricity within properties. The energy is renewable, therefore, considered green. However, many question how effective solar panels are in cloudy climates and wonder whether direct sunlight is, indeed, needed to get the full benefits of the panels.

Daylight not Sunlight

Solar panels use the energy from daylight, as opposed to sunlight, to produce electricity so panels do not need direct sunlight to work. It is photons in natural daylight which is converted by solar panels cells to produce electricity. Heat has no effect on the production of electricity.

This being said, it is true that direct sunlight does provide the best conditions for the panels. However, even in overcast conditions light will diffuse through the clouds and reach the solar panels. Modern solar panels include concentrators which use a system of lenses and mirrors to maximize any light that does reach the cells. As a result it is estimated that solar panels will be 40% as effective in heavy cloudy as they would in direct sunlight. The clearer the skies are the more electricity will be produced.

So if you live in an area that is not the sunniest climate in the world, such as the east coastline  of Lake Michigan, but there appears to be sufficient daylight to ensure that solar panels will work effectively, a solar system may still produce energy for you. It is worth noting that this is true for solar array systems that are feed back into the power supplier. If your array is tied to battery storage, having a long period of sunny weather will create electricity which can be used later on. 

Solar panels will not work at night and the property will still be dependent on electricity from the energy provider. Solar panels will work in winter, even in the Midwest, but of course less electricity will be created as the hours of daylight are considerably shorter than they are in the summer months.

Despite common beliefs, solar panels do not need direct sunlight to work and the weather conditions in the Midwest should not put off potential solar panel buyers. It is energy from daylight, as opposed to sunlight, which powers the panels which means even on overcast days electricity will be generated. There are many questions potential solar panels owners should concern themselves with but the question of the panels needing sustained sunlight to work can be dismissed.

NET ZERO HOMES

NIST test house exceeds goal; ends year with energy to spare The net-zero energy test house at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in suburban Washington, D.C., not only absorbed winter's best shot, it came out on top, reaching its one-year anniversary on July 1 with enough surplus energy to power an electric car for about 1,440 miles. Despite five months of below-average temperatures and twice the normal amount of snowfall, NIST's Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) ended its one-year test run with 491 kilowatt hours of extra energy. Instead of paying almost $4,400 for electricity-the estimated average annual bill for a comparable modern home in Maryland-the virtual family of four residing in the all-electric test house actually earned a credit by exporting the surplus energy to the local utility. A net-zero energy house produces at least as much energy as it consumes over the course of a year. A number of states are taking steps toward encouraging or even requiring construction of net-zero energy homes in the future. For example, California will require that, as of 2020, all newly constructed homes must be net-zero energy ready. Both a laboratory and a house, the two-story, four-bedroom, three-bath NZERTF would blend in nicely in a new suburban subdivision. But it was designed and built to be about 60 percent more energy efficient than houses built to meet the requirements of the 2012 version of the International Energy Conservation Code, which Maryland has adopted. The 2,700 square-foot  test house is built to U.S. Green Building Council LEED Platinum standards-the highest standard for sustainable structures. Its features include energy-efficient construction and appliances, as well as energy-generating technologies, such as solar water heating and a solar photovoltaic system. Despite 38 days when the test house's solar panels were covered with snow or ice, the NZERTF's sun-powered generation system produced 13,577 kilowatt hours of energy. That's 491 kilowatt hours more than used by the house and its occupants, a computer-simulated family of two working parents and two children, ages 8 and 14. First year energy use totaled 13,086 kilowatt hours, which was about 3,000 kilowatt hours more than projected usage in a year with typical weather. In a normal year, a comparable home built to meet Maryland's residential energy standard would consume almost 27,000 kilowatt hours of energy. In terms of energy consumed per unit of living space-a measure of energy-use intensity-the NIST test house is calculated to be almost 70 percent more efficient than the average house in Washington, D.C., and nearby states. From July through October, the facility registered monthly surpluses. In November, when space-heating demands increased and the declining angle of the sun reduced the energy output of its 32 solar panels, the NZERTF began running monthly deficits. Through March 31, when the house's net energy deficit plummeted to 1,800 kilowatt hours-roughly equivalent to the combined amount of energy a refrigerator and clothes dryer would use in a year-temperatures consistently averaged below normal. Starting in April, the energy tide began to turn as the house began to export electric power to the grid on most days. In terms of cost, the NZERTF's virtual residents saved $4,373 in electricity payments, or $364 a month. However, front-end costs for solar panels, added insulation, triple-paned windows, and other technologies and upgrades aimed at achieving net-zero energy performance are sizable. In all, estimates that incorporating all of the NZERTF's energy-related technologies and efficiency-enhancing construction improvements would add about $162,700 to the price of a similar house built to comply with Maryland's state building code. Planned measurement-related research at the NZERTF will yield knowledge and tools to help trim this cost difference. Results also will be helpful in identifying affordable measures that will be most effective in reducing energy consumption. And research will further the development of tests and standards that are reliable benchmarks of energy efficiency and environmental performance overall, providing information useful to builders, home buyers, regulators and others.

