NEW AND RENEWABLE ENERGY

China leads solar PV demand in Asia Pacific region with 2.9GW installed in 2011

2012-01-29T13:21:00.000+05:30

The sleeping giant has finally awoken, according to the latest report from NPD Solarbuzz as PV installations in China reached 2.9GW in 2011, a massive 500% increase over 2010. The Asia Pacific region as a whole saw demand increase 165% year-on-year, reaching a total of 6GW. Like Germany, NPD Solarbuzz noted that 2.8GW of installations in the region were installed in the fourth quarter alone.

According to the market research firm, China has quickly emerged as the dominant force in the region, with 48% of 2011 demand. A planned year-end 13% FIT reduction led to a surge in installations in the fourth quarter, reaching 1.7GW, NPD Solarbuzz noted.

“The China PV market was reshaped in 2011 by the release of the national FIT,” said Ray Lian, analyst at NPD Solarbuzz, “Approximately 1GW ground mount projects were installed in the Qinghai province alone. However, the explosive growth could well be followed by policy adjustments in 2012 as the Chinese central government takes action to control the growth rate.”

However, the market research firm noted that low factory gate module prices and favorable project returns have led to a project pipeline that reached 20GW and in direct comparison the project pipeline estimates for the US.

Japan

Other major markets in the Asia Pacific region include Japan and India. Though dependent on the residential market (70% plus of installations), Japan installed 1.2GW in 2011, an increase of 30% over 2010.

However, NPD Solarbuzz expects the Japanese market to grow 40% in 2012 as a new FIT law aimed at large-scale PV projects should increase demand, though highlighted that the actual 2012 rates have yet to be announced.

Many forecasters had previously touted Japan to once again become a major growth market but a forecasted growth of 40% could disappoint many in the PV industry, especially considering the growth in overseas module suppliers moving into the Japanese market in anticipation of strong growth.

India

According to NPD Solarbuzz, demand in India increased by 125% in the fourth quarter, as install deadlines loomed in the first quarter of 2012. The market research firm expects 600MW to be grid connected in the first quarter under the National Solar Mission and Gujarat Solar Policies.

In 2012, the Indian market could begin to approach 1GW, driven by new installations under the National Solar Mission and new state-level policies.

"While rapid PV price declines have greatly improved project economics over the course of 2011, many Indian developers have suffered setbacks due to difficulties associated with financial closure, land acquisition, and power evacuation facilities. Now developers will need to race to meet their installation deadlines or face the prospect of losing their PPAs, leading to a surge of activity in December and January," added NPD Solarbuzz analyst Chris Sunsong.

Australia

Australia’s PV installations fell 10% quarter-on-quarter as incentive schemes were closed down. NPD Solarbuzz expected first quarter 2012 installs to make further declines of around 20%.

Worse, the market for 2012 is forecast to fall by 30%; however, the market is forecast to pick up in 2013 as large-scale ground-mounted systems begin to come online.

Thailand, Korea and Taiwan

Other emerging markets in Asia added 500MW of demand in 2011, largely driven by Thailand, Korea and Taiwan, noted the market research firm. Further growth of more than 50% is expected in 2012 as new markets in Malaysia and the Philippines evolve.

Government incentives and continued declines in module prices are set to underline the growth potential in this rapidly emerging important market for the PV industry.

Ref: Solarbuz.com

Scientists create first solar cell with over 100 percent quantum efficiency

2011-12-26T13:01:00.000+05:30

Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have reported the first solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100 percent when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum.

The external quantum efficiency for photocurrent, usually expressed as a percentage, is the number of electrons flowing per second in the external circuit of a solar cell divided by the number of photons per second of a specific energy (or wavelength) that enter the solar cell. None of the solar cells to date exhibit external photocurrent quantum efficiencies above 100 percent at any wavelength in the solar spectrum.

The external quantum efficiency reached a peak value of 114 percent. The newly reported work marks a promising step toward developing Next Generation Solar Cells for both solar electricity and solar fuels that will be competitive with, or perhaps less costly than, energy from fossil or nuclear fuels.

Multiple Exciton Generation is key to making it possible

A paper on the breakthrough appears in the Dec. 16 issue of Science Magazine. Titled “Peak External Photocurrent Quantum Efficiency Exceeding 100 percent via MEG in a Quantum Dot Solar Cell,” it is co-authored by NREL scientists Octavi E. Semonin, Joseph M. Luther, Sukgeun Choi, Hsiang-Yu Chen, Jianbo Gao, Arthur J. Nozikand Matthew C. Beard. The research was supported by the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the DOE Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Semonin and Nozik are also affiliated with the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The mechanism for producing a quantum efficiency above 100 percent with solar photons is based on a process called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), whereby a single absorbed photon of appropriately high energy can produce more than one electron-hole pair per absorbed photon.

NREL scientist Arthur J. Nozik first predicted in a 2001 publication that MEG would be more efficient in semiconductor quantum dots than in bulk semiconductors. Quantum dots are tiny crystals of semiconductor, with sizes in the nanometer (nm) range of 1-20 nm, where 1 nm equals one-billionth of a meter. At this small size, semiconductors exhibit dramatic effects because of quantum physics, such as:

• Rpidly increasing bandgap with decreasing quantum dot size,

• Formation of correlated electron-hole pairs (called excitons) at room temperature,

• Enhanced coupling of electronic particles (electrons and positive holes) through Coulombic forces,

• And enhancement of the MEG process.

Quantum dots confine the charges and harvest excess energy

Quantum dots, by confining charge carriers within their tiny volumes, can harvest excess energy that otherwise would be lost as heat – and therefore greatly increase the efficiency of converting photons into usable free energy.

The researchers achieved the 114 percent external quantum efficiency with a layered cell consisting of antireflection-coated glass with a thin layer of a transparent conductor, a nanostructured zinc oxide layer, a quantum dot layer of lead selenide treated with ethanedithol and hydrazine, and a thin layer of gold for the top electrode.

In a 2006 publication, NREL scientists Mark Hanna and Arthur J. Nozik showed that ideal MEG in solar cells based on quantum dots could increase the theoretical thermodynamic power conversion efficiency of solar cells by about 35 percent relative to today’s conventional solar cells. Furthermore, the fabrication of Quantum Dot Solar Cells is also amenable to inexpensive, high-throughput roll-to-roll manufacturing.

Such potentially highly efficient cells, coupled with their low cost per unit area, are called Third (or Next) Generation Solar Cells. Present day commercial photovoltaic solar cells are based on bulk semiconductors, such as silicon, cadmium telluride, or copper indium gallium (di)selenide; or on multi-junction tandem cells drawn from the third and fifth (and also in some cases fourth) columns of the Periodic Table of Elements. All of these cells are referred to as First- or Second-Generation Solar Cells.

MEG, also referred to as Carrier Multiplication (CM), was first demonstrated experimentally in colloidal solutions of quantum dots in 2004 by Richard Schaller and Victor Klimov of the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since then, many researchers around the world, including teams at NREL, have confirmed MEG in many different semiconductor quantum dots. However, nearly all of these positive MEG results, with a few exceptions, were based on ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopic measurements of isolated quantum dots dispersed as particles in liquid colloidal solutions.

The new results published in Science by the NREL research team is the first report of MEG manifested as an external photocurrent quantum yield greater than 100 percent measured in operating quantum dot solar cells at low light intensity; these cells showed significant power conversion efficiencies (defined as the total power generated divided by the input power) as high as 4.5 percent with simulated sunlight. While these solar cells are un-optimized and thus exhibit relatively low power conversion efficiency (which is a product of the photocurrent and photovoltage), the demonstration of MEG in the photocurrent of a solar cell has important implications because it opens new and unexplored approaches to improve solar cell efficiencies.

Another important aspect of the new results is that they agree with the previous time-resolved spectroscopic measurements of MEG and hence validate these earlier MEG results. Excellent agreement follows when the external quantum efficiency is corrected for the number of photons that are actually absorbed in the photoactive regions of the cell. In this case, the determined quantum yield is called the internal quantum efficiency. The internal quantum efficiency is greater than the external quantum efficiency because a significant fraction of the incident photons are lost through reflection and absorption in non-photocurrent producing regions of the cell. A peak internal quantum yield of 130% was found taking these reflection and absorption losses into account.

More information: Peak External Photocurrent Quantum Efficiency Exceeding 100% via MEG in a Quantum Dot Solar Cell, Science 16 December 2011: Vol. 334 no. 6062 pp. 1530-1533. DOI: 10.1126/science.1209845

Paint-On Solar Cells Developed

2011-12-22T18:24:00.002+05:30

A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame has made a major advance toward this vision by creating an inexpensive "solar paint" that uses semiconducting nanoparticles to produce energy.

"We want to do something transformative, to move beyond current silicon-based solar technology," says Prashant Kamat, John A. Zahm Professor of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry and an investigator in Notre Dame's Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), who leads the research.

"By incorporating power-producing nanoparticles, called quantum dots, into a spreadable compound, we've made a one-coat solar paint that can be applied to any conductive surface without special equipment."

The team's search for the new material, described in the journal ACS Nano, centered on nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide, which were coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide. The particles were then suspended in a water-alcohol mixture to create a paste.

When the paste was brushed onto a transparent conducting material and exposed to light, it created electricity.

"The best light-to-energy conversion efficiency we've reached so far is 1 percent, which is well behind the usual 10 to 15 percent efficiency of commercial silicon solar cells," explains Kamat.

"But this paint can be made cheaply and in large quantities. If we can improve the efficiency somewhat, we may be able to make a real difference in meeting energy needs in the future."

"That's why we've christened the new paint, Sun-Believable," he adds.

Kamat and his team also plan to study ways to improve the stability of the new material.

NDnano is one of the leading nanotechnology centers in the world. Its mission is to study and manipulate the properties of materials and devices, as well as their interfaces with living systems, at the nano-scale.

This research was funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

Ref: Science Daily

The way towards Cop 18 in Qatar

2011-12-16T21:52:00.002+05:30

Countries at the United Nations climate change negotiations have publicly acknowledged their current pledges to reduce carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius.

To bridge this shortfall, delegates at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) climate talks proposed on to address this so-called "emissions gap" at COP 18 in Qatar next year.

Documents negotiated in Durban, South Africa acknowledged the science-based emissions reduction target of 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Those reductions and that timeline are what is needed to stay below two degrees Celsius. The draft text says this would be the target to be agreed on at COP 18.

"We need agreement on that science-based target next year at the latest," said Karl Hood, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean island of Grenada and representing the Alliance of Small Island States.

"And we want those targets to legally come into force before 2017."

Hood told IPS waiting to close the gap until after 2020 is "unacceptable" and a "disaster for small island states" who are already suffering the impacts of climate change.

The world has months to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels before two degrees Celsius of warming will be impossible to stay below. Delay a few years and the extraordinary emission cuts needed could bankrupt the world's economy and reverse development gains in most countries, climate experts warned at the largely deadlocked United Nations climate change conference here.

"We're here to warn policy makers that we are dangerously close to not being able to meet the less than two degrees Celsius target," said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analystics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

The current pledges made by countries to cut emissions after the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 will result in global warming of 3.5 degrees Celsius, said Hare a climate scientist. Two years later, those pledges remain essentially unchanged and that means the world's options to stay below two degrees Celsius are narrowing Hare said in press conference during the COP 17 negotiations that conclude Friday.

"To put it bluntly, the longer we wait, the less option we will have, the more it will cost ...and the bigger threat to the world’s most vulnerable," he said.

Global emissions of fossil fuels have increased 49 percent since 1990 and reached a record of about 48 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2 in 2010 and likely 50 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 this year, he said. Thanks to the moderating affect of the oceans, the world has warmed only 0.8 degrees Celsius on average, however, many parts of the world are much warmer than that.

The science shows that global emissions need to fall to 44 Gt by 2020 and continue to decline by two percent per year, a rate that our fossil fuel-dependent world will find "extremely challenging" but still doable, he said.

If countries live up to their pledges made in Copenhagen global emissions are likely to rise nine to 11 Gt above the 44 Gt target creating an "emissions gap" that is quite considerable, said Niklas Höhne, Director Energy and Climate Policy of Ecofys, an energy consulting organization.

"Our results are in agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Bridging the Emissions Gap Report released at the opening of the Durban climate talks," he told IPS.

The new UNEP report calculates a similar emission gap and outlines the way reductions can be made between now and 2020 to bridge that gap. Shockingly many of the items under intense debate at here at the COP 17 — biofuels, agriculture, carbon credits for forest protection, carbon capture and storage — are not considered important pathways to reduce emissions by scientists.

"With biofuels you have to be very sure they won't result in a net increase in emissions," said Höhne.

A number of new studies of palm oil biodiesel and maize ethanol show their net emissions are higher than fossil fuels when their entire lifecycle is calculated.

Biofuels are unlikely to be a significant method for reducing emissions, agreed Höhne. Agriculture is in the same category. Farming practices could be altered to reduce emissions but based on analysis using various reduction scenarios they would only be a small part of the "bridge.”

The emissions gap can only be bridged with a combination of improving energy efficiency in all sectors, significant increase in renewable energy including biomass power and shifting from coal to natural gas. The cost of making this shift is relatively low at 38 dollars a ton of CO2 avoided.

Ref:The Madison Times

1411 MW Wind capacity added in India during the first half of the Indian Financial Year

2011-12-11T19:19:00.002+05:30

Wind power has shown remarkable growth over the past decade, with the global cumulative installed capacity reaching 215 GW by June 2011. By 2015, installations are predicted to grow at an annual average rate of 15.5%, with the annual installed capacity growing to 81.4 GW from the current 39.5 GW (2010), including offshore development. India has maintained its position as one of the leading wind power nations, remaining at fifth position worldwide in terms of cumulative installations in 2011. The Indian wind industry has successfully weathered the economic slowdown encountered by many other nations and is moving towards achieving maturity. Presently, the country has a cumulative installed capacity of 15,567 MW. The capacity addition for FY 2011-12 is expected to be around 3,000 MW, out of which 1,411 MW has already been achieved. According to the estimates, the annual capacity increase for the Indian wind market is expected to reach 5000 MW by 2015.

Tremendous achivement is there in India in terms of capacity addition in Wind Energy. Based on some reliable sources, around 1411 MW wind power capacity has been added in India during the period from April-2011 to Sept-2011 of the FY 2011-12 which is the highest capacity addition during the first half of any Financial year in India.

Indian State wise capacity addition during the period April-2011 to September-2011 is as under.

Sl.No. -    Indian State      - Capacity (MW)

1.      Andhra Pradesh       -    11.50

2.       Gujarat                      - 251.00

3.       Karnataka                 - 93.30

4.        Madhya Pradesh        -   54.20

5.        Maharashtra               - 150.80

6.        Rajasthan                  - 226.35

7.         Tamilnadu                 -  624.30

             Total                        - 1411.45

About 14 WTG manufacturers were involved in this capacity addition in various capacities, major being Suzlon Energy, Enercon, Regn Powertech, Gamesa, Vesta Wind, Inox Wind, Letner Shriram, Gobal, RRB Energy etc. Mjor addition is done by Suzlon Energy with 510.35 MW, Enercon added 315.20 MW, Regen Powertech added 199.50 MW, Gamesa with 165.75 MW and Vestas Wind with 86.10 MW.

This clearly shows the intensity of WTG capacity addition going on India which will continue in the later par of the financial year as well.

Despite the financial crisis affecting the western world, Indian Renewable Energy Sector shows strong growth which may be the reason for major forign players investing in India along with the domestic WTG manufacturers.

JNNSM Phase I Batch 2 -Solar Power reaching the Grid Parity in India

2011-12-07T13:42:00.003+05:30

This was a fantastic news for all of us involved in Grid based Large Solar photovoltaic Projects. Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) is bringing Indian solar sector to the new heights. The turning point is that for the first time Solar Photovoltaic Power in India is closing to the grid parity with the lowest bid being Rs.7.49 ($ 0.146) per kilowatt hour (/kWh). I could sense the enthusiasm when I visited the SOLARCON conference at Hyderabad, where the speculations were there that this time the bids will be still coming down from the previous one. Lot of US and European based companies had set up booths at SOLARCON like Solar Semiconductor, Azure Power, BERGEN Power, SunEdison etc.

Aggressive bidding has taken place at the JNNSM Phase 1 Batch II. A very aggressive bidding round was seen at the Scope Complex Auditorium for the Batch II of Phase 1 of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSN). Solar Direct Emerges was the lowest bidder at Rs.7.49/kWh, while Green Infra was the highest bidder at Rs.9.39/kWh.

Other developers such as Welspun - it quoted three projects at Rs.7.97, Rs.8.05 and Rs.8.14/kWh; SunEdison at Rs.9.28/kWh; Mahindra Bids at Rs.9.34/kWh; Sai Sudhir at Rs.8.22/kWh; VS Lignite at Rs.8.54/kWh; and Sunborne Energy at Rs.8.99/kWh.

Meanwhile, Punj Lloyd offered no disount this time. Inderpreet Wadhwa led Azure Power and quoted a very aggressive price of Rs.7.91/kWh (50 megawatts); Sujana Energy at 9.09/kWh; and Kiran Energy quoted Rs.9.34/kWh for a 50 MW project. Green Infra emrged as the highest bidder, having quoted Rs.9.39/kWh.

This has set a trend on the one side making solar energy closer than ever to grid parity while on the other it has presented a big challenge for these projects to achieve financial closure and prove viability.

This bidding for the Solar PV project allotment under the second round of JNNSM phase I and the results from the bidding has shown signs of solar becoming genuinely cost competitive with grid power. While sub 10 bids were obviously expected, the bid price falling below 8 was indeed amazing for many developers and experts.

The Rs 10.59/kWh bid during the first round of bidding during the previous year, resulted in serious discussion over whether the developers are trying to pull wool over the eyes of the general public and more importantly the lender community.

Similar to the previous year results, the new numbers that were out yesterday too has resulted in a lot of debate. With severe penalty clauses in the second round this year and considerable learning during the last year, the discount that could be offered was never expected to cross 50% but all the assumptions and predictions are here to be bulldozed in the solar PV industry. Though the numbers might seem unreasonable at first sight, if one gives a proper thought over it, we would understand that these developers had every reason to submit such lower quote.

As earlier said, the French company Solaire Direct created shock in the industry with an unimaginable Rs7.49/kWh which was just close to grid parity.

Solardirect is the second largest solar power company in France. The company has quoted the so called ‘rock bottom’ price possibly as a part of market entry strategy as they have big plans of entering and growing in the Indian market. The latest report on photovoltaic support schemes released by the French government has caused haywire in the industry since the government threatens to severely curtail incentives including a potential annual cap of 500 MW. The French company has a pressing need to expand their market presence and India being one of the most promising market, the company had shown serious interest in the country with an anticipated target of 25 MW in the year 2011-2012. Also, the company has now saved loads of money which they would otherwise have spent on marketing. They have managed to hit all the headlines and gained extremely significant visibility in the country and all without any phenomenal marketing investments. All the revenues saved could come handy when they implement and operate the historic Rs 7.49/kWh project. The calculative risk and the low bid price is all a part of the market entry strategy.

Welspun Solar, with three different bid prices emerged second only to Solairedirect. Three different price levels and a 50MW clean sweep – and there is definitely some serious thought process behind their high discount bids. For Welspun, solar is of strategic importance and they are well on their way to become the bid daddy of Solar PV power generation sector in India. Project allotments in the first round of JNNSM phase I and projects from Gujarat state policy would have given them very good learning’s and confidence to go all out to secure 50MW and do not forget, they are on the fray to get projects allotted in Karnataka policy too. With past experience (something which is a rarity in the niche solar PV sector in India), the company definitely would have working relationships with EPC companies, module makers, inverter and other BoS manufacturers, lenders etc. The past experiences and associations comes in handy not only for Welspun, but a similar situation exist for a few other renowned solar PV developers like Azure Power, Mahindra Solar, Kiran Energy, Sai Sudhir Energy, Sun Edison India, Green Infra and Sun Borne Energy. All these companies have made the early mover advantage to their fullest benefit and managed to get projects allotted by quoting competitive yet viable prices.

There can be a number of arguments to justify the low bid prices, but we have to wait and see that how these companies are achieving financial closures with these lower tariffs.

Export-Import Bank of America, OPIC will be one of the sought after destinations for many of the victorious developers other than Azure Power. It is however surprising to know that two other well known developers – Punj Lloyd and Acme Solar who were EXIM bank beneficiaries in their previous projects, did not quote competitive prices to emerge victorious.

Deadline for achieving financial closure in the second round of JNNSM phase I has been raised to 210 days (7 months) from the earlier 180 days (6 months). The timeline for the commissioning of the project is also extended by a month – to 13 months from the date of signing PPA from 12 months earlier in batch I. With one more month of additional time coming in as a cushion for the victorious developers, one would have to wait and watch the actions that are to unfold in the days to come.

Now the challenge is to accomplish the projects as per the schedules after signing the PPAs. Of course, most of these developers can benefit from their previous experience in India in setting up Solar Photovoltaic Projects. I am sure that Solar will overtake Wind Energy sector in India if this enthusiasm and spirit prevails which can replace several tons of carbon dioxide otherwise would have produced with fossil fuel based power plants.

Managing wind variability in a Wind Farm

2011-11-30T23:27:00.003+05:30

As Texas’ electric grid operator prepares to add power lines for carrying future wind-generated energy, an electrical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin is developing improved methods for determining the extent to which power from a wind farm can displace a conventional power plant, and how best to regulate varying wind power.

“The cost of wind energy has become competitive with that of energy from fossil fuels because of technology improvements,” said Assistant Professor Surya Santoso. “Unfortunately, electric power generated from wind energy is intermittent and variable. That means we need to have better measurements of wind power plants’ output as we integrate wind energy into existing power systems. We also need to develop a way of managing wind power so it can be more readily called upon when needed.”

Texas has outstripped California since 2006 as the leading national producer of wind power, with most of the state’s renewable energy goal by 2025 focused on wind power. To help meet this goal, the state’s Electric Reliability Council of Texas is expected to add about 1,500 megawatts of new wind generation this year alone. In late September, Texas also awarded four offshore tracts along the Gulf Coast for wind power projects with a generating capacity of 1,150 megawatts.

Santoso is developing two strategies to manage and overcome the intermittent and variable behavior of wind power. With a two-year, $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, he and his students are developing computational methods to measure the actual capacity contribution of wind farms. This will allow system planners to calculate how much a wind farm can contribute to meeting expected power needs.

Santoso’s lab is also using the funding to establish the technical requirements of energy storage systems that would serve as temporary ”batteries” for releasing stored wind energy at optimal times.

“Having a proper energy storage system would allow you to harness free wind when it’s available, but release that energy at the time of your choosing with a desired power profile,” Santoso said. He noted that a wind energy storage system would also increase wind farms’ overall capacity contribution and reduce the likelihood of overloading transmission power lines that must carry energy from different power sources.

Ref: University of Texas at Austin (2007, October 19). Dealing With Wind
Variability On The Wind Farm. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 30,

Renewable Energy continued to grow strongly according to REN21 Report

2011-07-31T23:38:00.003+05:30

REN21 report released in July 2011 captures that reality and provides a unique overview of renewable energy worldwide as of early 2011. The report covers both current status and key trends; by design, it does not provide analysis or forecast the future.

Global energy consumption rebounded in 2010 after an overall downturn in 2009. Renewable energy, which experienced no downturn in 2009, continued to grow strongly in all end-use sectors - power, heat and transport - and supplied an estimated 16% of global final energy consumption. Renewable energy accounted for approximately half of the estimated 194 gigawatts (GW) of new electric capacity added globally during the year. Renewables delivered close to 20% of global electricity supply in 2010, and by early 2011 they comprised one-quarter of global power capacity from all sources.

In several countries, renewables represent a rapidly growing share of total energy supply, including heat and transport. For example:

• In the United States, renewable energy accounted for about 10.9% of domestic primary energy production (compared with nuclear's 11.3%), an increase of 5.6% relative to 2009.

• China added an estimated 29 GW of grid-connected renewable capacity, for a total of 263 GW, an increase of 12% compared with 2009. Renewables accounted for about 26% of China's total installed electric capacity, 18% of generation, and more than 9% of final energy consumption in 2010.

• Germany met 11% of its total final energy consumption with renewable sources, which accounted for 16.8% of electricity consumption, 9.8% of heat production (mostly from biomass), and 5.8% of transport fuel consumption. Wind power accounted for nearly 36% of renewable generation, followed by biomass, hydropower, and solar photovoltaics (PV).

• Several countries met higher shares of their electricity demand with wind power in 2010, including Denmark (22%), Portugal (21%), Spain (15.4%), and Ireland (10.1%).

Trends reflect strong growth and investment across all market sectors. During the period from the end of 2005 through 2010, total global capacity of many renewable energy technologies - including solar PV, wind power, concentrating solar thermal power (CSP), solar water heating systems, and biofuels - grew at average rates ranging from around 15% to nearly 50% annually. Biomass and geothermal for power and heat also grew strongly. Wind power added the most new capacity, followed by hydropower and solar PV.

Across most technologies, 2010 saw further growth in equipment manufacturing, sales, and installation. Technology cost reductions in solar PV in particular meant high growth rates in manufacturing. Cost reductions in wind turbines and biofuel processing technologies also contributed to growth. At the same time, there was further industry consolidation, notably in the biomass and biofuels industries, as traditional energy companies moved more strongly into the renewable energy space, and as manufacturing firms continued to move into project development.

By early 2011, at least 119 countries had some type of policy target or renewable support policy at the national level, up from 55 countries in early 2005. There is also a large diversity of policies in place at state/provincial and local levels. Developing countries, which now represent more than half of all countries with policy targets and half of all countries with renewable support policies, are playing an increasingly important role in advancing renewable energy.

As policies spread to more and more countries, the geography of renewable energy use is also changing. For example, commercial wind power existed in just a handful of countries in the 1990s but now exists in at least 83 countries. Solar PV capacity was added in more than 100 countries during 2010. Outside of Europe and the United States, developed countries like Australia, Canada, and Japan are experiencing gains and broader technology diversification, while (collectively) developing countries have more than half of global renewable power capacity.

China now leads in several indicators of market growth: in 2010, it was the top installer of wind turbines and solar thermal systems and was the top hydropower producer. India is fifth worldwide in total existing wind power capacity and is rapidly expanding many forms of rural renewables such as biogas and solar PV. Brazil produces virtually all of the world's sugar-derived ethanol and has been adding new hydropower, biomass, and wind power plants, as well as solar heating systems.

