Wind turbine prices fall to their lowest in recent years
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Prices have dipped below €1m per MW for the first time since 2005, according to the latest edition of Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Wind Turbine Price Index
London and New York – Increasing scale, improved efficiency and over-capacity among wind energy hardware manufacturers have combined to push the average price of onshore wind turbines below €1m ($1.36m) per megawatt.
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Google Invests $5M in German Solar Power Plant
Google recently ventured outside the U.S. to put €3.5 million (~$5 million) into a 18.7-MW German solar power plant near Berlin.
The thing about corporate globalization is that companies and investors are more free than ever to invest their money in a country other than their own. If their country isn’t leading on an issue they care about, they can at least push or invest in the issue elsewhere. It’s no surprise to anyone on here that the U.S. is missing out on some serious global investment in cleantech as our completely dysfunctional Congress is taken hostage by Tea Party extremists. While this latest news is of course good news and is indicative of the great work Germany is doing to incubate solar power in its country, it certainly makes me think about such things.
Arizona Solar Power Society
Welcome to the Arizona Solar Power Society!
“Go Solar in Arizona” Economic Development Initiative
Multi-Junction Solar Cells Performance Trials
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Cyrium Technologies Inc., a designer and producer of high efficiency photovoltaic solar cells, announced today that multi-junction solar cells produced by the company now exceed the performance of all commercially manufactured solar cells.
“Cyrium is pleased to set new performance standards for the solar cell suppliers to the Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) industry,” said Dr. Simon Fafard, founder and CTO of Cyrium Technologies. “We believe the exceptional performance of our cells will enhance CPV’s business case and is a key to moving the cost of renewable solar energy toward grid parity.”
The Global Warming Overview
Global warming has affected lives all around the world. Experts and their studies reveal the fact that the effects of global warming will continue to get worse than it was expected before. The IPCC or the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has produced recent reports on the causes and effects of the global warming in different regions of the world. While every region have already suffered the mounting risk of the phenomenon, the effects of global warming on polar region is vast and hazardous. The continuous depletion of the ozone layer and pollution in the polar region has caused major repercussions in recent years.
Some of the hazardous effects of global warming that we are bound to encounter in the recent future are as follows:
- In the polar region, the major effects of global warming will be the biophysical factors and the related occurrences like thinning of the ice and the reductions of the extent of glaciers. Although global warming has already been felt in the recent years, things will be grim in future. There can be a vast change in the natural ecosystem that will again have detrimental effects on the animals, organisms, birds and other living beings in the region. Some of the other impacts of the global warming include shrinking level of the permafrost, increase in coastal erosion and most importantly increase of the seasonal thawing of the permafrost.
- Both in Arctic and Antarctic region animals are becoming more endangered due to their shrinking natural habitat, melting ice and pollution. The typical ecosystems of these regions are getting altered due to the effects of global warming and thus animals are constantly facing a vulnerable climatic change.
- People living in the Arctic Circle are also facing constant threat of the global warming. The altered snow and ice conditions of this region have already affected the traditional lifestyles of the inhabitants.
Residential Photovoltaic Systems Continue to Improve
Added Value
That’s an important distinction to remember in the grand scheme of an energy and environmental message to home buyers: Photovoltaic panels produce energy; the only energy they save, per se, is the electricity they offset from the power grid.
Conservation, by contrast, comes from smart building products and practices. A better-built home may allow a smaller—and thus less expensive —PV array to offset most of what the grid provides, but even then, the system carves only a small slice of the green pie.
Boise Cascade focus is on energy saving projects
ST. HELENS – Boise Cascade of St. Helens was awarded $317,276 by Energy Trust of Oregon in recognition of the mill’s recent completion of energy-saving projects. Boise Cascade completed four projects this year that will result in an energy savings of 3 megawatts per year.
The most recent, and largest, project to be completed was the Motor Control Center Consolidation project. This project eliminated many of the unused power stations the facility was left with after downsizing in 2008 and 2009.
“We downsized to about 2/3 of the mill, but a lot of the power still ran through old buildings we were no longer using,” said Boise electrical engineer/supervisor Janet Vining. “The kicker was that there were safety issues trying to go into those areas that were not inhabited by us anymore. It made better sense for us to take that out and get the power out of those areas.”
Proposal for wind farm on lake is shelved
ALBANY — An ambitious plan for what was to be the nation’s first freshwater wind farm with as many as 150 large turbines in Lake Erie off Buffalo’s shoreline is being halted, a state lawmaker with firsthand knowledge said Thursday.
Less than two years after the New York Power Authority unveiled its wind turbine plan as a major generator of green energy and jobs in Western New York, the authority is quietly shelving the project.
“I have every expectation and am assuming at this time that the Power Authority is not moving forward with this very expensive project,” said State Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee.
Yourself And Calling In Professionals
Many homeowners recently have been taking the plunge with regards to drastically cutting energy costs and fitting solar panels to generate their own electricity. Solar panel technology has improved massively over the last few years and is now a financially viable option for many people. One problem that most people are faced with when choosing to purchase solar panels is how to install them, do you try and fit them yourself, or do you hire professional fitters to do it for you?
While instructing professional fitters to install solar panels is always going to be expensive, there are a number of benefits to be had by going down this route. All solar panels will come with a guarantee period, and by using a solar panel installation company, you will also acquire a warranty period in case of installation faults. These professional installation companies also have vast experience of fitting solar panels so it is much less likely that any mistakes will be made in the installation process.
SDG&E signs new concentrating photovoltaic deals with Soitec : Clean Energy Authority
Say you’re a power company, and you’ve got a maker of concentrated photovoltaics about to set up shop in your backyard.
You’d probably sign up to get as much of the power from those products as you could. That’s what San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), a Sempra Generation company, is doing even as Soitec Solar Development, LLC, finalizes where it will locate its new, San Diego-area-based manufacturing plant.
Yesterday (May 18), the companies announced that they had reached agreements on two new concentrated photovoltaic farms, totaling 125 megawatts, of Soitec’s Concentrix systems.