WE MAY SOON(NOT REALLY) BE DRIVING ON SOLAR PANELS

In theory, the idea could work: replace all of the nation’s asphalt with solar panels, and we’d generate more than three times the electricity the US uses. Great idea and it would road and highway problems. Solar roads design would also filter storm water, replace above-ground power cables, prevent icy roads by melting snow, and light up to warn drivers if a deer wanders onto the road.

Unfortunately, the list of obstacles is long. The main problem is cost. There are roughly 29,000 square miles of road surface to cover. We need roughly 5.6 billion panels to cover that area. That’s a price tag of $56 trillion.

 The researchers have been unable to secure any large piece of the more than $2 billion a year spent on solar research and development around the world. Probably because there are too many more-practical, more-promising investments to be made to seriously consider this pipe dream.

This brings up a good point. Rooftop panels and solar arrays are already established as a viable power source, but adoption is still low. It’s hard to imagine a city ripping up asphalt and installing a largely unproven technology when it could achieve the same level of power generation by planting panels along the road.

Most of the technological challenges seem solvable. Those include things like how to keep the roads clean, how to increase the efficiency of the panels in the road, how to store the solar power, how to get electricity from more remote roads to the grid, and whether the glass is durable enough. Whether they’re solvable for a reasonable price tag is another question.

The first thing that one has to understand before beginning to look at numbers is this: an apples to apples comparison between asphalt or concrete roads and solar roads is not possible. 

An asphalt/concrete road is simply a hard surface to drive a vehicle on. A solar is a modern modular system with a multitude of uses and features.

 For an accurate cost comparison between current systems and the solar road system, you'd have to combine the costs of current roads (including snow removal, line repainting, pothole repair, etc.), power plants (and the coal or nuclear material to run them), and power and data delivery systems (power poles and relay stations) to be comparable with the solar road system, which provides all three.

This will be interesting to watch.

---

GOOD SOLAR NEWS

Kyocera Solar reduces cost and increases efficiency with new 1000-volt modules

Kyocera Solar Inc. is now offering new 1000-volt solar photovoltaic (PV) modules designed to significantly reduce labor and materials costs while simultaneously increasing overall system efficiency.

The US electrical code was only recently amended to allow 1000-volt solar modules, following a similar development in Europe that enables wider use of high-efficiency 1000-volt inverters.

By specifying a 1000V system instead of the previous 600V standard, installers can reduce total system costs by a substantial amount — up to 20%, according to Kyocera engineers, depending on the individual project.

The cost reduction is achieved in several ways:

• Because 1000V PV systems incorporate more modules per string, materials and labor costs are minimized by reducing the total number of strings and combiners the system requires. 
• String cable used for 1000V modules is thinner and uses less copper, making it less expensive to purchase and install. 
• 1000V inverters are likewise smaller and less expensive to install than their 600V counterparts.

A more long-term advantage of the 1000V system is its ability to minimize resistive losses, also known as “voltage drop” — which is typically about 0.75% lower in a 1000V system than in a comparable system of 600V. This increase in efficiency results in significant energy retention over the 20+ year lifespan of a system.

SOLAR CONTINUES GROWTH

US solar sector small but growing

Solar power, only a minuscule part of the energy mix in the United States, is getting a boost from cheaper panels, growing acceptance by large companies and chances for homeowners to rent solar systems.

Analysts expect a phenomenal growth for renewable solar power over the next two decades, after huge gains in the past two years: 60 percent growth in 2012 and 30 percent on top of that this year.

Heavily reliant on oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear, the United States only gets 12 percent of its power from renewables, of which solar is the smallest part, less than one percent.

But the solar sector is expanding faster than any.

The US Energy Information Administration predicts that photovoltaics -- the semiconductor technology that converts sunlight into electricity -- will grow 11.6 percent a year through 2040.