At least 20 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa have active renewable energy markets. Manufacturing leadership continues to shift from Europe to Asia as countries like China, India, and South Korea increase their commitments to renewable energy. The increasing geographic diversity in markets and manufacturing is boosting confidence that renew-ables are less vulnerable to policy or market dislocations in any specific country.

One of the forces propelling renewable energy policies and development is the potential to create new industries and generate new jobs. Jobs from renewables number in the hundreds of thousands in several countries. Globally, there are more than 3.5 million direct jobs in renewable energy industries, about half of them in the biofuels industry, with additional indirect jobs well beyond this figure.

Also driving renewables development are state-owned multilateral and bilateral development banks, which have been pillars of investment in renewable energy during recent, troubled years for the world economy. More public money went to the renewable energy sector through development banks than through government stimulus packages during 2010.

Total investment in renewable energy reached $211 billion in 2010, up from $160 billion in 2009, continuing the steady annual increase seen since tracking first began in 2004. Including the unreported $15 billion (estimated) invested in solar hot water collectors, total investment exceeded $226 billion. An additional $40-45 billion was invested in large hydropower.

Asset finance of new utility-scale projects (wind farms, solar parks, and biofuel and solar thermal plants) accounted for almost 60% of the total and was the largest investment asset class. Investment in small-scale distributed generation projects (mainly solar PV) amounted to $60 billion and accounted for more than 25% of total investment in renewable energy. For the first time, investment in renewable energy companies and utility-scale generation and biofuel projects in developing countries surpassed that in developed economies. China attracted more than a third of global investment during 2010, making it the leader for the second year in a row.

WIND POWER.

The market maintained its 2009 level, with 38 GW added for a total of about 198 GW. For the first time, the majority of new wind power capacity was added in developing countries and emerging markets, driven primarily by China, which accounted for half the global market. Trends include continued offshore development, the growing popularity of community-based projects and distributed, small-scale grid-connected turbines, and the development of wind projects in a wider variety of geographical locations. Average turbine sizes continued to increase in 2010, with some manufacturers launching 5 MW and larger machines, and direct-drive turbine designs captured 18% of the global market.

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAICS (PV)

The PV industry had an extraordinary year, with global production and markets more than doubling in 2010. An estimated 17 GW of capacity was added worldwide (compared with just under 7.3 GW in 2009), bringing the global total to about 40 GW - more than seven times the capacity in place five years earlier. The EU dominated the global PV market, led by Italy and particularly Germany, which installed more PV in 2010 than the entire world did the previous year. The trend toward utility-scale PV plants continued, with the number of such systems exceeding 5,000 and accounting for almost 25% of total global PV capacity. Cell manufacturing continued its shift to Asia, with 10 of the top 15 manufacturers located in the region. Industry responded to price declines and rapidly changing market conditions by consolidating, scaling up, and moving into project development.

CONCENTRATING SOLAR THERMAL POWER (CSP)

After years of inactivity, the CSP market has come back to life with nearly 740 MW added between 2007 and the end of 2010. More than half of this capacity was installed during 2010. Parabolic trough plants continued to dominate the market. Dramatic reductions in PV costs are challenging the growing market for CSP, at least in the United States, where several planned projects were redesigned to use utility-scale PV technologies. At the same time, project development is moving beyond the U.S. southwest and Spain to other regions and countries, particularly the MENA region.

SOLAR HOT WATER/HEATING

Solar heating capacity increased by an estimated 25 GWth in 2010 to reach approximately 185 GWth, excluding unglazed swimming pool heating. China continues to dominate the world market for solar hot water collectors. Europe's market shrank during 2010 due to the economic recession, despite the emergence of some new players, but it continued to rank a distant second. While virtually all installations in China are for hot water only, there is a trend in Europe toward larger combined systems that provide both water and space heating. A number of solar industrial process heat installations came online during 2009 and 2010 in China, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.

BIOMASS POWER AND HEAT

Biomass supplies an increasing share of electricity and heat and continues to provide the majority of heating produced with renewable sources. An estimated 62 GW of biomass power capacity was in operation by the end of 2010. Biomass heat markets are expanding steadily, particularly in Europe but also in the United States, China, India, and elsewhere. Trends include increasing consumption of solid biomass pellets (for heat and power) and use of biomass in combined heat and power systems. China leads the world in the number of household biogas plants, and gasifiers are used increasingly for heat applications in small and large enterprises in India and elsewhere. Biomethane (purified biogas) is increasingly injected into pipelines (particularly in Europe) to replace natural gas in power and CHP plants.

A Dynamic Policy Landscape

Renewable energy support policies continued to be a driving force behind the increasing shares of renewable energy, despite some setbacks due to the lack of long-term policy certainty and stability around the world in 2010.

National targets now exist in at least 98 countries. These targets represent commitments to shares of electricity production (typically 10-30%), total primary or final energy, heat supply, installed capacities of specific technologies, and shares of biofuels in road transport fuels. Many targets also exist at the state, provincial, and local levels. Although some targets were not met or were scaled back, many countries achieved or exceeded their targets set for 2010; two countries - Finland and Sweden - passed their targets for 2020.

Rural Renewable Energy

In even the most remote areas, renewable energy is increasing access to basic energy services - including lighting and communications, cooking, heating and cooling, and water pumping - and generating economic growth. PV household systems, wind turbines, micro-hydro powered or hybrid mini-grids, biomass-based systems or solar pumps, and other renewable technologies are being employed in homes, schools, hospitals, agriculture, and small industry in rural and off-grid areas of the developing world.

The number of rural households served by renewable energy is difficult to estimate as the sector becomes driven increasingly by individual project promoters or private companies, but it runs into the hundreds of millions. Small solar PV systems provide power to a few million households, and micro-hydro configured into village- or county-scale mini-grids serves many more. Over 44 million households use biogas made in household-scale digesters for lighting and/or cooking, and more than 166 million households now rely on a new generation of more-efficient biomass cookstoves.

Off-grid renewable solutions are increasingly acknowledged to be the cheapest and most sustainable options for rural areas in much of the developing world. This will have an impact on market development in the long term, especially if the barriers to accessing information and financing products are addressed.

This report predicts a good future for various Renewable Energy Technologies and through which we can hope for a more greener world as well.

Ref: REN21 Report

Tool to Predict Solar Variability Effects for a better Grid Integration

2011-06-25T12:31:00.000+05:30

The variability in the output of photovoltaic power systems has long been a source of great concern for utility operators worldwide. This is a real concern in tropical countries like India where the monsoon clouds will control the situation for 3 to 4 months. Once we can predict and model it, it will be a fine tool for the Utility Grid operators to control and switch other generators when needed to stabilise the Grid.

Currently, with solar plants accounting for a very small fraction of generation on most electrical grids these changes do not cause any problems for grid operators. However, if solar penetration levels increase in the future, as they likely will, such variability will pose problems for grid operators. A fast change in generation from cloud transients will need to be balanced by other sources of generation to balance load.

The power output fluctuations from solar panels during the cloud cover have to be predicted for addressing this issue. We hope that the latest innovation from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Jacobs School, San Diego can solve the problem to a greater extent.UC San Diego Professor Jan Kleissl and Matthew Lave, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Jacobs School, have found the answer to these questions. They also have developed a software program that allows power grid managers to easily predict fluctuations in the solar grid caused by changes in the cloud cover. The program uses a solar variability law Lave discovered.

But Kleissl and Lave found that variability for large photovoltaic systems is much smaller than previously thought. It also can be modeled accurately, and easily, based on measurements from just a single weather station.

The finding comes at a time when the Obama administration is pushing for the creation of a smart power grid throughout the nation. The improved grid would allow for better use of renewable power sources, including wind and solar.

Also, more utilities have been increasing the amount of renewable energy sources they use to power homes and businesses. For example, Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy have come up with National Solar Energy Mission to add 20000 MW by 2020. Inspired by this announcement many MNCs and Indian companies have come up with proposal for solar farms.
Kleissl and Lave's finding could have a dramatic impact on the amount of solar power allowed to feed into the grid. Right now, because of concerns over variability in power output, the amount of solar power flowing in the grid at residential peak demand times in California, say -- is limited to 15 percent before utilities are required to perform additional studies. As operators are able to better predict a photovoltaic system's variability, they will be able to increase this limit.

Incidentally, Kleissl and Lave's research shows that the amount of solar variability can also be reduced by installing smaller solar panel arrays in multiple locations rather than building bigger arrays in just one spot, since a cloud covering one panel is less likely to cover the other panels, Lave said. "The distance between arrays is key," he said.

Kleissl presented the paper, titled 'Modeling Solar Variability Effects on Power Plants,' this week at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

His findings are based on analysis of one year's worth of data from the UC San Diego solar grid -- the most monitored grid in the nation, with 16 weather stations and 5,900 solar panels totaling 1.2 megawatts in output. Lave looked at variations in the amount of solar radiation the weather stations were receiving for intervals as short as a second. The amount of radiation correlates with the amount of power the panels produce.

Based on these observations, he found that when the distance between weather stations is divided by the time frame for the change in power output, a solar variability law ensues. "For any pair of stations at any time horizon, this variability law is applicable" says Lave. In other words, the law can be applied to any configuration of photovoltaic systems on an electric grid to quantify the system's variability for any given time frame.

But Lave didn't stop there. He developed an easy-to-use interface in MATLAB that allows grid planners and operators to simulate the variability of photovoltaic systems. Data can be input as a text file, but the interface also allows users to simply draw a polygon around each system on a satellite Google Map. Based on solar radiation measurements at a single sensor on a given day, the model calculates the variability in total output across all systems.

"It is as easy as painting by numbers," said Kleissl. "In Google Maps, photovoltaics show up as dark rectangles on rooftops. Draw some polygons around them, push the button, and out comes the total variability."

Kleissl said he anticipates this tool will be useful to figure out whether problems in voltage fluctuation may occur in power feeder systems with a large amount of photovoltaic arrays. At this point, the solar installations on almost all feeders are still far below the capacity that would cause any major issues. The tool developed by Lave and Kleissl could become key in solar installations in all parts of the world.

The model development was sponsored by DOE's High PV Penetration Program grant 10DE-EE002055. Further information is available at:

https://solarhighpen.energy.gov/project/university_of_california_san_diego and http://solar.ucsd.edu

New Questions arise after the Japanese Nuclear Crisis

2011-03-16T13:40:00.004+05:30

Academics and nuclear experts agree the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors are grave, and the solutions being proposed are last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

Conditions at a stricken nuclear power plant in Japan have deteriorated so much that there is a growing consensus the crisis is greater than the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and there are fears that it could get significantly worse.

All six reactors at the complex have problems; be it blown-out roofs, potentially cracked containment structures, exposed fuel rods or just the risk of explosion that has been great enough to force emergency measures. Of particular concern are a fire in a massive pool holding spent atomic fuel rods and a blast at the building housing the pool and reactor No.4. The pool is exposed to the elements, unlike the reactor core protected in steel and concrete.

The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 was the biggest in U.S. history. Half of the reactor core in one unit melted due to the loss of coolant, though it resulted in no immediate injuries.

The Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986 was the worst in the industry's history, as an explosion led to a cloud of radioactive material being spewed over big parts of Europe.

Several experts said that Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particular on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale against Three Mile at a five and Chernobyl at a seven.

But that rating was issued on Saturday, and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.

In the past few hours alone, the plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, said that a fire broke out at the building housing the No.4 reactor -- the same reactor that houses the troubled spent fuel pool.

Kyodo News reported, citing TEPCO, that the fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor were 70 percent damaged and the rods in the No. 2 reactor were 33 percent damage. Meanwhile, just after 10 a.m. local time Wednesday, Japanese TV reported white smoke coming from the plant.

Separately, Japan's nuclear safety agency said two workers are missing and disclosed that there is a crack in the roof of the same building after an earlier explosion.

Europe's Nuclear Plan under Pressure

Japan's nuclear crisis in the wake of a huge earthquake is likely to increase opposition to plans for a major nuclear expansion in Europe and focus attention on the vast potential costs of a nuclear disaster.

The crisis will reignite concern over nuclear safety as Japan fights to avert a meltdown at crippled nuclear reactors, describing the quake and tsunami, which may have killed more than 10,000 people, as its biggest crisis since World War Two.

The disaster is a setback to the nuclear industry, which is enjoying a renaissance as public fears over nuclear safety have faded along with memories of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States and Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Many countries plan new nuclear power plants, regarding nuclear as a clean alternative to expensive and dwindling oil and gas and saying new technology should allay safety fears.

But anti-nuclear campaigners around Europe have seized on the Japanese accident as evidence of the dangers of nuclear power and said governments should rethink plans for new plants.

"I think it will make a lot of governments, authorities and other planners think twice about planning power stations in seismic areas," said Jan Haverkamp, European Union policy campaigner for environmental group Greenpeace, which opposes new nuclear reactors and wants existing ones phased out.

French reactor maker Areva and nuclear power producers EDF and GDF Suez are important industry players. France's Alstom and Schneider Electric are also active in the sector, as are Switzerland's ABB and Germany's Siemens.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government last year extended the operating lives of Germany's nuclear reactors, said the government was consulting with nuclear experts and watching the situation in Japan closely.

The Japanese radiation leak comes at a difficult time for Merkel, whose conservatives face three state elections in March where nuclear safety fears could help her opponents.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of anti-nuclear protesters formed a 45-km (27 mile) human chain from Stuttgart to a nuclear power plant that will be kept running longer because of the new policy. The protest was planned before the Japanese earthquake.

Oil will be needed to support Japan after the recent earthquake disaster. Russia has promise energy industry support to Japan, the easiest of which to implement is fuel. Clean up is going to take lots of horsepower from fuel. The Japanese electrical grid will be without electricity from nuclear generators for quite sometime. Bloomberg reported that Tokyo Electric is still seeking government approvals for a full restart of the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant (five reactors at 1,067 MW and two at 1,315 MW for a total 7,965 MW), which was shutdown after being damaged by an earthquake in 2007. The company posted its first loss in 28 years after it was forced to buy fossil fuels at record prices to make up for the lost nuclear output.

The Effect on Energy Industry

The 8.9 magnitude earthquake not only wiped out people's belongings in northern Japan, but also destroyed supply chains from various industrials. The nuclear power industry was especially hit hard due to the chain reaction resulting meltdown of the metal containers in the reactors. Numerous organizations and governments around world protect against nuclear energy as a major source of energy on this planet because it is simply not safe in such scale a disaster.

Countries such as USA, China, Japan and Australia are most susceptible to big earthquakes. It is reported that Southern California is way overdue for a big hit, it is not a question of "if" but "when." California has two operating plants: Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, both are vulnerable to earthquakes. This causes serious concerns in the region. Naturally, last week's earthquake changed the mentality of how people should approach renewable energy in the future. We will not likely give up nuclear energy, but the problem is that no safety rule is strict enough to guarantee safe operations if a big earthquake strikes. As a result, nuclear power will likely play a smaller role in the future energy market, while solar and wind energy are much more secure, safer and easy to distribute.

The Effect on Solar Industry

The earthquake also has impact on the solar energy industry. Japan accounts for 1/4th of global solar production, including solar panels and polysilicon. Most of these products are sold in domestic markets, some polysilicon is shipped overseas. The earthquake caused shutdown of production from Sanyo, Panasonic, the Kyocera Corp. and Sharp. Some facilities are not severely damaged, but what impacts the industry is the infrastructure. It is believed that at least 2-3 months will be needed to repair the power grid. Without electricity, the solar industry will remain shutdown for foreseeable future. The supply chain is not there any more. It will even take longer to repair the roads and ports in the northern coast.

Japan may have two weeks of inventory for panels and wafers. M. Setek, a solar wafer supplier, has completely shut down its facilities due to the damage caused by the earthquake. It supplies wafers to Sunpower. Companies benefiting the most are the polysilicon producers such as LDK solar and ReneSola. Both will fill the gaps left by Japanese companies. Sunpower, Sharp and Kyocera will likely have to place orders from LDK and SOL to solve the supply problem, and they may have to pay high price for the wafers. We believe Suntech power, Jinko Solar, and Trina Solar will not be affected by the shortfall, as they have long term contracts in place. Yingli green is a vertical integration company, so it is barely impacted.

The sentiment is shifting towards to solar energy as governments from Japan, China, France, Italy and Germany are considering boosting the solar energy shares in their renewable energy portfolios. People of these countries are putting lots of pressure on politicians to shift their energy policies to favor solar energy. In the next 2-3 months, new policies from the countries of major solar markets are expected to be enacted. The German government has indicated that existing nuclear plantoperations will not be extended as most Germans are opposed to nuclear power. It is certain that leaders in Japan will rigorously set policies to promote solar power as opposed to nuclear power in their next congressional meeting.

Floating Solar Panels: Will it catch up?

2011-02-26T12:04:00.006+05:30

Availability of space is a major problem for Solar Photovoltaic installations. This is more true in the case of big PV Power Plants where space is a constraint. Generally 4 to 5 acres of land area is needed for a MW of PV installation. This means that the total land area needed for a 50 MW installation is 250 acres which is a huge area. This is a concern for PV generation in areas where the density of population is high and the land value is costly. In my country, I faced this problem when I was trying to design a 1 MW Slar PV Power Plant in Thiruvananthapuram City area. We have only some roof tops available which is not sufficient for 1 MW PV module laying. The idea of laying PV modules in dam catchment areas and lakes are not new for the last several years. The important thing is to lay these modules without affecting the living organisms in water and to maintain it scientifically. The following scientific innovation will be interesting for any PV technologist to try and adapt it to suit to their environment after making proper technological changes.

The company Solaris Synergy believes that their invention provides cheaper electricity and better use of the land area.

Solar panels located on water surfaces have the advantage that they easily can be moved according to the sun’s movements and also prevent the water to the solar cells get too hot. A third advantage is that the water temperature is more constant than air temperature. Large temperature differences, such as in a desert is wearing much on solar cells semiconducting components, but this can be avoided by putting solar cells in water. The placement in freshwater prevents solar evaporation and inhibit algae growth.

Solar cells on water will probably be best placed on industrial ponds, for example at a water treatment plant where solar cells could then provide power to operate the treatment plant.

Developed by a Franco-Israeli partnership, this innovative solar power technology introduces a new paradigm in energy production. Solar power plays a dominant role in the world-wide effort to reduce greenhouse gases, it is considered a clean energy and is an efficient source of electricity. Yet several obstacles have been undermining the expansion of this sector and many of its actors are looking for a new approach towards the markets.

Soon after the design phase was over, at the end of March 2010, the fabrication of a prototype began and the team is now aiming to launch the implementation phase in September 2011. The tests will take place at Cadarache, in the South East of France, the site having a privileged position on the French electric grid and being close to a local hydro-electric facility providing the water surface to be used for the installation of the system. It will operate on-site during a period of nine months, while assessing the system's performances and productivity through seasonal changes and various water levels. The research team members believe that by June 2012, they will have all the information required to allow the technology's entry on the market.

As even leading photovoltaic companies struggle to find land on which to install solar power plants, the project team identified the almost untouched potential of solar installations on water. The water basins, on which the plants could be built, are not natural reserves, tourists' resorts or open sea; rather they are industrial water basins already in use for other purposes. By that, it is assured that the new solar plants will not have a negative impact on natural landscapes. "It's a win-win situation," declares Dr. Kassel, "since there are many water reservoirs with energy, industrial or agricultural uses that are open for energy production use."

After solving the question of space, the team also took on the problem of cost. "It sounds magical to combine sun and water to produce electricity, but we also have to prove that it carries a financial logic for the long run," explains Dr. Kassel. The developers were able to reduce the costs linked to the implementation of the technology by two means. First they reduced the quantity of solar cells used thanks to a sun energy concentration system based on mirrors, while keeping steady the amount of power produced.

Secondly, the team used a creative cooling system using the water on which the solar panels are floating. Thanks to this efficient cooling method, the photovoltaic system can use silicon solar cells, which tend to experience problems linked to overheating and need to be cooled down in order to allow the system to work correctly, unlike standard type more expensive cells. The particular type of solar cell used also allows a higher efficiency than the standard ones, achieving both reliability and cost reduction.

Still for the purpose of making the technology efficient and ready to market, the system is designed in such way that on a solar platform it is possible to assemble as many identical modules as needed for the power rating desired. Each module produces a standard amount of 200 kiloWatt electricity, and more power can be achieved by simply adding more modules to the plant.

The team also worked on the environmental impact of the technology. It works in fact as a breathing surface through which oxygen can penetrate to the water. This feature ensures that sufficient oxygen will maintain the underwater life of plants and animals. Dr. Kassel adds: "One of the implementation phase's goals is to closely monitor the possible effects of this new technology on the environment with the help of specialists" and "a preliminary check shows no detrimental environmental impact on water quality, flora or fauna. Our choices of materials were always made with this concern in mind."

*The project results from a collaboration between Solaris Synergy from Israel and the EDF Group from France. EUREKA provided the supporting platform which allowed to enhance both companies' partnership. After receiving the "EUREKA label" the project, called AQUASUN, found also support from the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor.

Floating solar power plants could be placed at hydroelectric plants, which already have infrastructure for electricity production.It is not realistic to place solar cells on the sea as waves will prevent the optimum angle to the sun. My State of Kerala, "The God's Own Country", is blessed with a lot of lakes and rivers. The catchment areas of our major dams can be utilised for PV module laying if we scientifically design the installations without affecting the fishes and other living organisms. This is one of the areas we need to stress upon for small scale generation of power utilising Photovoltaic technology.

From Copenhagen to Cancun

2010-12-24T16:12:00.004+05:30

The December 11 closure of the 16th Conference of the Parties--the COP16 global climate summit--in Cancun in Mexico was portrayed by most participants and mainstream journalists as a victory, a "step forward." U.S. State Department lead negotiator Todd Stern expressed his opinion; "Ideas that were first of all skeletal last year, and not approved, are now approved and elaborated."

Yes.....the Cancun agreements were 'approved' to great celebration from the international community.

The positive reaction is based on reaching an international consensus (though Bolivia dissented) and establishing instruments to manage the climate crisis. Cancun’s defenders argue that the last-hours agreements include acknowledgements that emissions cuts must keep world temperature increases below 2°C, with consideration to be given to lowering the target to 1.5°C.

Negotiators also endorsed greater transparency about emissions, a Green Climate Fund led by the World Bank, introduction of forest-related investments, transfers of technology for renewable energy, capacity building and a strategy for reaching legally binding protocols in future. According to UN climate official Christiana Figueres, formerly a leading carbon trader, "Cancun has done its job. Nations have shown they can work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a common cause."

Bolivian opposition

Bolivia's President Evo Morales complained, "It's easy for people in an air-conditioned room to continue with the policies of destruction of Mother Earth. We need instead to put ourselves in the shoes of families in Bolivia and worldwide who lack water and food, and suffer misery and hunger. People here in Cancún have no idea what it is like to be a victim of climate change."
For Bolivia's UN ambassador Pablo Solon, Cancun "does not represent a step forward, it is a step backwards," because the nonbinding commitments made to reduce emissions by around 15 percent by 2020 simply cannot stabilize temperature at the "level which is sustainable for human life and the life of the planet."

Even greater anger was expressed by civil society activists, including by Meena Raman of the Malaysia-based Third World Network: "The mitigation paradigm has changed from one which is legally binding--the Kyoto Protocol, with an aggregate target which is system-based, science-based--to one which is voluntary, a pledge-and-review system."

But look soberly at what was needed to reverse current warming and what was actually delivered. Negotiators in Cancun’s luxury Moon Palace hotel complex failed by any reasonable measure.

More protests

As El Salvadoran Friends of the Earth leader Ricardo Navarro lamented, "What is being discussed at the Moon does not reflect what happens on Earth”

Most specialists agree that even if the un-ambitious Copenhagen and Cancun promises are kept, the result will be a cataclysmic 4-5°C rise in world temperature over this century, and if they are not, 7°C is likely. Even with a rise of 2°C, scientists generally agree that small islands will sink, Andean and Himalayan glaciers will melt, coastal areas--such as much of Bangladesh and many port cities--will drown, and Africa will dry out, or in some places flood, so much that nine of 10 peasants will not survive.

The politicians and officials have been warned of this often enough by climate scientists, but are beholden to powerful business interests that have lined up to either promote climate denialism, or to generate national-versus-national negotiating blocs destined to fail in their race to gain most emission rights. As a result, in spite of a band-aid set of agreements, the distance between negotiators and the masses of people and the planet grew larger, not smaller, over the last two weeks.

An illusory deal

A report by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, in December 2010 noted that already 350,000 people die from natural disasters related to climate change and that this figure is likely to rise to one million people every year if we don't radically change course. Bolivia was not an obstacle to progress, it was rather the only nation daring enough to tell the truth. Rather than less Bolivias, we need more willing to stand up and say that the agreement was 'naked' and unacceptable. Perhaps if more nations – especially major emerging economies like India and Brazil - had said they would not accept an illusory deal, it could have shocked the world into moving beyond cautious approaches and acting radically for humanity and the planet.

By contrast, the Cancun agreement effectively kills off the Kyoto Protocol and replaces it with a pledge system of voluntary commitments. Not only does this lead to countries only offering what they plan to do anyway, ignoring what science demands; there is absolutely no possibility of legal penalties if a country fails to fulfil its commitments. It is an ineffective and highly dangerous way of tackling one of the biggest crises humanity has faced.

..And finally what Cancun text says

Document effectively kills of the only binding agreement, Kyoto Protocol, in favour of a completely inadequate bottom-up voluntary approach.

Increases loopholes and flexibilities that allow developed countries to avoid action, via an expansion of offsets and continued existence of ‘surplus allowances’ of carbon after 2012 by countries like Ukraine and Russia which effectively cancel out any other reductions.

Finance Commitments weakened: commitment to “provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries have been diluted to talking more vaguely about “mobilising [resources] jointly”, with expectation that this will mainly be provided by carbon markets.

No discussion of Intellectual Property rights, repeatedly raised by many countries, as current rules obstruct transfer of key climate-related technologies to developing countries.

Constant assumption in favour of market mechanisms to resolve climate change even though this perspective is not shared by a number of countries, particularly in Latin America.

Green light given for the controversial REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programme which often ends up perversely rewarding those responsible for deforestation, while dispossessing indigenous and forest dwellers of their land.

Systematic exclusion of proposals that came from the historic World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change including proposals for a Climate Justice Tribunal, full recognition of indigenous rights, and rights for nature.