By comparison, wind power is expected to grow at two percent a year and geothermal power at four percent a year.

They attribute solar power's fast growth to a decrease in the price of photovoltaic panels in a generously oversupplied market, making the energy source more competitive with other types of renewable energy.

Additionally, the possibility for homeowners to simply rent panels rather than purchasing them has helped their popularity.

Around 55 percent of US demand for solar panels currently comes from power generating companies.

Another 30 percent comes from businesses that have large buildings and massive rooftops where installing solar systems for their own power makes sense.

This includes companies like retail giant Walmart, and Google, which puts the panels on top of its huge data centers. The rest of demand comes from the residential sector. Experts estimate that solar's growth could drive renewables to 20 percent of the entire energy market by 2030-2035.

SOLAR TECHNOLOGY

Low-priced plastic photovoltaics

Solar cells and panels, which tap the power of the sun and convert it to electricity, offer a green - and potentially unlimited - alternative to fossil fuel use. So why haven't solar technologies been more widely adopted?

Quite simply, they're too expensive, Researchers have come up with a technology that might help bring the prices down.

To collect a lot of sunlight you need to cover a large area in solar panels, which is very expensive for traditional inorganic - usually silicon - photovoltaics. The high costs arise because traditional panels must be made from high purity crystals that require high temperatures and vacuum conditions to manufacture energy potential.

A cheaper solution is to construct the photovoltaic devices out of organic compounds - building what are essentially plastic solar cells. Organic semiconducting materials, and especially polymers, can be dissolved to make an ink and then simply "printed" in a very thin layer, some 100 billionths of a meter thick, over a large area.

Covering a large area in plastic is much cheaper than covering it in silicon, and as a result the cost per Watt of electricity-generating capacity has the potential to be much lower.

One major difficulty with doing this, however, is controlling the arrangement of polymer molecules within the thin layer. Scientists have developed an advanced structural probe technique to determine the molecular packing of two different polymers when they are mixed together. By manipulating how the molecules of the two different polymers pack together, they have created ordered pathways - or "nanowires" - along which electrical charges can more easily travel. This enables the solar cell to produce more electrical current.

This work highlights the importance of the precise arrangement of polymer molecules in a polymer solar cell for it to work efficiently. Researchers and scientists expect polymer solar cells to reach the commercial market within 5 to 10 years.

SOME ( A REAL LOT OF) ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

IKEA rolls out consumer solar panel systems in British stores

I'll take the Billy bookcase, the Karlstad sofa, and a pack of solar panels in black.

Don't laugh it may be true some day.

IKEA stores in Britain this week began selling rooftop solar panel systems, giving the industry a boost after rounds of feed-in tariff cuts and freezes.

The Swedish retail giant confirmed Monday it would roll out the systems to 17 of its stores in Britain in coming months in partnership with Chinese panel-maker Hanergy Solar U.K. after conducting trial run this summer at an outlet in Southampton, England.

Believed to be the first time photovoltaic energy systems have been made available through a mass-market retailer, IKEA's move comes a year after feed-in tariffs paid to British panel owners were slashed from 69 cents per kilowatt to their current 23 cents.

IKEA announced the consumer roll-out after using solar panels extensively to help power its own facilities. Under its corporate sustainability program, the retailer has installed more than 250,000 panels across its stores worldwide and is aiming to produce as much energy as it consumes by 2020.

The price of a standard 3.36-kilowatt PV system for a semi-detached home would run about $10,800, including value-added tax, with 15-percent discounts available under IKEA's Family loyalty program.

Steve Howard, IKEA's sustainability chief, told The Wall Street Journal despite likely low profit margins, the retailer wants to build PV systems into "a real business."

They're becoming easier to sell thanks to the volatility of energy prices, he said, adding, "You don't have to care about the environment and climate change, you can just care about the finances."

After a surge of PV panel-buying when Britain first introduced its feed-in tariff scheme, the number of homes installing rooftop systems has dropped as the FIT has gone down. The British Solar Trade Association says the solar market is currently installing about 100,000 solar systems per year -- far below the projected 300,000.

It will be interesting to see which model prevails. Either way, IKEA's move represents a big bet on solar panels' potential to shake their reputation as boondoggles and become the latest sleek status symbols for the modern home. The company has already begun the work of recasting their aesthetic image, suggesting that its solar panels resemble "flat-screen televisions."

SOLAR CELL IMPROVEMENTS

New Connection between Stacked Solar Cells Can Save on Wasted Energy

Researchers have come up with a new technique for improving the connections between stacked solar cells, which should improve the overall efficiency of solar energy devices and reduce the cost of solar energy production. 

The new connections can allow these cells to operate at solar concentrations of 70,000 suns worth of energy without losing much voltage as "wasted energy" or heat.

Stacked solar cells consist of several solar cells that are stacked on top of one another. Stacked cells are currently the most efficient cells on the market, converting up to 45 percent of the solar energy they absorb into electricity.

But to be effective, solar cell designers need to ensure the connecting junctions between these stacked cells do not absorb any of the solar energy and do not siphon off the voltage the cells produce - effectively wasting that energy as heat.

Researchers discovered that by inserting a very thin film of gallium arsenide into the connecting junction of stacked cells we can virtually eliminate voltage loss without blocking any of the solar energy.

This work is important because photovoltaic energy companies are interested in using lenses to concentrate solar energy, from one sun (no lens) to 4,000 suns or more. But if the solar energy is significantly intensified - to 700 suns or more - the connecting junctions used in existing stacked cells begin losing voltage. And the more intense the solar energy, the more voltage those junctions lose - thereby reducing the conversion efficiency.

We have created a connecting junction that loses almost no voltage, even when the stacked solar cell is exposed to 70,000 suns of solar energy. And that is more than sufficient for practical purposes, since concentrating lenses are unlikely to create more than 4,000 or 5,000 suns worth of energy. This discovery means that solar cell manufacturers can now create stacked cells that can handle these high-intensity solar energies without losing voltage at the connecting junctions, thus potentially improving conversion efficiency.

This should reduce overall costs for the energy industry because, rather than creating large, expensive solar cells, you can use much smaller cells that produce just as much electricity by absorbing intensified solar energy from concentrating lenses. And concentrating lenses are relatively inexpensive.

TO CLEAN OR NOT TO CLEAN...THAT IS THE QUESTION

Cleaning Solar Panels Often Not Worth the Cost

Don't hire someone to wash your dirty solar panels. That's the conclusion of a study recently conducted.

Researchers found panels that hadn't been cleaned, or rained on, for 145 days during a summer drought in California, lost only 7.4 percent of their efficiency. 

Overall, for a typical residential solar system of 5 kilowatts, washing panels halfway through the summer would translate into a mere $20 gain in electricity production. For larger commercial rooftop systems, the financial losses are bigger but still rarely enough to warrant the cost of washing the panels. On average, panels lost a little less than 0.05 percent of their overall efficiency per day. The study is focused on smaller systems, for very large installations, economies of scale may mean that washing panels is worth it.

Dust on PV panels does make a difference but it's not a big enough factor in Wisconsin to warrant cleaning. Researchers believe that this is the largest study quantifying losses of electricity output due to dirty solar panels conducted so far. Typically, particulate matter from air pollution, agriculture, construction and traffic accumulates on the panels, as well as pollen and sea salt.

Researchers also found that solar panels mounted at an angle of less than five degrees caused bigger losses in efficiency. That's because dirt slips off panels that are installed at a steeper angle. Here in SE Wisconsin we angle solar arrays at slightly less than 45 degrees.

But solar panels heavily soiled with bird droppings should be cleaned. That's because the droppings essentially block all sunlight and will not be washed away when it rains. Engineers also found that photovoltaic panels were dirty enough to warrant cleaning due to very specific and localized circumstances. For example, being directly next to and downwind of a highway, factory or agricultural field may generate enough dirt to warrant cleaning.

Next steps in the study would be looking more closely at the sites that did warrant cleaning and determine what caused the panels to get so dirty. Finally, researchers could add collectors at specific sites to determine what kind of dirt accumulates on the solar panels; whether special materials could keep dirt from accumulating; and whether special, less costly washing systems would do a better job at removing dirt from the panels.

RENEWABLE ENERGIES CONTINUE TO GROW

Renewable energy use gaining worldwide

Renewables like solar and wind represent the fastest-growing source of energy power generation and will make up a quarter of the global power mix by 2018.

In 2016 renewable energy will overtake natural gas as a power source and will be twice that of nuclear, and second only to coal as a source of power.

The growth of renewables -- non-fossil fuels like hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal and bioenergy -- has been bolstered by increased competitiveness compared with conventional energy.

Non-hydro renewable power, mainly wind and solar photovoltaics, is projected to grow from 4 percent of all power generation in 2011 to 8 percent in 2018.