Bolivia's indefatigable negotiator, Pablo Solon, put it most cogently in the concluding plenary, when he said that the only way to assess whether the agreement had any 'clothes' was to see if it included firm commitments to reduce emissions and whether it was enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Power Generating Mushrooms of South India

2010-12-07T22:32:00.008+05:30

“It is just like a plantation of mushrooms generating energy everywhere!! Amazing to see the ability of local entrepreneurs to repair and maintain the wind turbines of different capacities in Tamilnadu State of India”

Those were the words from Mr. Matthew Matimbwi, the Renewable Energy Engineer from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He was making his programme evaluation remarks during our third phase of the International Training on Wind Power Development and Use in India conducted by the LIFE Academy, Sweden. Earlier we were brought to the Muppandal Wind Farm site in Kanyakumari District of Tamilnadu State for study visits; thanks to Bo Gillgren and Tommy Mansson from LIFE Academy for giving us the opportunity to explore as a team of professionals from different parts of the world.

Mathew’s view was very much right; It is just like a huge plantation of Wind Turbine Mushrooms generating tremendous amount of energy. “Muppandal Wind Farm” in Kanyakumari District of Tamilnadu is the largest Wind Farms in Asia. According to Dr. Joshua Earnest, the installation of Muppandal is next only to the cluster of Wind Turbines installed at the Altamont pass in California. Dr. Joshua, who was our chief faculty during the training, is currently the Professor & Head of the Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research, Bhopal, India.

Muppandal Wind Country

The book titled “Wind Power Plants and Project Development”, jointly authored by Dr. Joshua Earnest and Tore Wizelinius, describes Muppandal Wind Farm as the “Muppandal Wind Country”. Excerpts from the book:

“Muppandal is the key places which go down into the annals of wind power history not only India, but also the world. This is one of the windiest parts of India. The steady flow of wind to these Wind Power Plants is made possible because the Muppandal Wind Farm is situated on a mountain pass in Western Ghats, through which wind is canalised throughout the year. The average wind velocity in this area is about 12 m/s, which is extremely good for wind power generation. The first Wind Farm with 10 Wind Turbine of 55 kW each was installed at Mullakkadu in 1986 and the first private sector Wind Farm was set up in 1990 with two wind turbines of 250 kW each at Muppandal. And more and more wind power have been installed during the years. This is next only to the cluster of Wind Power Plants installed at California in the U.S.A. Today Muppandal is a permanent large exhibition ground spanning several square kilometres, attracting not only the wind farm developers, but also tourists, researchers and everyone interested in seeing different types of wind turbines at a single location"

Present status of Wind Generation in Tamilnadu

According to the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA), the nodal agency for the promoting renewable energy sector, the State has 5,055 MW of wind generation capacity now with private investors accounting for about 5,038 MW. About 17 MW is with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and TEDA.

During the current year, Government estimates indicate that over 645 MW of wind turbines will be added.

In addition, the State is a hub of wind turbine manufacturers with most of the leading global players setting up manufacturing facilities.

They are Suzlon, Vestas, Gamesa, Enercon, RRB Energy, Shriram Leitner, Regen Power … and a bunch of local players many of them based in the engineering hub of Coimbatore which churn out small aero generators of kilowatt capacity.

Together there is a wind turbine manufacturing capability covering a range from 25 KW to 2 MW, say the officials. At current levels of capacity, the industry has actually fully exploited the levels of wind power capacity that had been initially estimated. The potential assessed was then 5,374 MW, they say. But over the years developments in technology, larger size and more efficient turbines have contributed to increasing the potential in this sector which is now grown multi-fold.

Apart from the Government support through the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the supportive approach of the State Government and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board in offering an attractive tariff of Rs 3.39 a unit, and facilities for banking and wheeling and scaling up evacuation infrastructure have helped catalyse investments in this sector. The TNEB is in the process of setting up five 400 kv substations and three 230 KV substations that would address the bottlenecks in evacuation of wind power, says officials.

Background of the Wind Power Development in Tamilnadu

Wind has considerable potential as a global clean energy source being both widely available, though diffuse, and producing no pollution during power generation, Tamil Nadu is endowed with three lengthy mountain ranges on the Western side with potential of 1650 MW in palghat pass in Coimbatore District, 1300 MW in Shengottai pass in Tirunelveli District and 2100 MW in Arelvaymozhi pass in Kanniyakumari District and 450 MW in other areas totalling 5500 MW. We must see that the total achievement in India is 12009 MW.

There are 41 Wind potential sites in 8 Districts in the State, declared by MNRE, as suitable for Wind Power projects based on the Wind assessment studies carried out by TEDA with the funding assistance of MNRE and the State Government. Wind farms have so far been set up in 26 sites of the above, almost entirely by the private sector, except for 19 MW of Demonstration Wind farms in 8 locations set up during 1986 to 1993, jointly by TEDA and TNEB, but now run and maintained by TNEB.

A package of incentives which includes fiscal concessions, custom duty, excise duty exemption and 10 year tax holiday are available for Wind Power projects from Govt. of India. Intra State open access regulations have been notified and preferential tariff orders issued for Wind Power Projects in Tamil Nadu by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC). As per the revised tariff orders issued in May 2006, the rate is Rs.2.75 per unit for the projects for which agreements had already been signed and Rs.2.90 per unit where the agreements are to be signed. The wheeling and banking charges remain unchanged at 5% each.

This amazing success story is a very good case study for all entreprenuers in the world who would like to invest in wind power. It is the result of the hard work of thousand of engineers, technicians, policy makers, project managers and above all the political will of the Government and its people.

The legacy of Herman Scheer

2010-10-20T12:21:00.004+05:30

The words of Mahatma Gandhi - "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"- are a fitting introduction to Herman Scheer's latest book named "Der Energethische Imperativ" (subtitled 100% Now: How the Complete Switch to Renewable Energies Can Be Realised) It sums up his passionate conviction that it was technically and economically feasible for renewable energy to fully replace fossil and nuclear energy within just a few years, if the political will existed. He saw political intransigence as the biggest barrier to achieving this.

Herman Scheer was a true architect of the renewable-energy age, he lived as he preached, powering his home with a windmill.

The sad demise of Herman Scheer last week is a great loss to the people who are passionate about renewable and solar energy.

He never withered under the criticism that his ideas were utopian, and for the past decade was able to enjoy the fact that his views were being taken seriously. Nicknamed the "solar king", the "sun god" and the "solar pope", or - for those who were not complimentary about his environmental goals - the "Stalin of renewables", in 2000 Scheer succeeded in introducing the feed-in tariff, otherwise known as Scheer's law, by which individuals and businesses that generate power through renewable energies are able to sell it back to the grid at above-market prices, thus encouraging the spread of wind, solar and hydro power. The system has been adopted around the world and has contributed to the respect now given to renewable energy, not least because it has encouraged individual participation. A man of considerable energy himself, and also of great impatience, Scheer founded the International Renewable Energy Agency and was president of Eurosolar, the European Association for Renewable Energy.Scheer was never afraid of voicing his views. He often clashed with fellow party members, particularly the erstwhile SPD party leader and former German chancellor Gerhard Schroder, over his decision in the late 90s to back Nato's intervention in Kosovo, which he called a "war crime", to which Schroder responded that he no longer belonged in his party. But his position in the Baden-Wurttemberg SPD was so solid that his future there was never called into question.

Scheer was known internationally for his pro-environmental politics. He was a supporter of renewable energy and wrote many books and articles outlying his ideas. Two in particular, "A Solar Manifesto" and "Solar Economy," are considered leading publications on renewable energy.

Supporting renewable energy earned Scheer many international awards over the years, including the alternative Nobel prize, the Right Livelihood Award, in 1999. Herman Scheer will be remembered for ever due to his contributions to the renewable energy world.

Renewables delivering 18% of the Global Electricity Supply in 2009; according to Renewables 2010 Global Status Report

2010-10-05T19:12:00.009+05:30

By 2010, renewable energy had reached a clear tipping point in the context of global energy supply, concludes the 'Renewables 2010 Global Status Report'. With renewables comprising fully one quarter of global power capacity from all sources and delivering 18% of global electricity supply in 2009, the latest release of the definitive assessment of the state of the global renewable energy industry from the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) details the current status and key trends of global markets, investment, industry and policies related to renewable energy.

Investment in new renewable power capacity continued to increase during 2009, despite challenges posed by the global financial crisis, lower oil prices, and slow progress with climate change policy. For the second year in a row, more money was invested in new renewable power capacity than in new fossil fuel capacity. The renewable generating capacity installed over the past two years accounts for nearly 50% of total generating capacity added to the world's grids over this period.

Furthermore, the rapid adoption beyond the industrialised world means that today more than half of the existing renewable power capacity is in developing countries.

These trends reflect strong growth and investment across all market sectors including power generation, heating and cooling, and transport fuels. Grid-connected solar PV has grown by an average of 60% every year for the past decade, increasing 100-fold since 2000. During the period from year-end 2004 through 2009, consistently high growth year-after-year marked virtually every other renewable technology as well. During those five years, annual growth rates averaged 27% for wind power capacity, 19% for solar water heating, and 20% for ethanol production. Indeed, as other economic sectors declined around the world, existing renewable capacity continued to grow during 2009 at rates close to, or exceeding, those in previous years. Market growth for some technologies - including wind and concentrating solar power, and solar water heating - exceeded their five-year averages in 2009. Annual production of ethanol and biodiesel increased 10% and 9%, respectively, despite layoffs and ethanol plant closures in the United States and Brazil. Biomass and geothermal for power and heat also grew strongly last year.

Much more active policy development during the past several years culminated in a significant policy milestone in early 2010 with more than 100 countries having some type of policy target and/or promotion policy related to renewable energy in place. Most countries have adopted more than one policy and there is a significant diversity of policy mechanisms in use at national, state/provincial and local levels to advance renewable energy. In addition, many of the new targets enacted in the past three years call for shares of energy or electricity from renewables in the 15%-25% range by 2020.

Renewable Energy Extends Its Reach

Recent trends also reflect the increasing significance of developing countries in advancing renewable energy. Collectively, developing countries now account for almost half of the countries with some sort of policy to promote renewable power generation, and they have more than half of global renewable power capacity. Today China leads the world in several indicators of market growth. India ranks fifth worldwide in total existing wind power capacity and is rapidly expanding many forms of rural renewables such as biogas and solar PV, while Brazil produces virtually all of the world's sugar-derived ethanol and has been adding new biomass and wind power plants. Renewables markets are growing at rapid rates in several other developing countries such as Argentina, Costa Rica, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay, to name a few.

The geography of renewable energy is changing in ways that suggest a new era of geographic diversity. For example, wind power existed in just a handful of countries in the 1990s but now operates in over 82 countries. Outside of Europe and the US, other developed countries like Australia, Canada and Japan are seeing recent gains and broader technology diversification. The developing world is experiencing a similar trend and, for example, today at least 20 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa have active renewable energy markets. This geographic diversity is boosting confidence that renewables are less vulnerable to market dislocations in any specific country.

Meanwhile, leadership in manufacturing is shifting from Europe to Asia as countries like China, India and South Korea continue to increase their commitments to renewable energy. In 2009, firms in China produced 40% of the world's solar PV cell supply, 30% of the world's wind turbines (up from 10% in 2007), and 77% of the world's solar hot water collectors.

Renewables Investment Remains Robust

Greatly increased investment from both public-sector and development banks is also driving renewables development. Excluding large hydro, total investment in renewable energy capacity was about US$150 billion in 2009, up from the revised $130 billion recorded in 2008. Investment in new renewable power capacity in both 2008 and 2009 represented over half of total global investment in new power generation. However, investment in utility-scale renewable energy additions dropped 6% in 2009 from the 2008 level, despite 'green stimulus' efforts by many of the world's major economies and increased investments from development banks in Europe, Asia and South America.

All told, again excluding large hydro, the world invested $101 billion in new utility-scale renewable energy development in 2009, compared with $108 billion in 2008. In 2009 there was also investment of some $50 billion worldwide in small-scale projects such as rooftop solar PV and solar hot water. An additional $40-$45 billion was invested in large hydropower.

Renewable energy companies invested billions of dollars in plant and equipment to manufacture solar modules, wind turbines and other generating devices during 2009. Venture capital and private equity investment in clean energy companies totalled $4.5 billion, down from $9.5 billion in 2008, while public market investment in quoted clean energy firms reached $12.8 billion, up from $11.8 billion. Government and corporate research, development, and deployment spending on clean energy technology in 2009 is estimated at $24.6 billion, up around 2% from 2008, the bulk (68%) of which went to energy-efficiency technologies.

Germany and China were the investment leaders in 2009, each spending roughly $25-$30 billion on new renewables capacity, including small hydro. They were followed by the US, investing over $15 billion, and Italy and Spain with about $4-$5 billion each.

The wind energy sector continued to be the hands-down leader, receiving 62% of the global total invested - $62.7 billion in 2009, up from $55.5 billion the year before. Most of the growth was due to China's rapid capacity expansion, increased investment activity in the wind sector in Latin America, and a handful of large utility-backed offshore wind deals in the UK.

These gains were offset by a $5.6 billion drop in solar power asset investment, to $17.1 billion in 2009, and a plunge in biofuels spending, down to $5.6 billion from $15.4 billion in 2008. Lower investment in PV in 2009 was due to several factors. One was the behaviour of prices along the value chain, with PV module prices falling by some 50% over the year, bringing the dollar value of financial investment down with them. Other factors included the Spanish government's cap on PV project development at the end of the boom associated with the pre-September 2008 tariff, and the shortage of debt finance for utility-scale projects in Europe and the US, which also affected wind farms. Concerns about scheduled reductions in feed-in tariff support for PV in some countries actually spurred on developers rather than holding them back. Indeed, Germany witnessed a spectacular end-of-2009 spurt in small-scale PV project construction.

In 2007, biofuels commanded 22% of global asset finance, with investment totalling $19.6 billion. However, the sector slipped to $15.4 billion in spending in 2008 and just $5.6 billion in 2009, representing only 5% of global project investment. An oversupply in US ethanol continued to smother investment in the biofuels sector in 2009. Things may soon turn around as both Brazil and the United States continue to follow ambitious biofuels targets. Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras has moved into the ethanol sector, and US plants bought under bankruptcy auctions in 2008 and 2009 have begun slowly to resume operation.

The decline in asset investment in biofuels relegated the sector to fourth place among the renewable energy sectors in 2009. Stepping up to third place, after wind and solar, was biomass (including waste-to-energy), with a rise in investment to $10.4 billion, from $9 billion in 2008.

In Europe, Brazil and elsewhere, the brightest feature for project investors during 2009 was the expanded role of public sector banks. The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Germany's KfW Banking Group, in particular, significantly raised their lending to renewable energy. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) played an active role in project finance, albeit not on the scale of the EIB and KfW, as did the Brazilian National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES) for Brazilian projects (though its lending declined relative to 2008 levels).

This strong contribution by the public sector was all the more needed, because many commercial banks - from Europe to the United States and elsewhere - found it impossible to sustain the 2008 level of lending to renewable energy projects. Overall, development assistance for renewables in developing countries surged in 2009, up to $5 billion from $2 billion in 2008. For example, the World Bank Group, including the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), saw the largest increase to date in finance from previous years. Finance rose fivefold in 2009 as $1.38 billion were committed to new renewables (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro below 10 MW) and another $177 million to large hydropower.

Expanding the Reach of Policies and Targets

Growth in renewables is inevitably supported through government policy. Renewable energy policies existed in a few countries in the 1980s and early 1990s, but policy support began to emerge in many more countries, states, provinces, and cities during the period 1998-2005, and even more so during 2005-2010.

Many countries have adopted national targets for shares of electricity production. Targets are typically for 5%-30% of electricity from renewable sources, but they range from 2%-90%. Many historical targets have aimed for the 2010-2012 timeframe, but targets aiming for 2020 and beyond have multiplied in recent years.

Developing nations now make up more than half of the countries worldwide with renewable energy targets. The 'Renewables 2007 Global Status Report' counted 22 developing countries with targets, a figure that had expanded to 45 by early 2010. Developing countries' targets are also becoming increasingly ambitious. For example, China aims for 15% of final energy consumption from renewables by 2020, even as total energy demand continues to grow at nearly double-digit annual rates.

Several countries have adopted targets at state/provincial and regional levels - and at other levels as well - with many mandated through renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and other policies.

In 2008, all 27 EU countries confirmed national targets for 2020, following a 2007 EU-wide target of 20% of final energy by 2020. It appears that many countries won't meet their 2010 targets by the end of the year, although this won't be known immediately due to data lags. Nonetheless, some EU countries were close to or had already achieved various types of national 2010 targets early in the year, including France, Germany, Latvia, Spain and Sweden.

City and local governments around the world are also enacting renewable energy promotion policies. Hundreds of cities and local governments have established future targets for renewables; urban planning that incorporates renewables into city development; building codes that mandate or promote renewables; tax credits and exemptions; purchases of renewable power or fuels for public buildings and transit; innovative electric utility policies; subsidies, grants, or loans; and many information and promotion activities.

Supporting Renewable Electricity Generation

At least 83 countries - 41 developed/transition countries and 42 developing countries - have some type of policy to promote renewable power generation. The 10 most common policy types are feed-in tariffs (FiTs), renewable portfolio standards, capital subsidies or grants, investment tax credits, sales tax or VAT exemptions, green certificate trading, direct energy production payments or tax credits, net metering, direct public investment or financing, and public competitive bidding.

The most common policy currently in use is the feed-in tariff, which has been enacted in many new countries and regions in recent years. By early 2010, at least 50 countries and 25 states/provinces had adopted FiTs over the years, more than half of which have been enacted since 2005.

Strong momentum for feed-in tariffs (FiTs) continues around the world as countries enact new policies or revise existing ones. For example, France adopted a tariff for building-integrated PV that was among the highest in the world (€0.42-€0.58/kWh). Other countries that adopted or updated FiTs included the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Slovenia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine and the UK. In some countries, tariffs were reduced in response to technology cost reductions, market slowdowns and concerns about foreign manufacturer market share; indeed, reductions were more prevalent in 2009 and early 2010 than in previous years.

Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) - also called renewable obligations or quota policies - exist at the state/province level in the US, Canada and India, and at the national level in 10 countries: Australia, Chile, China, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK. Globally, 56 states provinces, or countries had RPS policies in place by early 2010. Most RPS policies require renewable power shares in the range of 5%-20%, typically by 2010 or 2012, although more recent policies are extending targets to 2015, 2020 and 2025. Most RPS targets translate into large expected future investments in renewable generation, although the specific means (and effectiveness) of achieving quotas can vary greatly across countries or states.

Investment tax credits, import duty reductions and/or other tax incentives are also common means for providing financial support at the national level in many countries, and at the state level in the United States, Canada and Australia. Many tax credits apply to a broad range of renewable energy technologies, such as Indonesia's new 5% tax credit adopted in early 2010, and a new 2009 policy in the Philippines for seven-year income tax exemptions and zero-VAT rates for renewable energy projects.

Energy production payments or credits, sometimes called 'premiums', also exist in a handful of countries while capital subsidies and tax credits have been particularly instrumental in supporting solar PV markets. Net metering (also called net billing) is an important policy for rooftop solar PV and laws now exist in at least 10 countries - including a growing number of developing countries. A few jurisdictions are also begining to mandate solar PV in selected types of new construction through building codes.

Basis for Optimism

Almost all renewable energy industries experienced manufacturing growth in 2009. It must be conceded, however, that many capital expansion plans were scaled back or postponed.

The REN21 Renewables 2010 Global Status Report reveals that for the second year in a row, in both the United States and Europe, more renewable power capacity was added than conventional power capacity from fossil fuels or nuclear. China added a staggering 37 GW of renewable power generation capacity in 2009, more than any other country in the world, to reach 226 GW installed. Globally, nearly 80 GW of renewable power capacity was added, including 31 GW of hydro and 48 GW of non-hydro capacity.

Indeed, wind power additions reached a record high of 38 GW - China was the top market, with 13.8 GW added. Solar PV additions reached a record high of 7 GW - Germany was the top market, with 3.8 GW added. And many countries saw record biomass use - notable was Sweden, where biomass accounted for a larger share of energy supply than oil for the first time. And biofuels production contributed the energy equivalent of 5% of world gasoline in 2009.

Even the most cynical observer must acknowledge this is a success story by any means, let alone under the current economic climate. Renewable energy is now breaking into the mainstream of energy markets thanks to hundreds of new government policies, accelerating private and public investment, and numerous technology advances achieved since the first Renewables Global Status report was released in 2005.

Despite the continuing advances highlighted in this year's report, the world has tapped only a fraction of the vast renewable energy resources available to us. Further strengthening of policy support can help drive the massive scale up in renewables needed for the sector to play a major role in building a stable, secure and enduring low-carbon global economy.

Ref: REN Renewables 2010 Global Status Report

PV Manufacturers globally produced an impressive 51% increase in 2009 from the year before.

2010-09-25T23:02:00.006+05:30

Solar photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturers produced a record 10,700 megawatts of PV cells globally in 2009—an impressive 51-percent increase from the year before. While growth in 2009 slowed from the remarkable 89-percent expansion in 2008, it continued the rapid rise of an industry that first reached 1,000 megawatts of production in 2004. By the end of 2009, nearly 23,000 megawatts of PV had been installed worldwide, enough to power 4.6 million U.S. homes. Solar PV, the world’s fastest-growing power technology, now generates electricity in more than 100 countries.
Made of semiconductor materials, PV cells convert solar radiation directly into electricity. Rectangular panels consisting of numerous PV cells can be linked into arrays of various sizes and power output capabilities—from rooftop systems of one to several kilowatts to ground-mounted arrays of hundreds or even thousands of megawatts. (One megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts.)

There are two broad categories of PV: crystalline silicon and thin-film. Crystalline silicon cells account for more than 80 percent of the annual PV market. But thin-film PV, a relatively new technology that is less efficient but also less expensive to make and potentially adaptable to more applications, is gaining ground. In fact, First Solar, a thin-film company headquartered in Arizona but with most of its production capacity in Malaysia, was the top PV manufacturing firm in 2009, contributing roughly 10 percent of world PV production.

China produced 3,800 megawatts of PV in 2009, leading all countries for the second straight year. Together China and third place Taiwan accounted for 49 percent of all PV manufacturing, a share that should keep climbing as companies there grow larger and more quickly than competitors based in countries where operating costs are higher. Rounding out the top five producers in 2009 were Japan in second place, Germany in fourth, and the United States in fifth.These traditional industry leaders have lost significant market share with the recent ascent of China and Taiwan. Indeed, Japan, which dominated the global market in 2004, controls just 14 percent today.

While China now manufactures more than a third of the world’s PV cells, most Chinese consumers cannot yet afford the technology. Ninety-five percent of its production is exported, much of it bound for Germany, the world leader in using PV. Germany installed a record 3,800 megawatts of PV in 2009, more than half the 7,200 megawatts added worldwide. This brought Germany’s overall PV generating capacity to 9,800 megawatts, nearly three times as much as the next closest country, Spain. Already in the first half of 2010, Germany added another 3,800 megawatts.

Italy was first runner-up in newly installed PV in 2009 with 730 megawatts, more than doubling its total installed capacity. Japan and the United States, third and fourth in both new and overall PV generating capacity, each installed close to 500 megawatts in 2009.

World installed PV capacity has grown 16-fold over the past decade in large part due to government incentives encouraging the use of solar power. Although PV production and installation costs have fallen substantially over time, government support will be necessary until solar reaches grid parity (price competitiveness) with heavily subsidized fossil fuels. Incorporating fossil fuels’ largely externalized costs, such as climate change and pollution-related illnesses, into the price of fossil-generated electricity would further accelerate PV’s march to grid parity.

The most important solar incentive to date is the feed-in tariff, which guarantees generators of renewable electricity—including homeowners, private firms, and utilities—a long-term purchase price for each kilowatt-hour they produce. This powerful incentive to invest in renewables has now been adopted by some 50 countries, including Ecuador, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Pakistan, Thailand, and most of the European Union. Deutsche Bank estimates that feed-in tariffs had driven 75 percent of world PV installations as of 2008.

Nowhere has the feed-in tariff been more effective than in Germany. In a country that on average receives about as much sunlight as cloudy Seattle, this premium payment for solar electricity has not only spurred Germany to preeminence in installed PV capacity, it has also helped grow a domestic solar industry with more than 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in annual sales.

With PV system prices plummeting, including a 30-percent drop in 2009 alone, the German government announced in mid-2010 that in order to control costs and bring support levels in line with market conditions, it would reduce tariff rates further than the annual cuts originally stipulated by law. While industry stakeholders warn of job losses and reduced demand, the government believes that other changes, including allowing larger systems to qualify for the premium, will ensure further growth. Electricity from PV could reach grid parity in Germany by 2013.

The United States, where total PV connected to the grid is doubling every two years, has no national feed-in policy. Instead, federal tax credits along with various state and local programs, including renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require utilities to get a certain percentage of the electricity they sell from renewables, have been the main drivers of U.S. PV growth. With an RPS mandating 33-percent renewable electricity by 2020, California has 60 percent of the total 1,260 megawatts of grid-tied PV in the United States. Although this state still leads by a wide margin, others are growing more rapidly. Five states doubled their installed PV in 2009, including Florida, home of the new 25-megawatt DeSoto plant, currently the country’s largest PV park.

While interest in small-scale installations keeps growing in industrial and developing countries, the PV landscape is evolving to include utility-scale, multiple-megawatt solar parks of the DeSoto variety. In September 2010, a newly-expanded 80-megawatt park in Ontario, Canada, overtook a plant in central Spain to become the largest operational PV power plant in the world. Spain and Germany currently account for 8 of the top 10 plants, but that list could soon change dramatically as ambitious projects in other countries come online. China, with scarcely 300 megawatts of installed PV at the end of 2009, has a pipeline of large projects worth a total of 12,000 megawatts. The United States has 23 projects ranging from 100 to 5,000 megawatts under development in the arid Southwest. But these simply scratch the surface of that region's potential: harnessing a mere 2.5 percent of the annual solar radiation striking the Southwestern land suitable for solar power plants could produce as much energy as the country currently uses.

India also is bidding to become a major player in the solar market, having announced its Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission in November 2009. Named for India’s first prime minister, the Mission envisions 20,000 megawatts of grid-connected solar power and 2,000 megawatts of distributed, off-grid solar installations by 2022. The planned capacity build-out will be roughly half PV and half concentrating solar thermal power, another budding solar technology. If India meets its target, it would be a tremendous boost for a country with vast solar resources but an estimated 400 million people who lack electricity.

Even with the lingering effects of the global recession, more than 16,000 megawatts of PV are slated to be installed in 2010. Germany will likely again account for half of the newly added capacity, as developers rush to finish projects before cuts in the feed-in tariff fully take hold. Beyond 2010, analysts expect annual PV installations to be more evenly distributed among an expanding roster of countries. With costs dropping, economies of scale growing, and governments realizing the benefits of this limitless, climate-friendly resource, the future for solar power looks bright.

Ref: Earth Poilcy Institute

New Antenna made of Carbon Nanotubes could make Photovoltaic Cells more Efficient, according to MIT Researchers.

2010-09-14T22:55:00.003+05:30

Using carbon nanotubes (hollow tubes of carbon atoms), MIT chemical engineers have found a way to concentrate solar energy 100 times more than a regular photovoltaic cell. Such nanotubes could form antennas that capture and focus light energy, potentially allowing much smaller and more powerful solar arrays.

"Instead of having your whole roof be a photovoltaic cell, you could have little spots that were tiny photovoltaic cells, with antennas that would drive photons into them," says Michael Strano, the Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and leader of the research team.

Strano and his students describe their new carbon nanotube antenna, or "solar funnel," in the Sept. 12 online edition of the journal Nature Materials. Lead authors of the paper are postdoctoral associate Jae-Hee Han and graduate student Geraldine Paulus (pictured above).

Their new antennas might also be useful for any other application that requires light to be concentrated, such as night-vision goggles or telescopes.

Solar panels generate electricity by converting photons (packets of light energy) into an electric current. Strano's nanotube antenna boosts the number of photons that can be captured and transforms the light into energy that can be funneled into a solar cell.

The antenna consists of a fibrous rope about 10 micrometers (millionths of a meter) long and four micrometers thick, containing about 30 million carbon nanotubes. Strano's team built, for the first time, a fiber made of two layers of nanotubes with different electrical properties — specifically, different bandgaps.

In any material, electrons can exist at different energy levels. When a photon strikes the surface, it excites an electron to a higher energy level, which is specific to the material. The interaction between the energized electron and the hole it leaves behind is called an exciton, and the difference in energy levels between the hole and the electron is known as the bandgap.

The inner layer of the antenna contains nanotubes with a small bandgap, and nanotubes in the outer layer have a higher bandgap. That's important because excitons like to flow from high to low energy. In this case, that means the excitons in the outer layer flow to the inner layer, where they can exist in a lower (but still excited) energy state.

Therefore, when light energy strikes the material, all of the excitons flow to the center of the fiber, where they are concentrated. Strano and his team have not yet built a photovoltaic device using the antenna, but they plan to. In such a device, the antenna would concentrate photons before the photovoltaic cell converts them to an electrical current. This could be done by constructing the antenna around a core of semiconducting material.

The interface between the semiconductor and the nanotubes would separate the electron from the hole, with electrons being collected at one electrode touching the inner semiconductor, and holes collected at an electrode touching the nanotubes. This system would then generate electric current. The efficiency of such a solar cell would depend on the materials used for the electrode, according to the researchers.

Strano's team is the first to construct nanotube fibers in which they can control the properties of different layers, an achievement made possible by recent advances in separating nanotubes with different properties.

While the cost of carbon nanotubes was once prohibitive, it has been coming down in recent years as chemical companies build up their manufacturing capacity. "At some point in the near future, carbon nanotubes will likely be sold for pennies per pound, as polymers are sold," says Strano. "With this cost, the addition to a solar cell might be negligible compared to the fabrication and raw material cost of the cell itself, just as coatings and polymer components are small parts of the cost of a photovoltaic cell."

Strano's team is now working on ways to minimize the energy lost as excitons flow through the fiber, and on ways to generate more than one exciton per photon. The nanotube bundles described in the Nature Materials paper lose about 13 percent of the energy they absorb, but the team is working on new antennas that would lose only 1 percent.

REf: MIT News Office

Sweden is a world leader in the field of Bio Energy

2010-09-02T11:01:00.004+05:30

As part of the International Training Programme on "Wind Energy Development and Use" conducted by LIFE Academy and sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Sweden, I had a chance to visit the local Bio Gas Plant at Halland region in Sweden. The Biogas Plant has a 300 cumic meter digester for anaerobic digestion. A mixture of cow dung and vegetable wastes are the main waste feeds in the Plant. The main feature of the Biogas Plant is a Biogas upgrading unit which is used to upgrade a 58% Methane Biogas to a 96% Methane Biogas. After the upgradation the carbon dioxide content in the Biogas is reduced from 37% to 4% and other unwanted gases are initially 5% and later reduced to 0%. This upgraded Biogas is used as the fuel for vehicles in Sweden. I could see a lot of buses and cars running in Sweden utilising Biogas as fuel. In the southern Swedish city of Malmo almost all the buses are powered with Biogas. The whole unit has got a cute Sterling Engine for electricity generation as well.

Newly published energy statistics for 2009 show that bioenergy today makes up a larger share of Sweden’s energy use than oil: 31.7 percent bioenergy compared to 30.8 oil.

The numbers are based on preliminary statistics from the Swedish Energy Agency and were presented by Svebio – the Swedish Bioenergy Association. The final energy use includes all sectors of the Swedish society: industry, transport, residential, services, etc.

Svebios analyses also shows that the total share of renewable energy, using the definition in EU:s renewable energy directive (RED), was 46.3 percent in 2009. This is well ahead of the EU target trajectory, and only 3.7 percent short of the EU target for Sweden of 49 percent in 2020. The major renewable energy source beside bioenergy is hydropower. Wind power is still a relatively small contributor to the energy supply.

The main reason for the fast increase of renewable energy in recent years is the steady growth of bioenergy use. Biomass is the primary energy source in the district heating sector, which supplies more than half of the total heat demand in the residential sector. The use of by-products and residues in the forest industry is another major component. Bioelectricity has expanded both with combined heat and power plants in district heating and in the forest industry. Pellets and fuelwood play a major role in heating of single homes. Finally, more than 5 percent of transport fuels are biofuels – ethanol, biodiesel and biogas. In all, the Swedish bioenergy business sector is in a phase of strong expansion, which is confirmed by the statistics.

This was very interesting to me because of the potential of biogas plants in India. In India we have got 42.6 lakhs Family Type Biogas Plants (up to 30th June 2010, according the Minstry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Website, Govt. of India). However the total capacity or the other statistics of Community based biogas plants is unknown. In India , most of the Biogas Plants are producing Raw Biogas which is generally used for cooking purposes. In some cases electricity is generated for lighting purposes without proper upgradation. The Biogas upgradation technology and the potential of upgradation is very important if we are using biogas as a fuel for transportation. This is has to be brought to the attention of researchers, investers and project developers who want to invest in India in the Biogas sector.

Americans Using Less Energy and More Renewables

2010-09-01T00:28:00.007+05:30

The United States has significantly reduced their energy consumption and making use of more renewable energy sources.

The United States used significantly less coal and petroleum in 2009 than in 2008, and significantly more wind power. There also was a decline in natural gas use and increases in solar, hydro and geothermal power according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

"Energy use tends to follow the level of economic activity, and that level declined last year. At the same time, higher efficiency appliances and vehicles reduced energy use even further," said A.J. Simon, an LLNL energy systems analyst who develops the energy flow charts using data provided by the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.

"As a result, people and businesses are using less energy in general."

The estimated U.S. energy use in 2009 equaled 94.6 quadrillion BTUs ("quads"), down from 99.2 quadrillion BTUs in 2008. (A BTU or British Thermal Unit is a unit of measurement for energy, and is equivalent to about 1.055 kilojoules).

Energy use in the residential, commercial, industrial and transportation arenas all declined by .22, .09, 2.16 and .88 quads, respectively.

Wind power increased dramatically in 2009 to.70 quads of primary energy compared to .51 in 2008. Most of that energy is tied directly to electricity generation and thus helps decrease the use of coal for electricity production.

"The increase in renewables is a really good story, especially in the wind arena," Simon said. "It's a result of very good incentives and technological advancements. In 2009, the technology got better and the incentives remained relatively stable. The investments put in place for wind in previous years came online in 2009. Even better, there are more projects in the pipeline for 2010 and beyond."

The significant decrease in coal used to produce electricity can be attributed to three factors: overall lower electricity demand, a fuel shift to natural gas, and an offset created by more wind power production, according to Simon.

Nuclear energy use remained relatively flat in 2009. No new plants were added or taken offline in this interval, and the existing fleet operated slightly less than in 2008.

Of the 94.6 quads consumed, only 39.97 ended up as energy services. Energy services, such as lighting and machinery output, are harder to estimate than fuel consumption, Simon said.

"The reduction in the use of natural gas, coal and petroleum is commensurate with a reduction in carbon emissions," he said. "Simply said, people are doing less stuff. Therefore, they're burning less fuel."

Ref: DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

New Photovoltaic Test Center opens in India

2010-08-31T19:01:00.003+05:30

As India’s National Solar Mission starts to take effect, with solar capacity increasing rapidly across the country, TUV Rheinland has opened its seventh laboratory worldwide for testing solar modules and systems. The test facility is located in Electronics City in Bangalore.

The world leader in independent safety and quality testing for solar modules has invested €2 million in the new solar test centre, which in particular will offer services to India's growing solar industry.

In this way, TUV Rheinland is filling a significant gap for Indian industry, which previously did not have access to large test facilities on such a scale. The test centre has 2,000 square metres of space, including an outside test field of 500 square metres, with equipment such as five climate chambers and two sun simulators. This makes it one of the most up to date PV testing laboratories in the entire South Asian economic area.

"Our investment programme for the solar industry aims to place our services within easy reach of companies in and for all booming markets and to offer them large test capacities. India cannot be neglected here. In addition, all our customers can call upon the decades of expertise gained by our now 180 experts around the world to test and certify systems, modules and components", declared Friedrich Hecker, CEO of TUV Rheinland AG. This is made possible by the extremely close interlinking of all seven of TUV Rheinland's test laboratories. This goes for both photovoltaics and solar thermal technology.

Quality and safety testing

The new test centre located in Electronics City strengthens TUV Rheinland's service offering in India for solar power stations, encompassing planning, consulting, operation and maintenance. In addition, services will be provided for ensuring the quality and safety of modules and components, as well as monitoring production quality. When testing and certifying according to IEC and other international standards, the experts in the laboratory can make use of the latest test facilities.

Around 80% of all solar module manufacturers have their products tested at TUV Rheinland in order to obtain national and international certification. TUV Rheinland operates test laboratories for solar modules worldwide and aside from Bangalore, has test centres in Germany (Cologne), Shanghai, the Taiwanese city of Taichun, in Tempe, Arizona and two facilities in Yokohama (GTAC and SEAC) which recently expanded their accreditations and now include ANSI/UL 1703. All laboratories comply with the latest technical standards, as they have been launched or modernised in the last 24 months.

"All our laboratories are working closely together and contribute to our global PV business. We are delighted about the opening of the new Indian facility which will enable us to cover the expanding demand and expected growth in the Asian region and continue to offer tailor made solutions that suit the needs of our customers", says Mr. Stefan Kiehn, Head of the PV testing facilities at TUV Rheinland Japan.

TUV Rheinland is a leading group for the provision of technical services worldwide. It has over 490 locations in 61 countries on all five continents. Its workforce of 13,850is dedicated to the sustainable development of safety and quality standards. The motivating factor for TUV Rheinland employees is the conviction that without technical progress, society and industry cannot grow. For this very reason, using technical innovations, products and equipment in a safe, responsible manner is of decisive importance.

Ref: http://www.tuv.com/in/en/index.html

Breakthrough in Thin-Film Solar Cells

2010-07-30T14:39:00.003+05:30

Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Mainz have made a major breakthrough in their search for more efficient thin-film solar cells. Computer simulations designed to investigate the so-called indium/gallium puzzle have highlighted a new way of increasing the efficiency of CIGS thin-film solar cells. Researchers to date have achieved only about 20% efficiency with CIGS cells although efficiency levels of 30% are theoretically possible.

Thin-film solar cells are gaining an ever increasing proportion of the solar cell market. As they are only a few micrometers thick, they offer savings on material and manufacturing costs. Currently, the highest level of efficiency of about 20% is achieved by CIGS thin-film solar cells, which absorb the sunlight through a thin layer made of copper, indium, gallium, selenium, and sulphur. However, the levels of efficiency achieved to date are nowhere near the levels theoretically possible.

The research team at Mainz University headed by Professor Dr Claudia Felser is using computer simulations to investigate the characteristics of CIGS, whose chemical formula is Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2. This research forms part of the comCIGS project funded by the Federal German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU). IBM Mainz and Schott AG are collaborating with the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Helmholtz Center Berlin for Materials and Energy and Jena University in the project that is targeted at finding ways of optimizing CIGS solar cells. The researchers focused in particular on the indium/gallium puzzle that has been baffling scientists for years: Although it has been postulated on the basis of calculations that the optimal indium:gallium ratio should be 30:70, in practice, the maximum efficiency level has been achieved with the exactly inverse ratio of 70:30.

With the support of IBM Mainz, Christian Ludwig of Professor Felser's team undertook new calculations with the help of a hybrid method in which he used a combination of density functional calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. "Density functional calculations make it possible to assess the energies of local structures from the quantum mechanical point of view. The results can be used to determine temperature effects over wide length scale ranges with the help of Monte-Carlo simulations," Dr Thomas Gruhn, head of the theory group in Professor Felser's team, explains the methods used. Christian Ludwig is able to use a mainframe for his investigations that was recently donated to Mainz University by IBM as part of a Shared University Research (SUR) science award.

Production at high temperatures promotes homogeneity of the material

With the aid of the simulations, it was discovered that the indium and gallium atoms are not distributed evenly in the CIGS material. There is a phase that occurs at just below normal room temperature in which the indium and gallium are completely separate. If the material is heated to above this demixing temperature, differently sized clusters of indium and gallium atoms do form. The higher the temperature, the more homogeneous the material becomes. It has now become apparent that gallium-rich CIGS is always less homogeneous than indium-rich CIGS. Because of this lack of homogeneity, the optoelectronic properties of the gallium-rich material are poorer, resulting in the low efficiency levels of gallium-rich CIGS cells -- an effect that has now been explained for the first time. The calculations also provide a concrete indication of the best way to manufacture CIGS solar cells. If it is produced at higher temperatures, the material is significantly more homogeneous. To retain the desired homogeneity, the material then needs to be cooled down sufficiently rapidly.

In practice, it was the limited heat resistance of the glass used as a substrate for solar cells that has always restricted process temperatures, but a significant breakthrough has also recently been made here. Schott AG has developed a special glass with which the process temperature can be increased to well above 600°C. The cells that result from this process are considerably more homogeneous, meaning that the production of cells with a much greater efficiency level has become possible. But the comCIGS project researchers are already thinking ahead of this. "We are currently working on large-format solar cells which should outperform conventional cells in terms of efficiency," states Gruhn. "The prospects look promising."

The work of the scientists in Mainz, conducted as part of the federal government-funded comCIGS project, has been published in the latest edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Journal Reference:

1.Christian Ludwig, Thomas Gruhn, Claudia Felser, Tanja Schilling, Johannes Windeln, Peter Kratzer. Indium-Gallium Segregation in CuIn_{x}Ga_{1-x}Se_{2}: An Ab Initio%u2013Based Monte Carlo Study

IRENA becomes a fully fledged International Organisation

2010-07-08T17:20:00.003+05:30

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) becomes a fully fledged International Organization. Created in January 2009 with 75 Member States, IRENA has grown in just over a year to become one of the largest international organizations. 147 countries and the European Union already signed its statute.

The 25th instrument of ratification was deposited in Berlin on June 8th and according to Article XIX, the treaty enters into force 30 days after. 29 Member States have now ratified the Treaty.

In June 2009, Abu Dhabi was elected as IRENA’s Headquarters. The first international organization of the 21st century is also the first to be headquartered in the Gulf Region. Hélène Pelosse, Interim Director-General comments, “With 98 billion barrels, Abu Dhabi is the 7th proven oil reserve in the world. Nevertheless Abu Dhabi is committed to achieve 7% renewable energy in 2020 and to invest 10% of its GDP in Masdar, a zero carbon city. The United Arab Emirates are IRENA’s home and this far sighted country has continuously proved a very strong support for the Agency”.

Hélène Pelosse was elected as Interim Director-General one year ago at the age of 39. Mother of three, she states, “We cannot rely on energy of the past to power our future. Now renewables account for 18% of world electricity production but potential scenarios show it can reach 50% or even higher. It is the only energy source which can serve the needs of the predicted nine billion earth population in 2050”.

Improving the renewable energy share in the energy mix is a direct way of tackling climate change and GHG emission reduction. Whilst also encouraging energy security and independence. Furthermore, it also offers strong support for both economic and social growth.

The International Renewable Energy Agency is aiming to become the global voice for renewable energy. The Agency’s mandate is to assist its Member States define their strategy across the fields of all renewable energies: bioenergy, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, solar and wind.

Switching off your lights has a bigger impact, according to a new study

2010-07-03T18:09:00.004+05:30

We supported the Earth Hour 2010 by switching off our lights on March 27. During the hour people across the world turned off their lights and joined a common movement to protect our climate and combat global warming.

Earth Hour was organized by WWF, one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations on a mission to stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment and build a future where people live in harmony with nature.

Switching off lights, turning the television off at the mains and using cooler washing cycles could have a much bigger impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power stations than previously thought, according to a new study published this month in the journal Energy Policy. The study shows that the figure used by government advisors to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide saved by reducing people's electricity consumption is up to 60 percent too low.

The power stations that supply electricity vary in their carbon dioxide emission rates, depending on the fuel they use: those that burn fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) have higher emissions than those driven by nuclear power and wind. In general only the fossil fuel power stations are able to respond instantly to changes in electricity demand.

Dr Adam Hawkes, the author of the new study from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, says the government should keep track of changing carbon emission rates from power stations to ensure that policy decisions for reducing emissions are based on robust scientific evidence. The new study suggests that excluding power stations with low carbon emission rates, such as wind and nuclear power stations, and focussing on those that deal with fluctuating demand would give a more accurate emission figure.

Scientists advising government on for the best ways to reduce electricity demand currently use an estimated figure for emission rates. The new study shows that, at 0.43 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed, this figure is 60 percent lower than the actual rates observed between 2002 and 2009 (0.69 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour), meaning that policy studies are underestimating the impact of people reducing their electricity use.

Dr Adam Hawkes, author of the paper, and a Visiting Fellow at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, said: "One way governments are trying to mitigate the effects of climate change is to encourage people to reduce their energy consumption and change the types of technologies they use in their homes. However, the UK government currently informs its policy decisions based on an estimate that, according to my research, is lower than it should be.

"This means any reduction we make in our electricity use -- for example, if everyone switched off lights that they weren't using, or turned off electric heating earlier in the year -- could have a bigger impact on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by power stations than previously thought. However, this also acts in reverse: a small increase in the amount of electricity we use could mean a larger increase in emissions than we previously thought, so we need to make sure we do everything we can to reduce our electricity use," added Dr Hawkes.

Dr Hawkes drew upon 60 million data points showing the amount of electricity produced in each half-hour period by each power station in Great Britain from the start of 2002 to the end of 2009. He also calculated the emissions of each different type of generator by examining government data showing their average annual fuel use. Finally, he took these two sets of data to calculate the emissions rate that should be attributed to a small change in electricity demand.

The results show that, for 2002-09, the carbon dioxide emission rate for estimating the effect of a small change in electricity demand is 0.69 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed. This is 30 percent higher than the average emissions rate across all power stations, which is 0.51 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour, and 60 percent higher than the figure currently used by government advisors, which is 0.43 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour.

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of Imperial's Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said: "This is a very important study that could help policy makers make more informed decisions to reduce our carbon emissions. The government needs a good understanding of the figures it uses to support policy analysis, because this has a big impact on which technologies we employ to reduce our energy use. With a more accurate picture of what is going on, we will be much better equipped to tackle our carbon dioxide emissions."

Reference:

A.D. Hawkes: Estimating marginal CO2 emission rates for national electricity systems (Energy Policy 2020)

Astonfield Renewable Resources and Belectric are to build a 5MW solar power plant in Osiyan in the Indian State of Rajasthan

2010-06-06T21:57:00.002+05:30

The Osiyan project is one of several Astonfield plants expected to be approved under the Migration Phase of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission and will be Astonfield’s first solar power plant to be commissioned and come online in the 2010-2011 financial year.

Belectric has already completed site designs and engineering on the plant. The construction will begin immediately following Migration approval.

Belectric is one of the largest photovoltaic (PV) system integrators in the world, with over 75 commissioned power plants in Europe to date. In addition to plant design, construction and commissioning, Belectric will also provide operations and maintenance (O&M) services for the plant. The Osiyan power plant will be the first utility-scale solar power plant commissioned by Belectric under India’s National Solar Mission.

The 5MW solar power plant located in the Jodhpur District of Rajasthan will sit on 30 acres of land. A total of 185 acres has been secured under a long term lease to allow for an additional 20MW build out in the future. The Osiyan plant is expected to bring over a hundred jobs to the local community and has the capacity to power approximately 13,000 homes.

“Consistent with our strategy to partner with global technology leaders, Astonfield has formalized a tie-up with Belectric to build one of the first utility-scale projects under India’s National Solar Mission. We look forward to working with Belectric in commissioning this first 5MW PV plant in Rajasthan, which will serve as a foundational project in our partnership and in the build out of India’s solar industry,” said Ameet Shah, Co-Chairman of Astonfield.

“India has become one of the most promising solar markets in the world today, and Astonfield has been a catalyst in the market’s development. The partnership between Belectric and Astonfield will play a key role in the fulfillment of India’s solar potential under the National Solar Mission,” added Bernhard Beck, CEO of Belectric.

ic is one of the largest photovoltaic (PV) system integrators in the world, with over 75 commissioned power plants in Europe to date. In addition to plant design, construction and commissioning, Belectric will also provide operations and maintenance (O&M) services for the plant. The Osiyan power plant will be the first utility-scale solar power plant commissioned by Belectric under India’s National Solar Mission.

The 5MW solar power plant located in the Jodhpur District of Rajasthan will sit on 30 acres of land. A total of 185 acres has been secured under a long term lease to allow for an additional 20MW build out in the future. The Osiyan plant is expected to bring over a hundred jobs to the local community and has the capacity to power approximately 13,000 homes.

“Consistent with our strategy to partner with global technology leaders, Astonfield has formalized a tie-up with Belectric to build one of the first utility-scale projects under India’s National Solar Mission. We look forward to working with Belectric in commissioning this first 5MW PV plant in Rajasthan, which will serve as a foundational project in our partnership and in the build out of India’s solar industry,” stated Ameet Shah, Co-Chairman of Astonfield.

“India has become one of the most promising solar markets in the world today, and Astonfield has been a catalyst in the market’s development. The partnership between Belectric and Astonfield will play a key role in the fulfillment of India’s solar potential under the National Solar Mission,” commented Bernhard Beck, CEO of Belectric.

Indian Solar PV Module Capacity to touch 1250 MW

2010-05-31T16:03:00.005+05:30

A recent report by India Semiconductor Association (ISA) has said that photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules capacity in the country is expected to touch 750MW and 1250MW by the end of 2010.

The report titled ‘Solar PV Industry 2010: Contemporary Scenario and Emerging Trends’ was released by the principal scientific adviser, government of India Mr. R Chidambaram along with professor Juzer Vasi, IIT Bombay and head core committee and BV Naidu, advisor, ISA.

The repot aims to be useful to various stakeholders in the solar PV industry in India. The technology provides an alternative power source to the fossils and is expected to be big in the future. It is an important technology in the context of the climate change.

The industry receives help from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) which is an important component in the National Action Plan on Climate Change.

The current capacity in India is at 400MW for cells and about 1,000 MW for modules. The manufacturing facilities in the industry in India mainly comprises of cell and module with most of the Value addition happening abroad.

The report provides an overview of the global trends in PV industry, position of Indian solar PV industry the Indian government initiatives aimed at this industry. The report outlines some strengths and challenges of the industry in India.

The main strength of the industry is that the production is very cost effective despite the fact that the industry is small. This makes the components produces here preferable by clients in countries like Germany and Spain where the costs are very high.

The government initiatives including those under the JNNSM are fostering growth in the industry. The country however lacks the local producers of basic raw material that is silicon wafers hence making firms reply on foreign made silicon wafers. The fluctuations and availability of the raw material is also a challenge for the industry in India.

The major challenge before the solar energy components worldwide is its costs and the reductions will help it greatly in the future.

Larger integration of Wind and Solar Power into the Grid is possible according to NREL study

2010-05-28T18:20:00.007+05:30

I was fortunate to attend a recent International workshop on "Smart Grid and Renewables", organised by the Power & Energy Society of the IEEE, Bangalore Chapter, held at the beautiful Infosys Campus. There were lot of questions and discussions about the impact of pumping more Renewable Energy into the existing Grid. It was a tough time for the Smart Grid Experts from the U.S to answer the questions raised by the Engineers from the Indian utility companies. Engineers from the Indian Utility companies were sceptical about the consequences of mixing more RE power into the Indian Grid because of their experience in Tamilnadu (A southern Indian State where the Wind Generation is substantial) I hope that this study by the National Renewable Energy Labarotary (NREL) will be beneficial for the Smart Grid Researchers and technologists who wants to inject more Renewable Power into the Grid. N.R.E.L recently released an intial study assessing the operational impacts and economics of increased contributions from wind and solar energy producers on the power grid. The Western Wind and Solar Integration Study examines the benefits and challenges of integrating enough wind and solar energy capacity into the grid to produce 35 percent of its electricity by 2017. The study finds that this target is technically feasible and does not necessitate extensive additional infrastructure, but does require key changes to current operational practice. The results offer a first look at the issue of adding significant amount of variable renewable energy into the grid and will help utilities across the region plan how to ramp up their production of renewable energy as they incorporate more wind and solar energy plants into the power grid.

“If key changes can be made to standard operating procedures, our research shows that large amounts of wind and solar can be incorporated onto the grid without a lot of backup generation,” said Dr. Debra Lew, NREL project manager for the study. “When you coordinate the operations between utilities across a large geographic area, you decrease the effect of the variability of wind and solar energy sources, mitigating the unpredictability of Mother Nature.”

The study focuses on the operational impacts of wind, photovoltaics, and concentrating solar power on the power system operated by the WestConnect group of utilities in the mountain and southwest states of the United States of America. Though wind and solar output vary over time, the technical analysis performed in this study shows that it is operationally possible to accommodate 30 percent wind and 5 percent solar energy penetration. To accomplish such an increase, utilities will have to substantially increase their coordination of operations over wider geographic areas and schedule their generation deliveries, or sales, on a more frequent basis. Currently generators provide a schedule for a specific amount of power they will provide in the next hour. More frequent scheduling would allow generators to adjust that amount of power based on changes in system conditions such as increases or decreases in wind or solar generation.