Still there is some uncertainty about long-term government policies that discourages investment; reduced subsidies in some countries due to economic problems; and tough competition from other energy sources, such as the United States, where a boom in shale gas has made that fuel more competitive.

US President Barack Obama's energy and climate proposals were unveiled Tuesday. Obama's polices constitute a clear example of a target that goes beyond the four years of a presidential mandate.

A report released earlier this month warned the world is on track to surpass by more than double the two-degree Celsius warming goal set by the United Nations, unless urgent measures are taken. The recommendations include curtailing coal-fired power stations and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Let's continue the growth in all areas of renewables right here in the USA.

Update on SOLAR IMPULSE

Solar plane on cross-country trek

The Solar Impulse solar plane landed in St.Louis early Tuesday, completing the third leg of a planned five-flight trek from San Francisco to New York.

After taking off Monday morning from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the aircraft landed in St. Louis after a flight of 21 hours and 21 minutes, its longest flight to date.

After the landing the Swiss-built aircraft was moved to an inflatable hangar originally designed for a planned round-the-world flight, but brought into action after a storm caused heavy damage to the airport hangar originally reserved for Solar Impulse.

The inflatable hangar was brought in to the USA for testing purposes and in fact it allowed the mission to stay on schedule. This exercise is now a proof of concept: rather than taking the airplane to a hangar, the hangar has been taken to the airplane.

Two men, both pioneers and innovators, both pilots, are the driving force behind Solar Impulse.

• Bertrand Piccard, doctor, psychiatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, is the initiator and chairman.
•  André Borschberg, an engineer and graduate in management science, a fighter pilot and a professional airplane and helicopter pilot, is the co-founder and CEO.

The first leg, beginning May 3 and piloted by Piccard, started from NASA's Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay Area and ended in Phoenix; a Phoenix-to-Dallas flight with Borschberg at the controls began May 22.

The long flight times of each leg meant Solar Impulse had to fly through the night; 12,000 solar cells built into the wing use sunlight to charge the batteries for night flight.

A fourth flight will see the plane land in Washington, D.C., this month, while the final leg will end at JFK Airport in New York in early July.

You can follow the excitement of this fantastic voyage on the web at:

www.solarimpulse.com

MORE GOOD NEWS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGIES

New Battery Design Could Help Solar and Wind Energy Power the Grid

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)  have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.

For solar and wind power to be used in a significant way, we need a battery made of economical materials that are easy to scale and still be efficient. The believe is that the new battery design may be the best yet designed to regulate the natural fluctuations of these alternative energies.

Currently the electrical grid cannot tolerate large and sudden power fluctuations caused by wide swings in sunlight and wind. As solar and wind's combined contributions to an electrical grid approach 20 percent, energy storage systems must be available to smooth out the peaks and valleys of this "intermittent" power - storing excess energy and discharging when input drops.

Among the most promising batteries for intermittent grid storage today are "flow" batteries, because it's relatively simple to scale their tanks, pumps and pipes to the sizes needed to handle large capacities of energy. The new flow battery developed  has a simplified, less expensive design that presents a potentially viable solution for large-scale production.

Today's flow batteries pump two different liquids through an interaction chamber where dissolved molecules undergo chemical reactions that store or give up energy. The chamber contains a membrane that only allows ions not involved in reactions to pass between the liquids while keeping the active ions physically separated. This battery design has two major drawbacks: the high cost of liquids containing rare materials such as vanadium - especially in the huge quantities needed for grid storage - and the membrane, which is also very expensive and requires frequent maintenance.

The new battery design uses only one stream of molecules and does not need a membrane at all. Its molecules mostly consist of the relatively inexpensive elements lithium and sulfur, which interact with a piece of lithium metal coated with a barrier that permits electrons to pass without degrading the metal. When discharging, the molecules, called lithium polysulfides, absorb lithium ions; when charging, they lose them back into the liquid. The entire molecular stream is dissolved in an organic solvent, which doesn't have the corrosion issues of water-based flow batteries. In initial lab tests, the new battery also retained excellent energy-storage performance through more than 2,000 charges and discharges, equivalent to more than 5.5 years of daily cycles.

To demonstrate the concept, the researchers created a miniature system using simple glassware. Adding a lithium polysulfide solution to the flask immediately produces electricity that lights an LED. A utility version of the new battery would be scaled up to store many megawatt-hours of energy.

Keep checking back to our blog for more updates on news in the renewable energies.