The study also finds that if utilities generate 27 percent of their electricity from wind and solar energy across the Western Interconnection grid, it would lower carbon emissions by 25 to 45 percent, depending on the future price of natural gas. It would also decrease fuel and emissions costs by 40 percent.

Other key findings from the study include:

•Existing transmission capacity can be more fully utilized to reduce the amount of new transmission that needs to be built.

•To facilitate the integration of wind and solar energy, coordinating the operations of utilities can provide substantial savings by reducing the need for additional back-up generation, such as natural gas-burning plants.

•Use of wind and solar forecasts in utility operations to predict when and where it will be windy and sunny is essential for cost-effectively integrating these renewable energy sources.

The study was undertaken by a team of wind, solar and power systems experts across both the private and public sectors. The study complements the recently released Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study, which examines the feasibility of integrating up to 30 percent wind in the eastern states.

The report released today is an important first step in assessing the impact of solar and wind energy on the electrical grid. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Department of Energy is investing more than $26 million to further study the Western transmission interconnection, which will help states, utilities, and grid operators prepare for future growth in energy demand, renewable energy resources, and Smart Grid technologies.

Ref: http://www.nrel.gov/

Global Wind power boom continues despite economic woes in 2009

2010-05-24T21:39:00.004+05:30

The expectations for 2009 were dire for all industry sectors, and wind power was no exception. Both the economic and even more so the financial crisis hit the sector hard, and even GWEC’s forecast of a 12.5% annual market growth seemed overly optimistic to many in March 2009.

In fact, the annual market grew a staggering 41.5% compared to 2008. More than 38 GW of new wind power capacity was installed around the world in 2009, bringing the total installed capacity up to 158.5 GW. This represents a year-on-year growth of 31.7%. A third of these additions were made in China, which doubled its installed capacity yet again.

Wind energy is now an important player in the world’s energy markets. The 2009 market for turbine installations was worth about 45 bn € or 63 bn US$ and GWEC estimates that about half a million people are now employed by the wind industry around the world.

The main markets driving this growth continue to be Asia, North America and Europe, each of which installed more than 10 GW of new capacity in 2009. Asia’s development driven by booming Chinese marketFor the first time, Asia was the world’s largest regional market for wind energy, with capacity additions amounting to 15.4 GW.

China was the world’s largest market in 2009, more than doubling its capacity from 12.1 GW in 2008 to 25.8 GW, adding a staggering 13.8 GW of capacity, and slipped past Germany to become the world’s second largest wind power market by a very narrow margin.

The growing wind power market in China has encouraged domestic production of wind turbines and components, and the Chinese manufacturing industry is becoming increasingly mature, stretching over the whole supply chain. According to the Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association (CREIA), the supply is starting to not only satisfy domestic demand, but also meet international needs, especially for components. Two Chinese companies, Sinovel and Goldwind, are now among the world’s top five turbine manufacturers, and there are first moves by Chinese manufacturers to enter the international markets.The planning and development for the ‘Wind Base’ programme, which aims to build 127.5 GW of wind capacity in six Chinese provinces, is well underway, and construction has started on some projects. Given the current size of the market, it is expected that the even the unofficial target of 150 GW will be met well ahead of 2020.

India also continued growing its wind market with 1.3 GW of new installed capacity, bringing its total up to 10.9 GW. The leading wind power state remains Tamil Nadu with 4.3 GW installed, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka. With the introduction of a national Generation Based Incentive at the end of 2009, and a real push by the government to support renewable energy development, substantial growth is expected in the near future, and the industry forecasts additions of at least 2.2 GW for 2010.Other Asian countries with new capacity additions in 2009 include Japan (178 MW, taking the total to 2.1 GW), South Korea (112 MW for a total of 348 MW) and Taiwan (78 MW for a total of 436 MW).

Ref: Global Wind Energy Council

Wind Turbines are able to "see" the wind with the innovation from the Riso National Laboratory

2010-04-27T00:53:00.004+05:30

Risø DTU has recently completed the world's first successful test on a wind turbine with a laser-based anemometer built into the spinner in order to increase electricity generation."The results show that this system can predict wind direction, gusts of wind and turbulence. So we estimate that future wind turbines can increase energy production while reducing extreme loads by using this laser system, which we call wind LIDAR," says Torben Mikkelsen, Professor at Risø DTU.

This new Danish laser technology means that wind turbines are able to "see" the wind, before it hits the blades. By 'predicting' the wind, the wind turbine can optimize its position and adjust the blades so that the wind is used more efficiently, and the wind turbine lives longer.

The wind turbine industry is going to grow tremendously in the next years due to a global focus on renewable energy and climate change. New high-tech research will integrate "laser providence" and "smart blades" into the turbines, allowing them to operate better and last longer, thereby maintaining the competitiveness of the Danish wind power industry.

Increased electricity production from wind turbines:

It is expected that the technology can increase energy production by up to 5%, primarily because it is possible to use longer blades. For a 4 MW wind turbine, this means a financial gain of 200,000 Danish kroner a year. Compared to the Danish Energy Agency's predictions, this technology could cut CO2 emissions by 25,000 tons by 2025, if every 10th turbine is equipped with a wind LIDAR. At the same time, the technology can be combined with "smart blades" and thereby increase longevity.

"The LIDAR system can be used to increase blade reliability by making the blades cope better with the irregularities of the wind. Subsequently it is possible to produce larger blades. This increases energy production, and power from wind energy becomes more competitive, says Lars Fuglsang, Global Research Director of LM Glasfiber;

"The LIDAR systems allows a paradigm shift in the way of controlling wind turbines," says Jakob Dahlgren Skov, CEO of NKT Photonics A/S.

Ref: The Science Daily Magazine

Sun Edison to build Europe's biggest Solar PV Power Plant

2010-04-23T01:08:00.002+05:30

SunEdison is a division of MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. They have bagged a project to develop and construct a photovoltaic solar power plant in Northeastern Italy, near the town of Rovigo. This solar power plant will have a capacity of 72 Megawatt (MW). This will be the largest solar power plant in Europe. SunEdison is a North American company. It finances, installs and operates distributed power plants using photovoltaic technologies. In 2009, SunEdison delivered more kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy than any other solar services provider in U.S.A.

The stats say that solar power plant would provide power to 17,150 homes and it would result in reducing 41,000 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. This amount will be akin to taking off 8,000 cars from the road. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2010.

Carlos Domenech is the President of SunEdison. He is speaking about his solar projects, “SunEdison is focused on enabling the growth of global solar markets through strong capabilities in project finance, engineering, low-cost procurement and operations and maintenance services.”

SunEdison’s solar power plant would cover an area of as large as 120 soccer fields. Once completed, the plant will be spread over 9.15 million square feet of area.

Renzo Marangon is the government official of the Veneto region. He expresses his views about solar project, “Veneto is taking decisive action to advance the use of clean, renewable energy sources. At the same time, this project is expected to create over 350 local construction jobs and build expertise in advanced energy technologies. We expect Rovigo to serve as a European model for large-scale, alternative-energy projects.”

This solar-power plant will enjoy the distinction of being the largest in Europe. Presently, the largest solar power plant exists in Olmedilla, Spain. Its capacity is is a 60MW. Another solar power plant is in Strasskirchen, Germany. It has the capacity of 50 MW.

World Solar Market grew to 6.43 GW in 2009, according to Solarbuzz

2010-03-22T12:05:00.006+05:30

World solar photovoltaic (PV) market installations reached a record high of 6.43 gigawatt (GW) in 2009, representing growth of 6% over the previous year.

The PV industry generated $38 billion in global revenues in 2009, while successfully raising over $13.5 billion in equity and debt, up 8% on the prior year.

European countries accounted for 4.75 GW, or 74% of world demand in 2009. The top three countries in Europe were Germany, Italy and Czech Republic, which collectively accounted for 4.07 GW. All three countries experienced soaring demand, with Italy becoming the second largest market in the world.

In contrast, Spanish demand in 2009 collapsed to just 4% of its prior year level.

Of total European demand, net solar cell imports accounted for 74% of the total.

The third largest market in the world was the United States, which grew 36% to 485 MW. Following closely behind was a rejuvenated Japan, which took fourth spot, growing 109%.

The analysis in the new Marketbuzz 2010 report references 112 countries across the world in 2009.

World solar cell production reached a consolidated figure of 9.34 GW in 2009, up from 6.85 GW a year earlier, with thin film production accounting for 18% of that total. China and Taiwanese production continued to build share and now account for 49% of global cell production.

The Top 7 polysilicon manufacturers had 114,500 tonnes per annum of capacity in 2009, up 92% on their 2008 level, while the Top 8 wafer manufacturers accounted for 32.9% of global wafer capacity in 2009.

The excess of solar cell production over market demand caused weighted crystalline silicon module price average for 2009 to crash 38% over the prior year level. This reduction in crystalline silicon prices also had the effect of eroding their percentage premium to thin film factory gate pricing.

Looking forward, the industry will return to high growth in 2010 and also over the next 5 years. Even in the slowest growth scenario, the global market will be 2.5 times its current size by 2014. Under the Production Led scenario, the fastest growing forecast, annual industry revenues approach $100 billion by 2014.

After providing a comprehensive look back at 2009 industry results, the new Marketbuzz™ 2010 report devotes one third of its content to 2010 - 2014 forecast outcomes, including a thorough preview of market developments, policies, prices and production requirements, which will be essential to help shape corporate strategies over this period. Manufacturing costs, gross margins and capital expenditure profiles are also addressed.

Ref: Solarbuzz.com

World's wind power capacity grew by 31% in 2009

2010-03-19T12:27:00.003+05:30

The Global Wind Energy Council today announced that the world’s wind power capacity grew by 31% in 2009, adding 37.5 GW to bring total installations up to 157.9 GW. A third of these additions were made in China, which experienced yet another year of over 100% growth.

“The continued rapid growth of wind power despite the financial crisis and economic downturn is testament to the inherent attractiveness of the technology, which is clean, reliable and quick to install. Wind power has become the power technology of choice a growing number of countries around the world,” said Steve Sawyer, GWEC’s Secretary General. “Copenhagen didn’t bring us any closer to a global price on carbon, but wind energy continued to grow due to national energy policy in our main markets and also because many governments in prioritised renewable energy development in their economic recovery plans,” he said.

Wind energy is now an important player in the world’s energy markets. The global wind market for turbine installations in 2009 was worth about 45 bn EUR or 63 bn US$. GWEC estimates that around half a million people are now employed by the wind industry around the world.

The main markets driving this significant growth continue to be Asia, North America and Europe, each of which installed more than 10 GW of new wind capacity in 2009.

China was the world’s largest market in 2009, nearly doubling its wind generation capacity from 12.1 GW in 2008 to 25.1 GW at the end of 2009 with new capacity additions of 13 GW.

“The Chinese government is taking very seriously its responsibility to limit CO2 emissions while providing energy for its growing economy. China is putting strong efforts into developing the country’s tremendous wind resource. Given the current growth rates, it can be expected that the even the unofficial target of 150 GW will be met well ahead of 2020,” said Li Junfeng, Secretary General of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.

Newly added capacity of 1,270 MW in India and some smaller additions in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan make Asia the biggest regional market for wind energy in 2009, with more than 14 GW of new capacity.

However, the US continues to have a comfortable lead in terms of total installed capacity. Against all expectations, the US wind energy market installed nearly 10 GW in 2009, increasing the country’s installed capacity by 39% and bringing the total installed, grid-connected capacity to 35 GW. In early 2009, some analysts had foreseen a drop in wind power development of as much as 50%, but the implementation of the US Recovery Act with its strong focus on wind energy development in the summer reversed this trend.

“The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “But U.S. wind turbine manufacturing is down compared to last year’s levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow.”

Europe, which has traditionally been the world’s largest market for wind energy development, continued to see strong growth, also exceeding expectations. In 2009, 10.5 GW were installed in Europe, led by Spain (2.5GW) and Germany (1.9 GW). Italy, France and the UK all added more than 1 GW of new wind capacity each.

“It is a remarkable result in a difficult year” said Christian Kjaer, CEO of the European Wind Energy Association. “The figures, once again, confirm that wind power, together with other renewable energy technologies and a shift from coal to gas, are delivering massive European carbon reductions, while creating much needed economic activity and new jobs for Europe’s citizens.”

“Wind energy is already making a significant contribution to saving CO2 emissions. The 158GW of global wind capacity in place at the end of 2009 will produce 340 TWh of clean electricity and save 204 million tons of CO2 every year,” concluded Sawyer. “As we see in Europe and the US, wind power is now often the most attractive option for new power generation, both in economic and environmental terms, and for improved supply security.”

Ref: World Wind Energy Council

UN to review IPCC Report on Himalayan Glaciers

2010-03-15T13:55:00.004+05:30

The UN called in the world's top scientists to review a report by its climate body, four months after public confidence in the science of global warming was shaken by the discovery of a mistake about the melting rates of Himalayan glaciers.

In an announcement at the UN in New York Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and Rajendra Pachauri, the much-criticised head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the InterAcademy Council, which represents 15 national academies of science, would conduct the independent review.

The announcement follows months of controversy which, while not altering the scientific consensus on climate change, has given fresh ammunition to opponents of action on global warming.

Pachauri has faced calls for his resignation, a controversy he acknowledged obliquely today. "We have received some criticism. We are receptive and sensitive to that and we are doing something about it," he said.

The review, which is to complete its work by August, will not undertake a dissection of the 2007 report, which has been pored over by climate sceptics, or re-examine the scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change, said Robert Dijksgraaf, the head of the InterAcademy Council.

"It will definitely not go over vast amounts of data," he told reporters. "Our goal will be to assure nations around the world that they will receive sound scientific advice on climate science."

Instead, he said it would focus on putting in place better quality control procedures for the next report, which is due in 2014.

These would include guidelines for dealing with material that has not undergone peer review such as the item on Himalayan glaciers.

One focus of the review would be the role played by Pachauri who has been criticised for his handling of the error when it first came to light.

Djiksgraaf also said the panel, likely to be made up of 10 experts, would also look at procedures for making corrections in a timely and transparent manner.

The report has been pored over by climate sceptics for errors since last November when it emerged that the IPCC had stated, wrongly, that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. As Pachauri and Ban noted today, the solid body of the 3,000 page report remained unchallenged.

The discovery of the error goes to the core of criticism of Pachauri whose first response to questions about the accuracy of the IPCC's prediction on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers was to dismiss it as "voodoo science".

Pachauri had also rankled critics by refusing to apologise for the mistakes.

But a spokesman for Pachauri today said the IPCC had initiated the independent review, and had pressed the UN to call in the scientists.

In his brief comments, Pachauri said the work of the IPCC, which shared a Nobel prize with Al Gore in 2007, remained the gold standard of climate science. "We believe the conclusions of that report are really beyond any reasonable doubt," Pachauri said.

Environmental and science organisations supported the UN's decision.

"This is the right move," said Peter Frumhoff, the science director for the Union of Concerned Scientist and a lead author on the IPCC report.

"If this independent review is carried out with rigour and transparency, it will help strengthen the IPCC's commitment to robust scientific assessments and restore public confidence that has been shaken by an aggressive campaign to sow confusion about climate science."

Transforming India to a Solar Energy Manufacturing Hub

2010-02-27T12:18:00.005+05:30

According to "Photovoltaic World" Magazine ( 2010 March-April issue); "By 2010, India will supply nearly 40% of its own solar pv demand". This is going to be true based on the announcenment of the National Solar Mission by Govt. of India. The National Solar Mission is a major initiative of the Government of India and State Governments to promote ecologically sustainable growth while addressing India's energy security challenge. It will also constitute a major contribution by India to the global effort to meet the challenges of climate change.

Currently, the bulk of India's Solar PV industry is dependent on imports of critical raw materials and components - including silicon wafers. Transforming India into a solar energy hub would include a leadership role in low-cost, high quality solar manufacturing, including balance of system components.

One of the Mission objectives is to take a global leadership role in solar manufacturing (across the value chain) of leading edge solar technologies and target a 4-5 GW equivalent of installed capacity by 2020, including setting up of dedicated manufacturing capacities for poly silicon material to annually make about 2 GW capacity of solar cells. India already has PV module manufacturing capacity of about 700 MW, which is expected to increase in the next few years.

The present indigenous capacity to manufacture silicon material is very low, however, some plants are likely to be set up soon in public and private sector. Currently, there is no indigenous capacity/capability for solar thermal power projects; therefore new facilities will be required to manufacture concentrator collectors, receivers and other components to meet the demand for solar thermal power plants.

To achieve the installed capacity target, the Mission recommends the following:

• Local demand creation: The 20 GW plan supported with right level of incentives for solar generation coupled with large government pilot/demonstration programs will make the Indian market attractive for solar manufacturers

• Financing & Incentives: SEZ like incentives to be provided to the manufacturing parks which may include:

o Zero import duty on capital equipment, raw materials and excise duty exemption

o Low interest rate loans, priority sector lending

o Incentives under Special Incentive Package (SIPs) policy to set up integrated manufacturing plants;

(i) from poly silicon material to solar modules; and (ii) thin film based module manufacturing plants.

According to the the SIP scheme, the Department of Information Technology, there are 15 applications in the domain of solar photovoltaic, which includes cell manufacturing, (both crystalline and thin film) and poly-silicon manufacturing among others. The combined capacity projected by these 15 companies could result in the production of 8-10 GW solar power by the year 2022 which would be sufficient for meeting the Mission targets even after accounting for exports.

o It is also recommended that solar components be covered under the Bureau of Energy Efficiency's star rating programme to ensure high standards.

Similar incentives will be required for manufacture of CSP systems and their components. A Committee may be set up to formulate a policy for promotion of solar thermal manufacture in the country.

• Ease of doing business: In consultation with States, create a single window clearance mechanism for all related permissions.

• Infrastructure & ecosystem enablers: Create 2-3 large solar manufacturing tech parks consisting of manufacturing units (across the solar value chain), housing, offices, and research institutes. These will have 24x7 power and water supply and will likely need to be located near large urban centres with good linkages to ports and airports to ensure rapid access to imported raw materials and high quality engineering talent.

All the above announced policies, if implemented in the right way, can make India the Global leader in Solar industry. We all know that India had started the initiative for the first time in the world to set up a seperate Ministry for Renewable Energy movement and it is going to click in a strategic way for making the country a world leader in the industry.

EU will meet its 2020 target on Renewable Energy

2010-02-23T11:24:00.004+05:30

Despite the controversies airing up regarding the IPCC's findings and the failure of the Copenhagen Summit, there is still hope for the Renewable Energy industry. European Wind Energy Association's (EWEA) latest forcast document brings hope for us and which will be beneficial for all the regions across the world.

According to an analysis by the European Wind Energy Association of all 27 Member States' national forecast documents, the EU will meet and even slightly exceed, its 2020 20% renewable energy target.

The EWEA analysis shows that EU member states are on course to achieve over 20% renewable energy by 2020, with 21 Member States meeting or exceeding their national targets. The top 21 are made up of 13 Member States who predict they will meet their target and eight who forecast they will exceed their target.

Only six forecast they will not manage to reach their target through domestic action alone, although two of these say that with fresh national initiatives they can meet or exceed their targets. None of the six expect to be more than 1%-point below their target.

Spain and Germany will exceed targets

Top achievers are Spain, which believes it will reach 22.7% renewables by 2020 - almost 3%-points above its 20% target. Next comes Germany which expects to be 0.7%-points above its 18% target. In addition Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden will exceed their targets.

The six who do not expect to meet their target are Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and Malta, together with Bulgaria and Denmark - the two countries which state that with fresh national initiatives they could meet or exceed their targets. Bottom of the league is Italy which, in order to meet its target, foresees importing renewable energy from neighbouring non-EU countries (Albania, Croatia, Serbia and Tunisia).

"Europe has witnessed a sea-change since the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive was agreed as in 2008 many countries were stating that their target would be difficult to meet – now the majority are forecasting that they will meet or exceed their national target” said Justin Wilkes, Policy Director of EWEA. "The forecast documents give a clear signal to the European Commission of where they could facilitate implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive” said Wilkes.

Christine Lins, Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council stated, “The clear majority of European Member States recognise the economic, environmental and social benefits of promoting a broad range of renewable energy technologies nationally, as reflected in their forecast documents”.

For further details see EWEA’s website link below:

http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/press_releases/2010/Which_Member_States_will_meet_their_targets.pdf

The U.S Wind Industry broke all previous records

2010-01-31T21:40:00.004+05:30

The U.S. wind industry broke all previous records by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2009 (enough to serve over 2.4 million homes), but still lags in manufacturing, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today in its Q4 report.

These new projects place wind power neck and neck with natural gas ¹ as the leading source of new electricity generation for the country. Together, the two sources account for about 80% of the new capacity added in the country last year.

“The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “But U.S. wind turbine manufacturing – the canary in the mine -- is down compared to last year’s levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow. We need to set hard targets, in the form of a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), in order to provide the necessary stability for manufacturers to expand their U.S. operations and to seize the historic opportunity we have today to build up a thriving renewable energy industry.”

Early last year, before the Recovery Act (ARRA), the industry anticipated that in 2009 wind power development might drop by as much as 50% from 2008 levels, with equivalent job losses. The clear commitment by the President to create clean energy jobs and the swift implementation of ARRA incentives by the Administration in mid-summer reversed the situation. Recovery Act incentives spurred the growth of construction, operations and maintenance, and management jobs, helping the industry to save and create jobs in those sectors and shine as a bright spot in the economy.

At the same time, the continuing lack of a long-term policy and market signal allowed investment in the manufacturing sector to drop compared to 2008, with one-third fewer wind power manufacturing facilities online, announced and expanded in 2009. The result was net job losses in the manufacturing sector, which were compounded by low orders and high inventory. Looking forward, the critical Recovery Act manufacturing incentives that were announced only at the start of this year will also need to be supplemented with the hard targets of a national Renewable Electricity Standard.

With 4,041 MW completed, this fourth quarter was the strongest in the year but still lower than the fourth quarter of 2008.

The 9,922 MW installed last year expand the nation’s wind plant fleet by 39% and bring total wind power generating capacity in the U.S to over 35,000 MW. The five-year average annual growth rate for the industry is now 39%, up from 32% between 2003 and 2008. U.S. wind projects today generate enough to power the equivalent of 9.7 million homes, protecting consumers from fuel price volatility and strengthening our energy security.

America’s wind power fleet will avoid an estimated 62 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to taking 10.5 million cars off the road, and will conserve approximately 20 billion gallons of water annually, which would otherwise be consumed for steam or cooling in conventional power plants.

In state news, Texas consolidated its lead, and Washington pulled ahead of Minnesota in the ranking of the top five states by wind power installed (in MW):

Texas
9,410

Iowa
3,670

California
2,794

Washington
1,980

Minnesota
1,809

The Q4 report is available on the Web site at
http://www.awea.org/publications/reports/4Q09.pdf

Advanced concentrated solar power (CSP) Central Tower R&D project at Masdar City

2010-01-25T12:48:00.003+05:30

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Japan’s Cosmo Oil Company and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have launched an advanced concentrated solar power (CSP) Central Tower R&D project at Masdar City.

The state-of-the-art, collaborative research project will test an innovative “beam down” technology, which has the potential to convert solar irradiation into electricity in a more efficient way than other technologies. According to Masdar, “producing a commercially viable ‘beam down’ process would represent a significant breakthrough in CSP technology”.

The “beam down” process inverts conventional solar tower technologies, which uses mirrors (heliostats) to direct the sun’s rays onto a receiver at the top of a central tower to heat a heat transfer fluid (molten salt, oil, or water) in order to generate steam, which is then used to drive a steam turbine. By placing the receiver at the base of the tower (ground level), the research team believes that they can reduce energy losses resulting from pumping the fluid to an elevated receiver, raising operational efficiency and lowering electricity generation costs.

“The initial project findings have been very positive and if the results continue to be successful, ‘beam down’ technology has the potential to revolutionise the way in which all solar towers are built in the future,” said Dr Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of Masdar.

The research agreement between Masdar, Cosmo Oil and the Tokyo Institute of Technology is the most recent component of an ongoing effort by the UAE to position itself as a global leader in the area of renewable energy technologies, which began with the establishment of the Masdar Initiative in 2006. Earlier last year, the leadership of Abu Dhabi committed itself to a 7% renewable energy target by the year 2020 and Abu Dhabi was selected to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Masdar City.

For his part Hiroyuki WADA General Manager, Future Energy Division, International Ventures Dept. Cosmo Oil Co., Ltd. said: “We are proud to be working with Masdar and the Tokyo Institute of Technology on such a progressive project. The realities of global climate change has highlighted the importance for financially viable alternative sources of energy and the development of ‘beam down’ technology has the potential to be revolutionise the CSP sector.”

World's largest Solar Office Building in China

2010-01-04T22:30:00.002+05:30

China has earned the distinction of having the world’s largest solar-powered building. It is situated in Dezhou, Shangdong Province in northwest China. The building covers an area of 75,000-square-meter. The office building is modelled after the sun dial structure.

The building provides many services such as space for exhibition centers, scientific research facilities, meeting and training facilities and a sustainable hotel. This building is named as the Sun and the Moon Altar micro-row buildings. The architecture included the Chinese characters for sun and moon. The solar building has a white exterior that represents clean energy.

The clean and green ideas are not confined to the massive solar array only but can be spotted in the whole building complex. They have utilized only 1% of steel to the Bird’s nest. Their advanced roof and wall insulation system consume 30% less energy than the national energy saving standard. The building will be showcased to the whole world during the 4th World Solar City Congress. The building’s pioneering solar energy and power-saving technologies, a few already patented, include a number of technical advancements that will push forward the mass application of solar energy.

The building will procure 95% of its energy needs from alternative energy sources. They have installed a 5000 square meter solar panel array on the building complex. This building also has the facilities of solar hot water, a solar desalination plant and a solar energy theme park.

Dezhou can safely be termed as a solar city because among 5.5 million people living in this city most of them opted for the solar hot water systems. In this city, solar energy is all pervasive. It powers everything from street lighting to tourist cars.

Greenpeace put forth some statistics for this city. According to them, in 2007, 800,000 people in Dezhou had jobs in the solar panel industry. Greenpeace predicts that this figure is expected to grow to 1,500,000 by 2020.

The falure of Copenhagen Summit

2009-12-19T09:51:00.002+05:30

The conclusion of the Copenhagen conference represents either colossal disappointment or profound rage. The financial pledges— if honored— that rich nations made to poor nations will do nothing to combat global warming. The few climate related agreements that were made were of zero substance, especially when compared to what the situation demanded.

The sorrowful outcome, however, could have been predicted in the conference’s first week, based on two seemingly unrelated events: The conference showcased the largest police action in Denmark’s history (including mass arrests of “troublemakers”); while also producing the largest ever boom in limousine rentals. Both happenings helped reveal the true nature of the conference, spelling doom for climate progress.

Contrary to the hopes of billions of people, the talks were a purely elite affair. Many of the thousands of delegates sent to the conference were not looking to save the planet, as advertised, but were looking out for the national interest of their native governments. Most of these countries are dominated by the “special interests” of giant corporations.

Big business in the rich nations used the conference as a cynical maneuver to maintain their economic dominance over the “emerging business” in the developing countries. This fact was at first obscured by technical language, until the now-famous “Danish Text” was leaked to the press in the first week of the conference.

This document was a conference proposal written by the U.S. and England, though submitted by Denmark. The Danish Text proposes that developed nations — the U.S., Europe, Japan, etc. — be allowed to pollute twice the amount of developing countries — China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc. — for the next fifty years.

If enacted, the corporations of the developing nations would be forced to function under an incredible economic handicap. Their governments would have, of course, rejected such nonsense, giving the U.S. delegates the needed excuse to blame China for the failed talks (the U.S. media has done this with absolute disregard for facts).

The Danish Text also proposed to move future climate talks out of the realm of the too-democratic UN into the U.S./Europe dominated World Bank. Obama has thus surpassed his predecessor in the realm of global arrogance.

However, the U.S. torpedoed the talks long before they ever began, forcing the international media to campaign in favor of “lower expectations.” The New York Times explains:

“… when Mr. Obama and other world leaders met last month, they were forced to abandon the goal of reaching a binding accord at Copenhagen because the American political system is not ready to agree to a treaty that would force the United States, over time, to accept profound changes in its energy, transport and manufacturing [corporate] sectors.” (December 13, 2009).

Instead of building upon the foundation of the already-insufficient Kyoto Protocol, the Obama administration demanded a whole new structure, something that would take years to achieve. The Kyoto framework was abandoned because it included legally binding agreements, and was based on multi-lateral, agreed-upon reductions of greenhouse gasses (however insufficient). Instead, Obama proposed that “…each country set its own rules and to decide unilaterally how to meet its target.” (The Guardian, September 15, 2009).

This way, there is zero accountability, zero oversight, and therefore, zero climate progress. Any country may make any number of symbolic “pledges” to combat global warming, while actually doing very little to follow through — much like billions of dollars rich countries pledged to Africa that have yet to leave western bank accounts.

Obama’s maneuvering to ruin Copenhagen was correctly assessed by Canadian writer Naomi Klein, who said that Obama, like Bush, is “using multi-lateralism to destroy multi-lateralism.” This means that Obama is participating in international organizations like the UN Copenhagen conference, with no intention of reaching agreements. Once the U.S. blames its overseas rivals for the failure to “cooperate,” a more independent path can be struck.

This is reminiscent of Bush’s path to invading Iraq: he used the UN Security Council to pass resolutions against Iraq, which helped him weaken Iraq while strengthening U.S. public opinion. But when the Security Council wouldn’t agree to an invasion, Bush assembled a pathetic “coalition of the willing” to attack, completely abandoning the UN (Obama appears to be following an identical approach with Iran). U.S. corporations wanted to dominate Iraq’s huge oil reserves and other treasures, to the detriment of the corporations within Europe, Russia, and China.

Another example of Obama’s fake multi-lateralism is the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S. is again being blamed for blocking a multi-lateral agreement in this corporate-controlled organization — some U.S. corporations want market protection from rival corporations of other countries.

The international WTO continues to be unofficially abandoned in favor of regional (unilateral) trade blocs like NAFTA, CAFTA, the EU, etc., increasing international tensions, which, if one looks below the surface, are conflicts between giant corporations based in rival nations, battling for control of international markets, raw materials, and cheap labor.

The failure of the WTO, the UN, and now Copenhagen are all examples of an increasingly conflict-ridden world, based on the emerging economies challenging the rule of the old powers. This dynamic clearly resembles the situation prior to WWI, when the big powers — England and the U.S. — felt threatened by the rise of Germany and Japan, and used a strategy of “containment” to stunt their growth. The end result was war.

This time, however, China, India, Brazil, and Russia are the emerging threats, and the issue of climate change is being used as yet another tactic to “contain” their growth.

With such a dynamic unfolding, there can be no future multi-lateral agreements expected, minus the “symbolic” type that Copenhagen produced. The unbridgeable national conflicts are not the result of bad policy from naïve leaders, but an inherent future of a market economy [capitalism].

Giant corporations in different countries are constantly growing and competing with each other for a very limited global marketplace, always attempting to monopolize markets, raw-materials, and labor by any means necessary. This vicious competition pushes all other social issues into the background — human needs are subordinate to blindly chasing profits.

Such an irrationally competitive system cannot be smoothed over with good intentions and on-paper cooperation. Deeper, conflicting corporate interests between nations are the motor force pushing countries further apart the more cooperation is needed.

But soon the fake cooperation Obama stresses will be too much for the U.S. corporate-elite to bear. Many of them are bored with the international community, especially when the U.S. is the sole military super-power in the world. Soon Obama’s “failed attempts” to cooperate internationally will evolve into a more independent, Bush-like approach.

The largely ignored UN is likely to be further pushed aside so that brute force can continue to dictate US international policy, an agenda already begun by the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama’s expanding war in Pakistan, and the “looming threat” that supposedly Iran is.

As long as governmental policy is dictated by the corporations — represented in the U.S. by the two party system — multi-lateralism and cooperation are doomed. Thus, the battle to save the environment and end war must include a fight against these corporations, who wield a political/economic vise grip over society. Only by publicly controlling these billionaire-owned mega-enterprises can the peaceful and cooperative impulses of the earth’s people find their full expression.

Bangladesh tops the Global Climate Risk Index

2009-12-08T21:24:00.002+05:30

The report from the climate and development organization Germanwatch was released on Tuesday at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

According to the index, Bangladesh is the country most severely affected with natural disasters claiming 8,241 lives and damaging property worth 2.18 billion US dollars a year on average.

Myanmar, Honduras, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, Dominican Republic, Philippines and China are other countries in the top ten of the 2010 index, based on data made available by the world's largest reinsurer, Munich Re.

On the top 20 list of affected countries, there are only four developed countries: Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

"It's really hard to make a climate risk index. Only the number of people killed in natural calamities and losses of properties were counted to make this report... But millions of people, who survived extreme weather events and who are suffering across the globe, were not taken into the account," says Dr Saleemul Haq, chief of the climate change cell of the International Institute of Environment and Development, according to The Daily Star.

He added that some African nations would have been on the list, if the surviving people had been counted.

Can we expect a Copenhagen protocol?

2009-12-07T11:15:00.007+05:30

The Summit at Copenhagen begins today. Can we expect some good news at the end....not likely. Is it a political game of the influential Nations? Now scientists and environmentalists came out openly about the possible outcome of the Climate Summit.

"For those who claim a deal in Copenhagen is impossible, they are simply wrong," said UNEP director Achim Steiner, releasing the report compiled by British economist Lord Nicholas Stern and the Grantham Research Institute.

Environmentalists have warned that emissions commitments were dangerously short of what UN scientists have said were needed to keep average temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius (3.6F) above what the industrial age began 250 years ago.

But most of those warnings were based on pledges only from industrial countries. The UNEP report included pledges from China and other rapidly developing countries, which in turn were contingent on rich-country funding to help.

UNEP said all countries together should emit no more than 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2020 to avoid the worst consequences of a warming world.

Computing the high end of all commitments publicly announced so far, the report said emissions will total some 46 billion tons annually in 2020. Emissions today are about 47 billion tons.

"Absolutely. It is possible – if we give politicians a cold, hard slap in the face"....says James Hansen, the renowned Climate Scientist fro U.S. See his article published in the Guardian which is relevant in the context of Copenhagen Summit, is reproduced below.

Article by James Hansen:

"The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – "goals" for emission reductions, "offsets" that render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual "cap-and-trade" mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual.

Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control.

Science also reveals what is needed to stabilise atmospheric composition and climate. Geophysical data on the carbon amounts in oil, gas and coal show that the problem is solvable, if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale.

Such constraints on fossil fuels would cause carbon dioxide emissions to decline 60% by mid-century or even more if policies make it uneconomic to go after every last drop of oil.

Improved forestry and agricultural practices could then bring atmospheric carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm (parts per million) or less, as required for a stable climate.

Governments going to Copenhagen claim to have such goals for 2050, which they will achieve with the "cap-and-trade" mechanism. They are lying through their teeth.

Unless they order Russia to leave its gas in the ground and Saudi Arabia to leave its oil in the ground (which nobody has proposed), they must phase out coal and prohibit unconventional fossil fuels.

Instead, the United States signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry oil squeezed from tar sands. Australia is building port facilities for large increases in coal export. Coal-to-oil factories are being built. Coal-fired power plants are being constructed worldwide. Governments are stating emission goals that they know are lies – or, if we want to be generous, they do not understand the geophysics and are kidding themselves.

Is it feasible to phase out coal and avoid use of unconventional fossil fuels? Yes, but only if governments face up to the truth: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase on a global basis.

Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not made to pay for their effects on human health, the environment and future climate.

Governments must place a uniform rising price on carbon, collected at the fossil fuel source – the mine or port of entry. The fee should be given to the public in toto, as a uniform dividend, payroll tax deduction or both. Such a tax is progressive – the dividend exceeds added energy costs for 60% of the public.

Fee and dividend stimulates the economy, providing the public with the means to adjust lifestyles and energy infrastructure.

Fee and dividend can begin with the countries now considering cap and trade. Other countries will either agree to a carbon fee or have duties placed on their products that are made with fossil fuels.

As the carbon price rises, most coal, tar sands and oil shale will be left in the ground. The marketplace will determine the roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy and nuclear power in our clean energy future.

Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.

Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.

Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us and cheat our children and grandchildren?

Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises and half-measures is over. Can we find a leader who understands the core issue and will lead? "

India and China plan for a major offensive against rich nations at Copenhagen

2009-11-30T17:30:00.003+05:30

In an unprecedented move, India on Saturday joined China and two other developing countries to prepare for a major offensive on rich nations at the Copenhage conference on Climate Change next month.

The four countries, which include Brazil and South Africa, agreed to a strategy that involves jointly walking out of the conference if the developed nations try to force their own terms on the developing world, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister for environment and forests (independent charge), said.

“We will not exit in isolation. We will co-ordinate our exit if any of our non-negotiable terms is violated. Our entry and exit will be collective,” Ramesh told reporters in Beijing.

The move comes after reports suggested that rich nations led by Denmark are trying to set the agenda of the conference by presenting a draft containing a set of specific proposals.

The BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China- decided to throw the gauntlet at rich nations by coming up with a counter-draft that will be presented at the conference. They agreed to let China, which initiated the exercise, to present the draft of the developing nations at Copenhagen.

“This BASIC draft fully meets India’s goals and aspirations. We hope it is made the basis of discussions at the conference,” Ramesh said.

The draft, which was originally prepared by China, was finalized after some changes during a 7-hour long meeting of BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China besides Sudan as the chair of G-77.

This joint front forged on Saturday is a major political initiative -- the first major India-China accord on international affairs--that is likely to impact not just the dimension of the talks on climate change but international diplomacy as a whole. The move comes after recent discussions on climate change held with Indian and Chinese leaders by US president Barack Obama, who appears to have made little impact on them.

Denmark is expected to unveil its draft to a group of select countries that includes the United States, several European nations, India and China on December 1. It will be later presented at the conference. Around the same time, the BASIC nations plan to circulate their own counter-draft in order to influence the course of negotiations.

The four nations issued a joint press release, which made it clear the developed nations should be ready to contribute funds and share green technology if they expected the developing and poor nations to take major actions on environmental protection.

The four countries and the chair of G-77 said they were keen to make a “contribution towards a consensus in Copenhagen”.

The release said: “We are in agreement on major issues including those relating to the establishment of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as shared vision for long term cooperative action on climate change, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to the impact of climate change, and the provision of finance and technology to support and enable these actions, taking into account the special needs of the least developed countries, the small island developing states and African countries.”

The United States, which refused to endorse the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, might find it difficult to handle the new onslaught mounted by four developing nations including India and China. They are demanding an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.

Ref: Times of India

Scientists see the possibilitty of 6 degree rise at the end of the century

2009-11-19T17:24:00.004+05:30

The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation.

We are headed for it, the scientists said, because the carbon dioxide emissions from industry, transport and deforestation which are responsible for warming the atmosphere have increased dramatically since 2002, in a way which no one anticipated, and are now running at treble the annual rate of the 1990s.

This means that the most extreme scenario envisaged in the last report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, is now the one for which society is set, according to the 31 researchers from seven countries involved in the Global Carbon Project.

Although the 6C rise and its potential disastrous effects have been speculated upon before, this is the first time that scientists have said that society is now on a path to meet it.

Their chilling and remarkable prediction throws into sharp relief the importance of next month's UN climate conference in Copenhagen, where the world community will come together to try to construct a new agreement to bring the warming under control.

For the past month there has been a lowering of expectations about the conference, not least because the US may not be ready to commit itself to cuts in its emissions. But yesterday President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao of China issued a joint communiqué after a meeting in Beijing, which reignited hopes that a serious deal might be possible after all.

It cannot come too soon, to judge by the results of the Global Carbon Project study, led by Professor Corinne Le Quéré, of the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey, which found that there has been a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008, the last year for which figures are available.

On average, the researchers found, there was an annual increase in emissions of just over 3 per cent during the period, compared with an annual increase of 1 per cent between 1990 and 2000. Almost all of the increase this decade occurred after 2000 and resulted from the boom in the Chinese economy. The researchers predict a small decrease this year due to the recession, but further increases from 2010.

In total, CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2008, yet global emissions in 1990 are the reference level set by the Kyoto Protocol, which countries are trying to fall below in terms of their own emissions.

The 6C rise now being anticipated is in stark contrast to the C rise at which all international climate policy, including that of Britain and the EU, hopes to stabilise the warming – two degrees being seen as the threshold of climate change which is dangerous for society and the natural world.

The study by Professor Le Quéré and her team, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, envisages a far higher figure. "We're at the top end of the IPCC scenario," she said.

Professor Le Quéré said that Copenhagen was the last chance of coming to a global agreement that would curb carbon-dioxide emissions on a time-course that would hopefully stabilise temperature rises to within the danger threshold. "The Copenhagen conference next month is in my opinion the last chance to stabilise climate at C above pre-industrial levels in a smooth and organised way," she said.

"If the agreement is too weak, or the commitments not respected, it is not 2.5C or 3C we will get: it's 5C or 6C – that is the path we're on. The timescales here are extremely tight for what is needed to stabilise the climate at C," she said.

Meanwhile, the scientists have for the first time detected a failure of the Earth's natural ability to absorb man-made carbon dioxide released into the air.

They found significant evidence that more man-made CO2 is staying in the atmosphere to exacerbate the greenhouse effect because the natural "carbon sinks" that have absorbed it over previous decades on land and sea are beginning to fail, possibly as a result of rising global temperatures.

The amount of CO2 that has remained in the atmosphere as a result has increased from about 40 per cent in 1990 to 45 per cent in 2008. This suggests that the sinks are beginning to fail, they said.

Professor Le Quéré emphasised that there are still many uncertainties over carbon sinks, such as the ability of the oceans to absorb dissolved CO2, but all the evidence suggests that there is now a cycle of "positive feedbacks", whereby rising carbon dioxide emissions are leading to rising temperatures and a corresponding rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"Our understanding at the moment in the computer models we have used – and they are state of the art – suggests that carbon-cycle climate feedback has already kicked in," she said.

"These models, if you project them on into the century, show quite large feedbacks, with climate amplifying global warming by between 5 per cent and 30 per cent. There are still large uncertainties, but this is carbon-cycle climate feedback that has already started," she said.

The study also found that, for the first time since the 1960s, the burning of coal has overtaken the burning of oil as the major source of carbon-dioxide emissions produced by fossil fuels.

Much of this coal was burned by China in producing goods sold to the West – the scientists estimate that 45 per cent of Chinese emissions resulted from making products traded overseas.

It is clear that China, having overtaken the US as the world's biggest carbon emitter, must be central to any new climate deal, and so the communiqué from the Chinese and US leaders issued yesterday was widely seized on as a sign that progress may be possible in the Danish capital next month.

Presidents Hu and Obama specifically said an accord should include emission-reduction targets for rich nations, and a declaration of action plans to ease greenhouse-gas emissions in developing countries – key elements in any deal.

6C rise: The consequences

If two degrees is generally accepted as the threshold of dangerous climate change, it is clear that a rise of six degrees in global average temperatures must be very dangerous indeed, writes Michael McCarthy. Just how dangerous was signalled in 2007 by the science writer Mark Lynas, who combed all the available scientific research to construct a picture of a world with temperatures three times higher than the danger limit.

His verdict was that a rise in temperatures of this magnitude "would catapult the planet into an extreme greenhouse state not seen for nearly 100 million years, when dinosaurs grazed on polar rainforests and deserts reached into the heart of Europe".

He said: "It would cause a mass extinction of almost all life and probably reduce humanity to a few struggling groups of embattled survivors clinging to life near the poles."

Very few species could adapt in time to the abruptness of the transition, he suggested. "With the tropics too hot to grow crops, and the sub-tropics too dry, billions of people would find themselves in areas of the planet which are essentially uninhabitable. This would probably even include southern Europe, as the Sahara desert crosses the Mediterranean.

"As the ice-caps melt, hundreds of millions will also be forced to move inland due to rapidly-rising seas. As world food supplies crash, the higher mid-latitude and sub-polar regions would become fiercely-contested refuges.

"The British Isles, indeed, might become one of the most desirable pieces of real estate on the planet. But, with a couple of billion people knocking on our door, things might quickly turn rather ugly."

Renewable must be key ingredient in future energy supply, according to IEA

2009-11-11T12:21:00.005+05:30

Investment in renewable energy technologies could decline by 20% this year, but renewables are expected to make large contributions in the latest forecast from the International Energy Agency.

“The past 12 months have seen enormous upheavals in energy markets around the world, yet the challenges of transforming the global energy system remain urgent and daunting,” the IEA notes in its World Energy Outlook 2009. Demand for energy has already plunged with the economic contraction, and countries have responded with fiscal and monetary stimuli on an unprecedented scale which, in many cases, have included measures to promote clean energy in an effort to avoid the “even bigger, and just as real, longterm threat of disastrous climate change.”

Energy is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions and the recession has made the task of “transforming the energy sector easier by giving us an unprecedented, yet relatively narrow, window of opportunity to take action to concentrate investment on low-carbon technology,” it says. The annual outlook examines low-carbon options through a reference scenario (no changes to existing policies and measures) and a 450 scenario (collective policy action to limit the long-term concentration of GHG in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent).

Global energy use will fall in 2009 for the first time since 1981 but current policies will allow it to increase once the economy recovers by 1.5% per year until 2030, or 40% over the period, the report forecasts. Fossil fuels would remain the dominant sources of primary energy around the world, accounting for three-quarters of overall increase in energy use, with coal receiving the largest increase in demand, followed by gas and oil.

The use of non-hydro emerging renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, wave, bio-energy) sees the fastest rate of increase in the reference scenario, with most of the increase in power generation. The share of non-hydro renewables in total power output rises from 2.5% in 2007 to 8.6% in 2030, with wind power grabbing the largest absolute increase.

Falling energy investment has had and will continue to have far-reaching consequences and, in late 2008 and early 2009, investment in renewables fell proportionately more than in other types of generating capacity. In 2009, as a whole, investment could drop by close to one-fifth and, without the stimulus provided by government fiscal packages, investment in renewable energies would have fallen by 30%.

Under the 450 scenario, energy efficiency is the largest contributor to abatement of GHG emissions by 2030, accounting for half of total savings compared with the reference scenario. Decarbonisation of the power sector also plays a central role in reducing emissions, with a big shift in the mix of fuels and technologies such as a 50% reduction in coal-based generation while renewables and nuclear make much bigger contributions.

“The upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will provide important pointers to the kind of energy future that awaits us,” concludes the WEO. “The IEA has already called on all countries to take action on a large scale - a Clean Energy New Deal - to exploit the opportunity the financial and economic crisis presents to effect the permanent shift in investment to low-carbon technologies that will be required to curb the growth of energy-related GHG emissions.”

“Saving the planet cannot wait,” it states. Every year, the costs of transforming the energy sector add US$500 billion to the global incremental investment cost of US$10.5 trillion for the period 2010 to 2030, and the IEA says “the time has come to make the hard choices needed to turn promises into action.”

Sharp achieves world's highest solar cell conversion efficiency

2009-11-07T20:33:00.005+05:30

Sharp Corporation has announced that its triple-junction compound solar cell has broken the efficiency record for non-concentrator solar cells at the research level. The conversion efficiency record of 35.8% was confirmed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST, one of the organisations around the world that officially certifies energy conversion efficiency measurements in solar cells) in September 2009.

Sharp was able to boost efficiency of the 1 square centimetre solar cell by improving the crystallinity (the regularity of the atomic arrangement) in each of the three photo-absorption layers.

Conventionally, Ge (germanium) is used as the bottom layer due to its ease of manufacturing. However, in terms of performance, although Ge generates a large amount of current, the majority of the current is wasted, without being used effectively for electrical energy. The key to solving this problem was to form the bottom layer from InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide), a material with high light utilization efficiency. However, the process to make high-quality InGaAs with high crystallinity was difficult.

Nevertheless, Sharp succeeded in forming an InGaAs layer with high crystallinity by using its proprietary technology for forming layers. As a result, the amount of wasted current has been minimized, and the conversion efficiency, which had been 31.5% in Sharp’s previous cells, has been successfully increased to 35.8%.

Sharp achieved this breakthrough as part of a research and development initiative promoted by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) on the theme of “R&D on Innovative Solar Cells”.

In light of these results, Sharp plans to “continue its efforts towaBased on these results, Sharp will continue its efforts toward even greater improvements in solar cell conversion efficiency.

History of Sharp Compound Solar Cell Development

1967 Development begins of solar cells for space applications using single-crystal silicon.

1976 Launch of operational Japanese satellite, "Ume," equipped with Sharp solar cells for space applications (single-crystal silicon solar cell).

2000 Research and development begin on triple-junction compound solar cell to further improve efficiency, reduce weight, and increase durability of solar cells for space applications.

2001 Participation in research and development on NEDO's photovoltaic power generation themes.

2002 Triple-junction compound solar cell gains certification from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

2003 Conversion efficiency of 31.5% is achieved (at the research level) for triple-junction compound solar cell.

2004 Launch of small scientific satellite, "Reimei," equipped with Sharp triple-junction compound solar cells.

2007 Conversion efficiency of 40.0% achieved (at the research level) for a triple-junction compound solar cell (concentrator type, at 1,100 times concentrated sunlight).

2009 Launch of Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT), "Ibuki", equipped with Sharp triple-junction compound solar cells.

2009 Conversion efficiency of 35.8% is achieved (at the research level) for a triplejunction compound solar cell based on research and development efforts that are part of NEDO's "R&D on Innovative Solar Cells" program.

(1) As of October 22, 2009, for non-concentrator solar cells at the research level (based on Sharp survey).

(2) Conversion efficiency confirmed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; one of the organizations around the world that officially certifies energy conversion efficiency measurements in solar cells) in September 2009. (Cell surface: approx. 1 cm2)

(3) The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) is Japan's public management organization for promoting research and development as well as for disseminating industrial, energy, and environmental technologies.

About Sharp

Sharp Corporation (TSE: 6753) is a worldwide developer of innovative products and core technologies that play a key role in shaping the future of electronics. As a leader in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and digital technologies, Sharp offers one of the broadest and most advanced lines of consumer electronics, information products and electronic components, while also creating new network businesses. For more information, please visit www.sharp.co.jp .

Malidives Cabinet's underwater meeting to highlight the threat of Global Warming

2009-10-18T13:30:00.004+05:30

The Maldives government held a cabinet meeting underwater in a bid to attract international attention to the dangers of global warming.

President Muhammad Nasheed, dressed in full scuba gear, held Saturday's 30 minute meeting at a depth of six metres just north of the capital Male.

A tourist paradise we most associate with its coral reefs and white sand beaches, many of the 1200 islands that make up this country are less than one metre above sea level.

President Mohammed Nasheed and 13 other government officials submerged and took their seats at a table on the sea floor -- 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training.

With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.

''What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world,'' Nasheed said.

As bubbles floated up from their face masks, the president, vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.
The issue has taken on urgency ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen. At that meeting countries will negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol with aims to cut the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Wealthy nations want broad emissions cuts from all countries, while poorer ones say industrialized countries should carry most of the burden.

Dozens of Maldives soldiers guarded the event Saturday, but the only intruders were groupers and other fish.

Nasheed had already announced plans for a fund to buy a new homeland for his people if the 1,192 low-lying coral islands are submerged. He has promised to make the Maldives, with a population of 350,000, the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade.

''We have to get the message across by being more imaginative, more creative and so this is what we are doing,'' he said in an interview on a boat en route to the dive site.

Nasheed, who has emerged as a key, and colorful, voice on climate change, is a certified diver, but the others had to take diving lessons in recent weeks.

Three ministers missed the underwater meeting because two were not given medical permission and another was abroad.

IPCC warning

The Maldives, located southwest of Sri Lanka, has become a vocal campaigner in the battle to halt rising sea levels. In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that a rise in sea levels of 18 to 59 centimetres by 2100 would be enough to make the country virtually uninhabitable.

More than 80 per cent of the country's land, composed of coral islands scattered some 850km across the equator, is less than one metre above sea level.

Artic ocean turns into acid

2009-10-09T11:19:00.002+05:30

Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.

"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."

Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse in high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.

"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.

This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. "We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem," said Gattuso.

His research suggests that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic," he added.

The tiny mollusc Limacina helicina, which is found in Arctic waters, will be particularly vulnerable, he said. The little shellfish is eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds. Its disappearance would therefore have a major impact on the entire marine food chain. The deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa would also be extremely vulnerable to rising acidity. Reefs in high latitudes are constructed by only one or two types of coral – unlike tropical coral reefs which are built by a large variety of species. The loss of Lophelia pertusa would therefore devastate reefs off Norway and the coast of Scotland, removing underwater shelters that are exploited by dozens of species of fish and other creatures.

"Scientists have proposed all sorts of geo-engineering solutions to global warming," said Gattuso. "For instance, they have proposed spraying the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles that would reduce sunlight reaching the Earth, mitigating the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.

"But these ideas miss the point. They will still allow carbon dioxide emissions to continue to increase – and thus the oceans to become more and more acidic. There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."

This was backed by other speakers at the conference. Daniel Conley, of Lund University, Sweden, said that increasing acidity levels, sea-level rises and temperature changes now threatened to bring about irreversible loss of biodiversity in the sea. Christoph Heinze, of Bergen University, Norway, said his studies, part of the EU CarboOcean project, had found that carbon from the atmosphere was being transported into the oceans' deeper waters far more rapidly than expected and was already having a corrosive effect on life forms there.

The oceans' vulnerability to climate change and rising carbon-dioxide levels has also been a key factor in the launching of the EU's Tara Ocean project at Barcelona. The expedition, on the sailing ship Tara, will take three years to circumnavigate the globe, culminating in a voyage through the icy Northwest Passage in Canada, and will make continual and detailed samplings of seawater to study its life forms.

A litre of seawater contains between 1bn and 10bn single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, between 10bn and 100bn viruses and a vast number of more complex, microscopic creatures known as zooplankton, said Chris Bowler, a marine biologist on Tara.
"People think they are just swimming in water when they go for a dip in the sea," he said. "In fact, they are bathing in a plankton soup."

That plankton soup is of crucial importance to the planet, he added. "As much carbon dioxide is absorbed by plankton as is absorbed by tropical rainforests. Its health is therefore of crucial importance to us all."

However, only 1% of the life forms found in the sea have been properly identified and studied, said Bowler. "The aim of the Tara project is to correct some of that ignorance and identify many more of these organisms while we still have the chance. Issues like ocean acidification, rising sea levels and global warming will not be concerns at the back of our minds. They will be a key focus for the work that we do while we are on our expedition."

The toll by 2100

■ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast in 2007 that sea levels would rise by 20cm to 60cm by 2100 thanks to global warming caused by man-made carbon-dioxide emissions. This is now thought to be an underestimate, however, with most scientific bodies warning that sea levels could rise by a metre or even higher. Major inundations of vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh would ensue.

■ The planet will be hotter by 3C by 2100, most scientists now expect, though rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Deserts will spread and heatwaves will become more prevalent. Ice-caps will melt and cyclones are also likely to be triggered.

■ Weather patterns across the globe will become more unstable, numbers of devastating storms will increase dramatically while snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains.

Climate Change - The Road to Copenhagen

2009-10-04T19:38:00.010+05:30

We now have 100 days until Copenhagen. Greenpeace China displayed 100 children carved from ice at the Temple of Earth in Beijing, to symbolise the “disappearing future” for the 1.3 billion people in Asia at risk of water shortage as a result of climate change. This event, matched in India with another ice sculpture, marks the 100-day countdown before the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen - where we are urging governments to take strong, effective action to stop climate change.

The melting sculptures of 100 children are made from Himalayan glacier water from the source of Yangtse, Yellow and Ganges rivers. The ice sculpture in India is a huge “100” on a World Map and was unveiled in New Delhi to show “the world washed away” by glacial melts.

A climate tipping point is unfolding in the Himalayas. The rapid melting of glaciers caused by global warming is jeopardising the water supply for 1.3 billion Asians who live in the watershed of the 7 great rivers that originate in the region. If we cannot stop runaway climate change, babies born today – at this moment – will face a very different reality when they grow up, where water availability would be a serious problem.

The Himalayan glaciers are melting at a rate faster than recorded for other glaciers anywhere in the world. The IPCC suggests that glacier coverage will fall by at least 43 percent and possibly as much as 81 percent by the end of the century - depending on how effectively we act to restrain our greenhouse gas emissions.

China and India together account for one-third of the world’s population but both countries’ water resources (per capita are far below the global average. The two largest developing countries share the challenge of balancing the goals of development and environmental protection. They must pursue a low-carbon development path if we are to avert environmental and humanitarian disaster.

Global countdown to Copenhagen

In other parts of the world - our activists staged public events to highlight the number of days left for our leaders to take action. In Brazil, we set up large clocks in eight cities together with the tcktcktck campaign. In Belgium, 10,000 people formed a giant human banner in the shape of a big clock. Our team in Switzerland placed a giant banner on a retreating glacier saying 'Our Climate, Your Decision' and there was bike riding activity in the Philippines.

Tcktcktck...

We're proud to be part of the Tcktcktck campaign this year. It's a global campaign for climate action, which has launched 100 days ahead of the UN Climate Summit, and brings together an unprecedented alliance of faith groups, non-governmental organisations, trade unions and individuals at this crucial time. We're working with Tcktcktck to harness the voices of people from around the world - calling for an ambitious, fair and binding international agreement that reflects the latest science. As December’s meeting in Copenhagen approaches, tcktcktck will organise around major international meetings and other relevant events to demonstrate the support from citizens around the world in having world leaders attend the negotiations in Copenhagen and produce an ambitious, fair and binding agreement. http://www.tcktcktck.org/
Time to take responsibility

The latest scientific research shows catastrophic climate impacts can be averted by reducing global greenhouse gas emissions after 2015 in order to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius. We are urging developed countries, as a group, to agree to cut emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. And developing countries must reduce their projected emissions growth by 15-30 percent by 2020.

With 100 days until the most important meeting of our time, we're working together with other organisations as part of the global TckTckTck campaign to show that the world is ready for bold climate action. We're asking world leaders to ensure a fair, ambitious, and binding climate deal in Copenhagen this December.

A strong climate treaty will not only reverse the march of dangerous climate change - it will also help us tackle the world’s largest challenges. We will create millions of green jobs, reduce healthcare costs, lift millions out of poverty, and put renewable energy into the hands of everyday citizens in the developing world.

Ref: Greenpeace

Converting garbage into biofuel may cut CO2 emissions by 80 percent

2009-10-01T17:15:00.008+05:30

Scientists in Singapore and Switzerland have suggested that converting the trash that fills the world’s landfills into biofuel could cut global carbon emissions by 80 percent. Biofuels produced from crops have proven controversial because they require an increase in crop production that has its own severe environmental costs.

However, second-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol derived from processed urban waste, may offer dramatic emissions savings without the environmental catch. Converting the rubbish that fills the world’s landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%.

Biofuels produced from crops have proven controversial because they require an increase in crop production which has its own severe environmental costs. However, second-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol derived from processed urban waste, may offer dramatic emissions savings without the environmental catch.

“Our results suggest that fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution,” said study author Associate Professor Hugh Tan of the National University of Singapore. “If developed fully this biofuel could simultaneously meet part of the world’s energy needs, while also combating carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency.”

“If this technology continues to improve and mature these numbers are certain to increase,” concluded co-author Dr. Lian Pin Koh from ETH Zürich. “This could make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future.”

Data from the United Nation’s Human Development Index and the Earth Trends database was used to arrive at an estimate of how much waste is produced in 173 countries and how much fuel the same countries annually require.

The research team has calculated that 82.93 billion liters of cellulosic ethanol can be produced by the available landfill waste in the world and the resulting biofuel can reduce global carbon emissions in the range of 29.2% to 86.1% for every unit of energy produced.

Reference: Wiley - Blackwell (2009, September 29). Is Garbage The Solution To Tackling Climate Change?. ScienceDaily.

Impacts of Climate Change coming faster and sooner.

2009-09-26T16:18:00.006+05:30

The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).

An analysis of the very latest, peer-reviewed science indicates that many predictions at the upper end of the IPCC's forecasts are becoming ever more likely.

Meanwhile, the newly emerging science points to some events thought likely to occur in longer-term time horizons, as already happening or set to happen far sooner than had previously been thought.

Researchers have become increasingly concerned about ocean acidification linked with the absorption of carbon dioxide in seawater and the impact on shellfish and coral reefs.

Water that can corrode a shell-making substance called aragonite is already welling up along the California coast?decades earlier than existing models predict.

Losses from glaciers, ice-sheets and the Polar Regions appear to be happening faster than anticipated, with the Greenland ice sheet, for example, recently seeing melting some 60 percent higher than the previous record of 1998.

Some scientists are now warning that sea levels could rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries.

There is also growing concern among some scientists that thresholds or tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades including dramatic changes to the Indian sub-continent's monsoon, the Sahara and West Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting a critical ecosystem like the Amazon rainforest.

The report also underlines concern by scientists that the planet is now committed to some damaging and irreversible impacts as a result of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

Losses of tropical and temperate mountain glaciers affecting perhaps 20 percent to 25 percent of the human population in terms of drinking water, irrigation and hydro-power.

Shifts in the hydrological cycle resulting in the disappearance of regional climates with related losses of ecosystems, species and the spread of drylands northwards and southwards away from the equator.

Recent science suggests that it may still be possible to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. However, this will only happen if there is immediate, cohesive and decisive action to both cut emissions and assist vulnerable countries adapt.

These are among the findings of a report released today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) entitled Climate Change Science Compendium 2009.

The report, compiled in association with scientists around the world, comes with less than 80 days to go to the crucial UN climate convention meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In a foreword to the document, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who this week hosted heads of state in New York, writes, "This Climate Change Science Compendium is a wake-up call. The time for hesitation is over".

"We need the world to realize, once and for all, that the time to act is now and we must work together to address this monumental challenge. This is the moral challenge of our generation."

The Compendium reviews some 400 major scientific contributions to our understanding of Earth Systems and climate change that have been released through peer-reviewed literature, or from research institutions, over the last three years.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said, "The Compendium can never replace the painstaking rigour of an IPCC process?a shining example of how the United Nations can provide a path to consensus among the sometimes differing views of more than 190 nations".

"However, scientific knowledge on climate change and forecasting of the likely impacts has been advancing rapidly since the landmark 2007 IPCC report," he added.

"Many governments have asked to be kept abreast of the latest findings. I am sure that this report fulfils that request and will inform ministers' decisions when they meet in the Danish capital in only a few weeks time," said Mr. Steiner.

The research findings and observations in the Compendium are divided into five categories: Earth Systems, Ice, Oceans, Ecosystems and Management. Key developments documented since the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report include:

Earth Systems

A new climate modeling system, forecasting average temperatures over a decade by combining natural variation with the impacts of human-induced climate change, projects that at least half of the 10 years following 2009 will exceed the warmest year currently on record. This is despite the fact that natural variation will partially offset the warming "signal" from greenhouse gas emissions.

The growth in carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry has exceeded even the most fossil-fuel intensive scenario developed by the IPCC at the end of the 1990s. Global emissions were growing by 1.1 percent each year from 1990-1999 and this accelerated to 3.5 percent per year from 2000-2007.

The developing and least-developed economies, 80 percent of the world's population, accounted for 73 percent of the global growth of emissions in 2004. However, they contributed only 41 percent of total emissions, and just 23 percent of cumulative emissions since 1750.

Growth of the global economy in the early 2000s and an increase in its carbon intensity (emissions per unit of growth), combined with a decrease in the capacity of ecosystems on land and the oceans to act as carbon "sinks", have led to a rapid increase in the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This has contributed to sooner-than-expected impacts including faster sea-level rise, ocean acidification, melting Arctic sea ice, warming of polar land masses, freshening of ocean currents and shifts in the circulation patterns of the oceans and atmosphere.

The observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations are raising concern among some scientists that warming of between 1.4 and 4.3 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial surface temperatures could occur. This exceeds the range of between 1 and 3 degrees perceived as the threshold for many "tipping points", including the end of summer Arctic sea ice, and the eventual melting of Himalayan glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet.

Ice

The melting of mountain glaciers appears to be accelerating, threatening the livelihoods of one fifth or more of the population who depend on glacier ice and seasonal snow for their water supply. For 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges tracked by the World Glacier Monitoring Service, the mean rate of loss since 2000 has roughly doubled since the rate during the previous two decades. Current trends suggest that most glaciers will disappear from the Pyrenees by 2050 and from the mountains of tropical Africa by 2030.
In 2007, summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank to its smallest extent ever, 24 percent less than the previous record in 2005, and 34 percent less than the average minimum extent in the period 1970-2000. In 2008, the minimum ice extent was 9 percent greater than in 2007, but still the second lowest on record.
Until the summer of 2007, most models projected an ice-free September for the Arctic Ocean towards the end of the current century. Reconsideration based on current trends has led to speculation that this could occur as soon as 2030.

Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface also seems to be accelerating. In the summer of 2007, the rate of melting was some 60 percent higher than the previous record in 1998.

The loss of ice from West Antarctica is estimated to have increased by 60 per cent in the decade to 2006, and by 140 percent from the Antarctic Peninsula in the same period.

Recent findings show that warming extends well to the south of the Antarctic Peninsula, to cover most of West Antarctica, an area of warming much larger than previously reported.

The hole in the ozone layer has had a cooling effect on Antarctica, and is partly responsible for masking expected warming on the continent. Recovery of stratospheric ozone, thanks to the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances, is projected to increase Antarctic temperatures in coming decades.

Oceans

Recent estimates of the combined impact of melting land-ice and thermal expansion of the oceans suggest a plausible average sea level rise of between 0.8 and 2.0 metres above the 1990 level by 2100. This compares with a projected rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres in the last IPCC report, which did not include an estimate of large-scale changes in ice-melt rates, due to lack of consensus.

Oceans are becoming more acidic more quickly than expected, jeopardizing the ability of shellfish and corals to form their external skeletons. Water that can corrode a shell-making carbonate substance called aragonite is already welling up during the summer along the California coast, decades earlier than models predict.

Ecosystems

Since the 2007 IPCC report, wide-ranging surveys have shown changes to the seasonal behaviour and distribution of all well-studied marine, freshwater and terrestrial groups of plants and animals. Polar and mountaintop species have seen severe contractions of their ranges.
A recent study projecting the impacts of climate change on the pattern of marine biodiversity suggests dramatic changes to come. Ecosystems in sub-polar waters, the tropics and semi-enclosed seas are predicted to suffer numerous extinctions by 2050, while the Arctic and Southern Oceans will experience severe species invasions. Marine ecosystems as a whole may see a species turnover of up to 60 percent.

Under the IPCC scenario that most closely matches current trends ? i.e. with the highest projected emissions ? between 12 and 39 percent of the Earth's land surface could experience previously unknown climate conditions by 2100. A similar proportion, between 10 and 48 percent, will see existing climates disappear. Many of these "disappearing climates" coincide with biodiversity hotspots, and with the added problem of fragmented habitats and physical obstructions to migration, it is feared many species will struggle to adapt to the new conditions.
Perennial drought conditions have already been observed in South-eastern Australia and South-western North America. Projections suggest that persistent water scarcity will increase in a number of regions in coming years, including southern and northern Africa, the Mediterranean, much of the Middle East, a broad band in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

Management

The reality of a rapidly-changing climate may make conventional approaches to conservation and restoration of habitats ineffective. Drastic measures such as large-scale translocation or assisted colonization of species may need to be considered.
Eco-agriculture, in which landscapes are managed to sustain a range of ecosystem services, including food production, may need to replace the current segregation of land use between conservation and production. This could help create resilient agricultural ecosystems better able to adapt to the changing climate conditions.

Experts increasingly agree that active protection of tropical forests is a cost-effective means of cutting global emissions. An international mechanism of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is likely to emerge as a central component of a new agreement in Copenhagen. However, many issues need to be resolved, such as how to verify the reductions and ensuring fair treatment of local and indigenous forest communities.

A number of innovative approaches are emerging to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, including the use of "biochar", biologically-derived charcoal. It is mixed in soils, increasing fertility and potentially locking up carbon for centuries. This is a 21st century application of a technology known as Terra Preta, or Black Earth, used by Amazon peoples before the arrival of Europeans in South America.

Ref: IPCC Website

UN conference on Global Warming - Was it successful?

2009-09-25T14:31:00.007+05:30

On 22nd September 2009, government leaders representing about 100 nations gathered at the United Nations in New York to discuss global warming. The meeting was billed as an attempt to jump-start negotiations in advance of a December summit in Copenhagen at which a global treaty governing greenhouse gas emissions is to be produced.

Instead, the New York conference only served to highlight the impossibility of realizing even the most limited environmental reforms in a world order dominated by rival capitalist nation states.

Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide emissions created in the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon and other “greenhouse gases” trap heat in the atmosphere, increasing the earth’s temperature beyond normal climatological fluctuations. Among global warming’s observed effects are the melting of the polar ice caps, which threatens coastal populations due to rising sea levels, and an increase in the severity of weather patterns. Its impact on the earth’s species, food production, water supply and human disease will be dramatic.

In light of the gathering threat of environmental catastrophe, the inability of the world heads of state to agree on even modest measures to meet it is all the more glaring. The conference revealed sharp divisions among the world’s three largest greenhouse gas producers, the US, China, and Europe.

China and the US by themselves produce 40 percent of all carbon emissions. The two nations, whose economies are also tightly bound together, have refused to agree to mandates on emission reductions. The speeches of presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao, both of whom addressed the UN gathering, were therefore watched with particular interest.

Obama’s remarks were typical of the president. The speech had nothing to say about what the US might do to reduce its emissions.

“Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead,” Obama said. “And we will continue to do so by investing in renewable energy, promoting greater efficiency, and slashing our emissions to reach the targets we set for 2020 and our long-term goal for 2050.”

In fact, the US has taken no significant measures to reduce its carbon emissions. The US is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, after Congress, on cue from major corporate polluters, refused to ratify the treaty. The US is the only major country not to pass Kyoto.

Obama did not use his UN speech to call on the the US Senate to produce a greenhouse gas emissions bill in advance of the Copenhagen meeting. To be ratified, any treaty would require a 67-vote Senate majority.

Obama favors a “free market” solution to global warming, or so-called “cap and trade” measures, which would provide rich incentives to corporations to modestly reduce carbon emissions, while turning pollution into a tradeable commodity. Such a bill was passed in the House in June, but has been held up in the Senate until some time next year. (See "US House passes Obama administration’s carbon trading legislation".)

The only difference that Obama’s speech enunciated from the previous American position was an acceptance that global warming is, in fact, taking place and that it is caused by human activity. This Obama referred to as an “historic recognition on behalf of the American people and their government [that] we understand the gravity of the climate threat...” George W. Bush, Obama’s obscurantist predecessor in the White House, notoriously declared that “all the science isn’t in yet” on global warming.

Yet, in his speech’s only substantive portion, Obama reiterated the Bush administration position that combating carbon emissions is the responsibility of developing industrial powers like China and India. “Those rapidly-growing developing nations that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decades ahead must do their part as well,” Obama said.

Given that China and India are rapidly growing economies, it is unsurprising that their carbon emissions are also growing rapidly. But they still lag far behind the US in per capita carbon production. While the US produces about the same amount of carbon as China, it has less than a fourth of China’s population.

There is little doubt that China’s rapid industrial expansion is creating an environmental disaster. Much of China’s energy consumption comes from burning coal, which produces carbon emissions at a higher rate than other fossil fuels.

Hu tacitly rejected the American president’s claim that developing countries must shoulder the burden for reducing carbon emissions. “Developing countries need to strike a balance between economic growth, social development and environmental protection,” Hu said.

Hu indicated that China would continue to increase its carbon emissions, saying only that greenhouse gas output would decrease relative to economic growth. Hu also said that China would begin a large-scale reforestation project, increase its consumption of non-fossil fuels, and develop a “green economy.”

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, addressed the meeting on behalf of the European nations, which “have grown increasingly frustrated with Mr. Obama for not investing more political capital in the climate agenda at home,” the British daily Telegraph notes.

Sarkozy used his speech to take a swipe at Obama, telling the gathered heads of state he would not “inflict” a “grandiose speech” on delegates when “concrete proposals” are required.

Sub-Saharan African and poor island nations, which are already suffering under the effects of global warming and which produce relatively negligible amounts of carbon, are requesting financial reparations from the wealthier nations primarily responsible for global warming.

The French environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, went out of his way to reject such a proposal. “They have to show what it will pay for,” he said.

It is clear that if any agreement is produced at December’s Copenhagen gathering, it will be a derisory response to the crisis of global warming.

To date, major industrialized nations have agreed to reduce emissions by 2050. This date is so far in the future, and the promises to reduce emissions so vague, that it is not taken seriously. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has proposed a short-term target of reducing emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. This reduction, which environmental groups say is insufficient to reverse global warming, is likely to be opposed by the US as well as China and India, which reject emission mandates.

There are also unresolved disagreements over what body should oversee compliance with carbon emission standards.

Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, who called the climate change summit, lamented that “negotiations were moving as fast as a glacier.”

Slower, perhaps, than the world’s glaciers are melting.

Indian wind energy could cover 24% of the country’s power needs by 2030

2009-09-16T15:25:00.003+05:30

Honorable Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India, Dr. Farooq Abdullah released a book titled “Indian Wind Energy Outlook 2009" on the 9th September 2009 in New Delhi. This report is published jointly by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association (IWTMA).

The study examines the potential of wind power in India up to the year 2030 and found that the technology, re-powering, untapped off-shore potential and furthering wind resource assessment could play a key part in the nation’s effort to provide energy to its ever growing demand in an economy which will boom and at the same time combat climate change.

“India is already an established force in the global wind energy markets, and yet, it has the potential to achieve so much more,” said GWEC Secretary General Steve Sawyer. “Wind energy can be deployed at a very large scale in a very short period of time. With the right support, it can make a major difference in improving India’s energy independence by providing it with vast amounts of clean, indigenous energy.”

The report explains how wind energy can provide up to 24% of the India’s power needs by 2030 while attracting 475 bn Rs in investment every year and creating 213,000 ‘green collar’ jobs in manufacturing, project development, installation, operation, maintenance, consulting etc. At the same time, it would save a total of 5.5 bn tons of CO2 in that timeframe.

The ‘Indian Wind Energy Outlook’ explores three different scenarios for wind power – a Reference scenario based on figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA); a Moderate version which assumes that current policy measures and targets for renewable energy are met; and an Advanced Scenario which assumes that all policy options in favour of renewables have been adopted. These are then set against two demand projections for electricity demand.

Mr. D V Giri, Chairman, IWTMA, said, “In our rapidly growing economy, the security of energy supply is key and wind energy potential must not be wasted. Deploying wind energy at a large scale would help us to realize significant economic and environmental benefits. We now urge the government to fast track proposals to introduce a National renewable energy policy to help the industry to make this happen for India. He also added, “IWTMA plays a significant role as turnkey solution providers with ‘state of the art’ technology to its customers.”

Mr. Arthouros Zervos, Chairman, GWEC, said, “This report demonstrates that wind technology is not a dream for the future – it is working now, and ready for tackling India’s energy challenges.” He also added, “The political choices of the coming years will determine the world’s and India’s, environmental and economic situation for many decades to come. The wind industry stands ready to do its part in what the UN Secretary General has described as ‘the defining struggle of the 21st century’. With sufficient political will and the right frameworks, it could do even more”.

To date, 10 Indian states have implemented supporting policies for wind energy. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is currently considering plans to introduce Generation Based Incentive (GBI) which is expected to attract Foreign Director Investment (FDIs) and Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

The report is part of a wind industry campaign entitled ‘Wind Power Works’, which is coordinated by GWEC and supported by IWMTA. Its aim is to increase government awareness and positive action on wind energy in the run up to the COP 15 climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Prospects of CPV Technology

2009-09-14T16:14:00.009+05:30

Concentrating PV employs optic elements to concentrate sunlight on to cells which are much more efficient and smaller than conventional cells. These optic elements allow the concentration of sunlight, multiplying its intensity by factors that range from 2, in low concentration, to more than 1000, in high concentration. Given that the efficiency of CPV cells tends to increase with concentration, CPV can afford to reduce the use of semi-conductive material used in cells without lowering the overall efficiency of the system.

Currently, most CPV companies employ triple junction cells. Mass produced multi-junction cells have reported efficiencies of 35% to 39%, which exceed the efficiency of conventional silicon cells by a wide margin. The combination of high efficiency cells with optic elements allows CPV to produce the same amount of energy whilst using 1775 times less cell surface than standard PV systems . Given that the semiconductor materials that make up the cells are the most expensive, this should result in a reduction in the cost per kWh.

Despite its potential for staggering cost reductions, CPV is still relatively costly. According to a CPV today report , the costs of CPV are around 0.31 to 0.39 € per kWh. These high prices are partly due to the small scale of most CPV installations. However, dramatic cost reductions are expected in the coming years, bringing CPV within an affordable cost bracket of 0.12 to 0.15 € per kWh in 2015 in places with a level of solar irradiation of 2500 kWh/m2/year.

Increases in cell efficiency and optic elements will be crucial factors in bringing about these cost reductions. It is expected that in 2015 triple junction cells will reach record efficiencies of 50% while optics systems could reach between 80% and 90%.

WHAT IS CPV

Concentrator PV systems convert sunlight directly to electricity, just as other photovoltaic technologies do, but with some important differences. First, CPV systems use different PV cell technology. CPV systems utilize high-efficiency, multi-junction cells, not silicon. These cells provide over twice the conversion efficiencies of most silicon cells—approaching 40+%. Thus, the amount of photovoltaic material used is a fraction of that used in traditional PV systems.

Second, CPV systems use optical elements — mirrors or lenses — to collect and focus sunlight onto these high-efficiency cells. In the optical system shown in the figure at the top of the page, the primary mirror collects the sunlight, focuses it on the secondary mirror, then it travels down the optical rod, concentrating it 650 times onto the high efficiency cell. Similar to a telescope, the CPV optics are trained on the sun’s position and collect and concentrate light onto the solar cell.

Third, CPV systems incorporated precision, dual-axis tracking to keep the concentrators in alignment with the sun throughout the day. By tracking the sun from sunrise to sunset, CPV systems produce energy at a steady rate throughout the day and power production remains at high levels during afternoon’s peak demand hours.

By replacing expensive PV material with comparatively inexpensive optics, utilizing high efficiency PV cells, and tracking the sun, energy generation potential is much higher and cost of energy much lower than with other solar technologies in the high solar resource regions of the world.

CPV technology has clearly moved out of the lab and prototyping phase -- becoming a reality with multi-megawatt installations underway. Today we are faced with dramatically increasing electricity demand globally presenting a critical need for clean, renewable energy. While the sun is the world's most abundant renewable resource, today it is barely tapped as an energy source. The challenge has been in cost effective conversion of that sunlight to electricity. Historically, harvesting photons has been hindered by high costs compared with traditional energy.

Photovoltaics technology (PV) has played a critical role in the evolution of renewable energy. The important thing to recognize, however, is that for the PV industry to reach its growth potential and become a major source of the world’s energy supply, then technology cannot stand still. Technologies like silicon PV and thin films must continue to evolve, working to squeeze more energy out of PV cells, and driving to lower cost. But that alone won’t take us far enough. There is a need for disruptive technologies that leverage existing technology, but are more advanced at providing benefits not achievable with current technologies.

EMERGING CPV

CPV is a young technology but the progress made in the past three years alone has been dramatic. In this short time, the number of companies developing CPV systems has grown from a handful to three dozen. The number of companies advancing technology for high-efficiency cells is accelerating, and commercial deployments have gone from a few kilowatts of primarily test sites, to somewhere around 5–8 MW in 2008. The expected deployments this year are forecasted to be between 30–50 MW. CPV now has a place under the sun.

GEOGRAPHICAL SUITABILITY

In areas where the solar resource is high, CPV systems are ideal, including such areas as southern Europe, the southwest U.S., Africa, Australia, parts of Latin America and Asia. We estimate that CPV is ideally suited to about one-third of the world’s land regions, which represent ~40% of the world’s population. In these regions, CPV technology will provide the highest level of energy production and the lowest cost of electricity.

HIGHEST EFFICIENCY LEVELS

CPV has been challenged by some as being too expensive a technology. There are two key factors to understand related to cost. First is efficiency. The single biggest impact on the cost of delivering solar energy is efficiency of the system — in other words, the rate at which the system can convert sunlight to electricity. CPV clearly has the highest efficiency levels — nearly twice that of most PV. Of equal importance is the fact that these efficiency levels are increasing on a steady upward trajectory, with tremendous headroom before they begin to approach any theoretical limits for the cell technology.

The second factor is the issue of manufacturing costs. From a volume manufacturing perspective, CPV is in its infancy. The manufacturing cost reduction curve, resulting from rapidly increasing volumes combined with automation, is also moving at a very steep trajectory downward. When you combine the increasing efficiency and decreasing manufacturing costs, CPV clearly leads the industry in its cost of energy reduction potential.

CPV-SUITABLE FOR BIG SOLAR POWER PLANTS

From a scalability standpoint, there are two key factors to understand. First, CPV systems use very little specialized PV material. The majority of the system is built from readily available materials that can be sourced globally including aluminum and glass. The materials supply shortages that have plagued the solar industry in the past are much less of an issue for CPV, allowing for very rapid scalability from a materials perspective.

CPV also has a much lower cap-ex requirement than other solar technologies. This is a very important element of rapidly building capacity as the deployment of CPV systems moves from 8 MW to 50 MW to gigawatts of capacity in the not-so-distant future. CPV provides deployment flexibility from small sites to large utility-scale power plants, with projects being deployed for commercial, industrial, and utility customers in both on-grid and off-grid environments.

CPV SPECIALITIES

High-temperature performance

While it would be easy to assume that high solar resource regions are ideal for all solar, that is not the case. When it gets hot, silicon PV and thin films both suffer temperature degradation, resulting in a much lower energy production as temperature rises. On the contrary, the multi-junction cells used in CPV systems do not suffer from significant temperature degradation. Energy producers get the highest energy output per megawatt installed with CPV. Higher energy production directly correlates to lower cost of energy.

Environmental sustainability

CPV uses significantly less PV material than traditional photovoltaics. It depends on the system, but in the case of SolFocus (Fig. 1), its systems are over 97% recyclable. Being mounted on trackers (Fig. 2), not directly on the ground, the systems do not disrupt the land as much as other technologies do. Dual-use of the land is possible; land could be improved while producing energy.

CPV also offers a much shorter energy payback than other solar technologies. While it varies depending on the system, energy payback is 6 months for reflective CPV technology like SolFocus’, compared to 2 years for traditional PV. Also important: CPV does not use water to produce electricity. In many high solar resource regions, water is in scarce supply. With technologies such as concentrating solar power, says a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) report, power plants consume on average 750–1000 gallons/MWh of energy production.

CONCLUSION

CPV solutions are changing the face of PV. Deployment of ground mounted, utility scale systems is growing. The cost of solar energy in the fastest growing solar markets is reducing rapidly. The environment is benefiting not just from clean energy, but from energy created with a very small carbon footprint. The technology has clearly moved out of the lab and prototyping phase, and is becoming a reality with multi-megawatt installations underway.

Ref: Article by Nancy Hart Soch

http://www.solfocus.com/

http://www.cpvtoday.com/

Solar Power from Space

2009-09-05T18:45:00.004+05:30

The idea of generating solar power from space has been gathering momentum for quite some time. And various alternative energy companies are investing substantial amount of money in this concept. The advantages of harnessing solar energy from space are many. Solar energy in space is ten times more than on the planet earth. In space there are no nights and no weather changes. The wear and tear will be less too because of lack of humidity, rain, storm or friction.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and IHI Corporation are undertaking an ambitious project of $ 21bn. They are aspiring to design and develop a Space-based solar farm that would generate 1GW of power. This will require an area of four square kilometer consisting of rows of solar panels. This space solar farm will be housed 36,000km above the surface of the earth.

This 21bn power project has a timeline of three decades. Before wetting their feet fully, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will go for a small 10MW demonstration satellite which would have solar panels. This smaller project would be completed in 2015. This experimental project will first test the water before taking the whole plunge. They will also test the systems used to beam energy from space to ground-based receivers. Once fully developed the plant will generate about 1GW of solar power on the ground. It could be a base load resource instead of an intermittent source of power. This amount of power can meet the energy needs of about 294,000 Tokyo homes on an average.

In fact base load issues are one the last hurdles when we talk about many forms of renewable energy. But the million dollar question to tackle is how to get the power from the solar panels affixed upon the orbiting platforms back to Earth? Currently the existing knowledge says that one can convert it into radio frequency energy for transmission. We can install a receiving station on the earth, which then converts it back into electricity.

If successful, the pilot project could deal with certain concerns such as the use of environmentally sensitive areas for extensive solar farms. However, they have to tackle one more issue: the energy required to produce and put these solar panels into space versus the amount of energy they may generate. One of the solutions can be that they can utilize the concept of space elevators.

A division of JAXA, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) has already prepared a prototype of the SPS2000, a 10 megawatt demonstration solar-power satellite.

ISAS is also undertaking a project where an experimental satellite will be tested for wireless power supply of several hundred kilowatts. Ground experiments are being held for scrutinizing the influence of high-voltage discharge which is a sheer necessity for large-capacity power generation in space. They are also spending time on the impact of space debris on the solar farm.

Ref: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Solar Power for Europe from Sahara

2009-08-18T23:20:00.005+05:30

Around a dozen companies launched a Renewable Energy Initiative that its backers claim could within a decade provide Europeans with electricity generated from the Sahara – at a cost of €400bn ($557bn).

Munich Re, the German insurer, Deutsche Bank, utilities RWE and Eon and industrial conglomerate Siemens are among the bluechip names that formed a company to explore the technical and geopolitical challenges of peppering the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East with solar mirrors.

By joining together hundreds of solar thermal power plants and wind farms with high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission cables under the Mediterranean sea, the founders of the Desertec Industrial Initiative hope one day to supply 15 per cent of Europe’s electricity needs.

Concentrating solar power plants use the sun’s heat to generate electricity. Hundreds of mirrors focus the sun’s rays on to a receiver containing a heat transfer fluid, such as oil. This heat energy is used to produce steam which drives a turbine, much like in a traditional power station. Unlike photovoltaic solar cells, CSP plants are able to generate electricity at night or on cloudy days, by storing the heat they produce.

Unlike photovoltaic solar cells, CSP plants are able to generate electricity at night or on cloudy days, by storing the heat they produce. Scientists estimate that covering 3 per cent of surface of the Sahara with solar power plants would be sufficient to meet the world’s energy needs. The world’s deserts receive more energy from the sun in six hours than mankind consumes in a year.
CSP require lots of water to aid cooling, a resource not commonly associated with desert climates. However, scientists are developing other cooling methods.

Compared by Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of Eon, with the challenge of putting a man on the moon, the Desertec project would require the creation of a €45bn electricity super-grid covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

A study by the German Aerospace Centre estimated the total cost of the project at €395bn.
Although feted in the German media, Desertec is not without its detractors, who see it is an expensive flight of fancy, first cooked up by ardent professors and political idealists, and now embraced by corporate spin.

However, the initiative has already won an army of powerful supporters, including Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, who laud its potential to cut greenhouse gases.

Although companies who have joined the consortium acknowledge the project’s complexity, they insist the technology is ready to implement it. Concentrating solar power plants have been used in California since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, HVDC cables are already capable of transporting power over hundreds of kilometres without large efficiency losses. “The [Desertec] project has been on the drawing board for 30 years and now for the first time it has become technically feasible,” said Wolfgang Dehen, chief executive of Siemens Energy.

New Feed-in tariff Scheme for Renewable Energy by the UK Govt.

2009-08-13T17:53:00.006+05:30

The move has potentially far reaching ramifications in the English speaking world where there has been reluctance to use full-fledged systems of feed-in tariffs, sometimes on ideological grounds. Now that Britain, Ontario, and South Africa, two of Britain's former colonies, have definitively moved toward implementing sophisticated feed-in tariff programs, there may be less reticence to do so elsewhere in the Anglophone world.

The British proposal has also contributed several innovative new twists on feed-in tariff design that will mark the program as "made in the United Kingdom".

One new feature is the inclusion of tariffs for Combined Heat & Power (CHP). While not a first, it is one of the few programs to do so. Another feature of the proposed program is a distinct tariff for small solar PV systems on new homes, and a separate tariff for existing homes.

Most significantly, program designers have included a mechanism to encourage homeowners and small businesses to reduce their electricity consumption. For example, a solar PV generator will be paid for all their generation. However, they will receive a bonus, currently at £0.05/kWh ($0.08 USD/kWh, $0.09 CAD/kWh), for electricity delivered to the grid over and above their domestic consumption. Thus, if a homeowner is able to cut their domestic consumption, and sell more electricity to the grid as a result, they are paid the bonus on top of the posted feed-in tariff.

Households which contribute electricity from renewable sources to the UK National Grid are to receive payments under a new government feed-in tariff scheme, labelled the "Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme”.

Back in 2008 the UK Government outlined policies in "The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, National strategy for climate and energy" White Paper designed to significantly reduce carbon emissions in the country by 35% by 2020 and by at least 80% by 2050. Now, as part of its recently released Renewable Energy Strategy designed to contribute to achieving these targets, the Secretary of State of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, has announced that a feed-in tariff rate will be introduced in the UK for suppliers of renewable energy who feed energy back into the grid.

The Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme is a more user-friendly term for feed-in tariffs (FITs), which other countries such as Germany have used so successfully to promote small as well as large-scale renewable energy production over the last decade. The UK Government’s decision to introduce FITs is intended to simplify the incentives for using renewable energy sources, since the current system – the Renewable Obligation (RO) – is a very lengthy and complex system designed for energy professionals who generate electricity on a large scale (50kW+). The Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme has therefore been designed to benefit micro-generators (households, communities and businesses with installations of up to 50kW), while larger installations of 50kW-5MW will be offered the choice of either the FIT or the RO scheme.

The key now is to wait and see at what level the UK Government establishes the FITs, as previous experience in other countries has shown that setting them too low can lead to a lack of take-up of renewables, while excessively high limits become economically unsustainable and politically sensitive.

For additional information:
http://www.feed-in-tariff.org./resources/TheUKRenewableEnergyStrategy2009.pdf

Americans used more Solar, Biomass and Wind Energy in 2008

2009-08-09T13:31:00.006+05:30

Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The nation used less coal and petroleum during the same time frame and only slightly increased its natural gas consumption. Geothermal energy use remained the same.

The estimated U.S. energy use in 2008 equaled 99.2 quadrillion BTUs ("quads"), down from 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007. (A BTU or British Thermal Unit is a unit of measurement for energy, and is equivalent to about 1.055 kilojoules).

Energy use in the industrial and transportation sectors declined by 1.17 and 0.9 quads respectively, while commercial and residential use slightly climbed. The drop in transportation and industrial use - which are both heavily dependent on petroleum - can be attributed to a spike in oil prices in summer 2008.

Last year saw a significant increase in biomass with the recent push for the development of more biofuels including ethanol.

"This is a good snapshot of what's going on in the country. Some of the year-to year changes in supply and consumption can be traced to factors such as the economy and energy policy," said A.J. Simon, an LLNL energy systems analyst who develops the energy flow charts using data provided by the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.

Simon said the increase in wind energy can be attributed to large investments in wind turbine technologies over the last few years as well as better use of the existing turbines.

The chart also shows the amount of energy rejected by the United States. Of the 99.2 quads consumed, only 42.15 ended up as energy services. Energy services are "things that make our lives better," Simon said. "That's the energy that makes your car move and that comes out of your light bulb."

The ratio of energy services to the total amount of energy used is a measure of the country's energy efficiency. The remainder, explained Simon, "is simply rejected. For example, some rejected energy shows up as waste heat from power plants."

"I'm really excited about the renewed push for energy efficiency in this country," he said. "Because once that energy is rejected, it's no longer useful. But more efficient power plants, automobiles and even light bulbs really do reject less energy while providing the same energy services."

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has helped to visualize the Energy Information Administration's U.S. energy data since the early 1970s.

(Adapted from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, U.S)

Mega Solar Power Capacity Addition Plan by the Indian Govenment

2009-08-02T18:13:00.007+05:30

Strategies that mitigate climate change resulting from increasing concentration of greenhouse gas emissions while promoting sustainable and equitable development are needed to be taken rapidly and immediately by countries world-wide.

The Indian Government is all set to unveil a mega solar power capacity addition plan to make India the global leader in solar energy.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a meeting of Council on Climate Change on August 3 to give a final nod to the plan that aims to add 20,000 MW of generation capacity by 2020 and makes it as cheap as electricity from conventional sources. The mega plan would seek an investment of nearly Rs. 1 lakh crore over a 30-year period.

Highly placed sources said that to kick-start the whole thing in a big way, the Government was likely to make a huge outlay, which could be Rs. 4,000-6,000 crore, in the XI Plan. The outlay would be doubled during the XII Plan (2013-17).

“The idea is to send out a clear message to the country and the international community that India is serious on its approach to climate change. The plan implementation would be done through the National Solar Mission,” a senior official remarked.

Earlier the government’s repeated talk of putting climate change agenda on top of its priorities was hardly reflected in the Budget, which made just a cursory mention of the subject as well as other environmental issues. All that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in his Budget speech was that the government would provide the “necessary funds” for the eight missions launched under the National Action Plan on Climate Change that was unveiled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year. No amount was mentioned.

Most of the eight missions are still to be readied and that probably explained the absence of any financial allocation in the Budget. But the Budget was completely lacklustre on other environmental areas as well, including the need to push for energy efficiency or supporting schemes for bringing clean energy sources to rural households.

Now, the announcement of the solar mega capacity additional plan gives more hope for the Climate Groups and Environmentalists.

The objective of the mega solar power plan is to ensure that the country has a capacity addition of one lakh MW by 2030 and two lakh MW of solar power by 2050. It would also seek solar power cost reduction to achieve grid tariff parity by 2020.

Experts have been faced with the challenge of producing solar power as cheaply as from coal or hydel sources. This is the main obstacle to be tackled by reducing the cost of solar power generation to Rs. 4-5 per kWh by 2017-20. The objective of the mega plan would be to achieve rapid scale up to drive down costs, to spur domestic manufacturing and to validate the technological and economic viability of different solar applications.

Reference: The Hindu Daily

Sandia's New Sun catcher Energy System

2009-07-21T22:22:00.006+05:30

Concentrating solar power plants produce electric power by converting the sun's energy into high-temperature heat using various mirror configurations. The heat is then channeled through a conventional generator. The plants consist of two parts: one that collects solar energy and converts it to heat, and another that converts heat energy to electricity.

Concentrating solar power systems can be sized for village power (10 kilowatts) or grid-connected applications (up to 100 megawatts). Some systems use thermal storage during cloudy periods or at night. Others can be combined with natural gas and the resulting hybrid power plants provide high-value, dispatchable power. These attributes, along with world record solar-to-electric conversion efficiencies, make concentrating solar power an attractive renewable energy option in the Southwest and other sunbelt regions worldwide.

SunCatchers™, the new Concentrating Solar-thermal Power (CSP) dishes, as the scientists call them, have a refined design that will be used in commercial-scale deployments of the units beginning in 2010. Stirling Energy Systems (SES) and Tessera Solar recently unveiled four of these newly designed solar power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF).

“The four new dishes are the next-generation model of the original SunCatcher system. Six first-generation SunCatchers built over the past several years at the NSTTF have been producing up to 150KW [kilowatts] of grid-ready electrical power during the day,” says Chuck Andraka, the lead Sandia project engineer. “Every part of the new system has been upgraded to allow for a high rate of production and cost reduction.”

Sandia’s concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) team has been working closely with SES over the past five years to improve the system design and operation.

The modular CSP SunCatcher uses precision mirrors attached to a parabolic dish to focus the sun’s rays onto a receiver, which transmits the heat to a Stirling engine. The engine is a sealed system filled with hydrogen. As the gas heats and cools, its pressure rises and falls. The change in pressure drives the piston inside the engine, producing mechanical power, which in turn drives a generator and makes electricity.

The new SunCatcher is about 5,000 pounds lighter than the original, is round instead of rectangular to allow for more efficient use of steel, has improved optics, and consists of 60 percent fewer engine parts. The revised design also has fewer mirrors — 40 instead of 80. The reflective mirrors are formed into a parabolic shape using stamped sheet metal similar to the hood of a car. The mirrors are made by using automobile manufacturing techniques. The improvements will result in high-volume production, cost reductions, and easier maintenance.

Among Sandia’s contributions to the new design was development of a tool to determine how well the mirrors work in less than 10 seconds, something that took the earlier design one hour.

“The new design of the SunCatcher represents more than a decade of innovative engineering and validation testing, making it ready for commercialization,” says Steve Cowman, Stirling Energy Systems CEO. “By utilizing the automotive supply chain to manufacture the SunCatcher, we’re leveraging the talents of an industry that has refined high-volume production through an assembly line process. More than 90 percent of the SunCatcher components will be manufactured in North America.”

In addition to improved manufacturability and easy maintenance, the new SunCatcher minimizes both cost and land use and has numerous environmental advantages, Andraka says.
“They have the lowest water use of any thermal electric generating technology, require minimal grading and trenching, require no excavation for foundations, and will not produce greenhouse gas emissions while converting sunlight into electricity,” he says.

Tessera Solar, the developer and operator of large-scale solar projects using the SunCatcher technology and sister company of SES, is building a 60-unit plant generating 1.5 MW (megawatts) by the end of the year either in Arizona or California. One megawatt powers about 800 homes. The proprietary solar dish technology will then be deployed to develop two of the world’s largest solar generating plants in Southern California with San Diego Gas & Electric in the Imperial Valley and Southern California Edison in the Mojave Desert, in addition to the recently announced project with CPS Energy in West Texas. The projects are expected to produce 1,000 MW by the end of 2012.

(Source from Sandia National laboratory )

Solar Cities - A Global Initiative for Sustainable Development

2009-07-16T21:54:00.016+05:30

The concept of "Solar Citiy" has been popular and well conceived in different parts of the world by various Governments as an initiative for the dissemination of Renewable Energy technologies and as a measure for Sustainable Development.

The focus is on cities as complete systems, and involves establishing targets for energy use and emission reduction, identifying performance indicators, and developing planning strategies aimed at improved performance, within the framework of existing city networks. It sees each city as a unique laboratory for studying the effect of dense urbanisation on energy and the environment, and for determining the required changes and additions to the urban environment needed for sustainability and improving the standard of living for city inhabitants.

A Solar Community is a city or town that made a firm commitment to clear and ambitious emissions reduction targets, also recognising that RE sources and energy efficiency are necessary to achieve sustainable energy provision.

There is an International Solar Cities Initiative (ISCI) aimed at promoting the greater use of renewable energy (RE) within the context of long-term planning for sustainable urban development. The International Solar Cities Initiative (ISCI) originally was an idea of outstanding scientists in the field of solar energy. Sustainability is a word with a rapidly increasing importance in public opinion. Society and its cities should be developed in such a way that use of materials and energy does not exceed the ability of Earth to support it.

The use of energy by far has the largest negative impact of our environment and is exhausting the stock of minerals containing it at an incredible speed. In a few ages mankind uses what had been formed in millions of years.

Solar energy and its derivates are easily available and easily to harvest if we just aim for it and are willing to make an effort. Our buildings can stay comfortable and could nearly operate without the need of external heat sources by using the natural behaviour of the sun. The basic principles have been known for ages.

We can harvest solar heat with low or high tech solar collectors. More than hundred years ago this technique was highly developed already.And we can make electricity from sunlight with rapidly increasing efficiency and decreasing cost. By "going solar" cities set the most important and influential step to sustainability.Therefore sustainable cities have to be solar cities.

Application of solar energy is important in a society which is very dependant if not addicted to energy use. And solar energy can supply a larger share of that energy need than most decision makers know. In many cases it even can be done without adding to the cost of energy or even diminish energy need and net energy costs.

Some of the Solar City initiatives in the world taken up by various Governments in different parts of the world are mentioned below:

Development of Solar Cities - An initiative by the Indian Govt.

In India, several cities and towns are experiencing 15% growth in the peak electricity demand. This rapid rise in demand has resulted in most of the cities and towns are facing severe electricity shortages. Thus managing energy demand has emerged as a priority for the local governments and Municipal Corporations. An action plan, therefore, needs to be developed which would lead to reduction in conventional energy consumption, besides reducing enormous amount of CO2 emission in the atmosphere by way of using energy conservation and renewable energy devices and systems. Accordingly, a programme on “Development of solar cities” has been developed to promote the use of Renewable Energy in Urban Areas by providing support to the Municipal Corporations for preparation and implementation of a Road Map to develop their cities as Solar Cities.

The objectives of the programme are to enable Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to address energy challenges at City level; to provide framework and support to ULBs to prepare a Master Plan including assessment of current energy situation, future demand and action plans; to build capacity in ULBs and create awareness among all sections of civil society; to involve various stakeholders in the planning process; and to oversee the implementation of sustainable energy options through public – private partnerships.

A total of 60 cities are proposed to be developed as "Solar Cities¨ during the 11th Plan period. At least one city in each State to a maximum of five cities in a State will be supported by the Ministry. The cities included in the program will have more than 5 lakh and less than 50 lakh population.

The Programme has been designed to address challenges in delivering sustainable energy at city level through Preparation of a Master Plan within a period of one year from the date of sanctioning by the Ministry. The Master Plan prepared as per the indicative guidelines would provide total and sector-wise projections for energy demand and supply for next ten years. Further, it would provide a complete sector-wise base-line on energy utilization and GHG emissions in the city. Year-wise targets for energy conservation, renewable energy addition and GHG abatement along with the action plan for implementation will be clearly brought out in the Master Plan. Potential sources of funding from respective organizations (both public and private) for providing financial support will be identified.

The programme will also include setting up of a Solar City Cell in the City Council which will have Senior Administrator and City Engineers for planning and implementation. A Solar City Stakeholders Committee will be set up for advisory support involving representation from elected representatives in the municipal bodies, local research and academic institutions, resident welfare associations, industries and corporate organizations, NGOs, State Nodal Agencies and other relevant stakeholders.

Solar Cities Programme in US

Through the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar America Cities partnership, 25 major U.S. cities are working to accelerate the adoption of solar energy technologies for a cleaner, more secure energy future. The Solar America Cities program has engaged over 180 organizations, including municipal, county, and state agencies, solar companies, universities, utilities, and non-profit organizations. These partners have made a commitment to power their cities with clean, safe, reliable energy -- solar energy. Refer: http://www.solaramericacities.energy.gov/

Cities across the country are realizing the benefits of solar energy:

Power from secure, domestic energy
Sustainable, "green" urban development

Clean energy production that helps meet greenhouse gas reduction targets and climate change goals

Development of new economic opportunities

The city solar partnerships have committed to developing a sustainable solar infrastructure that removes market barriers and encourages the adoption of solar energy by residents and businesses. These cities are taking a comprehensive, city-wide approach that lays the foundation for a viable solar market and provides a model for other cities to follow

Solar Cities in Australia

Solar Cities is an Australian Government initiative that assists whole communities to rethink the way they use and produce energy. Governments and industry work with communities in the program to trial solar technologies, energy efficiency measures, pricing arrangements and metering technologies.

Australia's seven Solar Cities are located in Adelaide, Alice Springs, Blacktown, Central Victoria, Moreland, Perth and Townsville. The program continues until 2013.

Refer: http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/solarcities/publications/solarise/index.html

Dezhou - The Solar City in China

The 4th International Solar Cities Congress will be held in Dezhou, China in 2010 and will be held in a new conference centre that will source 95% of its energy needs from renewable energy and will feature a 5000 square meter area solar system, a solar desalination plant and a solar energy theme park. It promises to be an event not to be missed !

No doubt the city of Dezhou deserved to be the host of the an ISCI congress: The 4th International Solar Cities Congress takes place from 16 to 19 September 2010. The city of Dezhou with its China Solar Valley hosts several innovative industries making components for our solar future.

But their solar products are not only produced here, they are also applied throughout the city of Dezhou.

European Solar Cities Project

Each Solar City will integrate a unique combination of energy options such as energy efficiency measures for homes and businesses, the use of solar technologies, cost reflective pricing trials to reward people who use energy wisely, and community education about better energy usage in an increasingly energy-reliant world.

The information will be analysed to see how different members of a community can best reduce energy consumption, and how governments, industries and individuals can support wise energy use. In particular, the program aims to demonstrate the environmental and economic effects of combining cost reflective pricing with the widespread use of solar technology, energy efficiency and smart meters find out what barriers exist regarding energy efficiency, electricity demand management and the use of solar technology, among businesses and householders and test ways to deal with these barriers.

Conclusion

Most of the energy consumption is taking place in cities around the world and this will directely inject more carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere. So studying and analysing the energy consumption pattern at the city level is very important for reducing the emission of Green House Gases. Inclusion of more Renewable Energy Sources for electricirty generation and reducing the energy consumption by various energy conservation measures can be undertaken in each city for reducing the emission level. Thus each city can contribute in a greater way for the sake of humanity and I do hope that the concept of Solar City will contribute much for that.