Hybrid solar panels

But now, a hybrid solar panel can generate solar electricity and solar hot water at the same time!  Virtu, a hybrid solar panel, has been invented by UK renewable company Naked Energy.

Richard Boyle, the Chief Engineer at Naked Energy, developed the hybrid solar panel technology, which combines PV solar cells that generate electricity, and solar thermal panel that generates hot water.

The solar technology works by using the downside of PV solar cells (a decrease in efficiency as they get warmer) to transfer excess heat from the PV cells to heat water.  Solar electricity generation rises as excess heat is transferred to warm water.  When the PV solar cells are cooled, they maintain efficiency.

In short- its a win, win for the solar technology and consumers!

Working on technology for solar windows

Researchers have helped bring us one step closer to this type of building integrated photovoltaics – PV power that blends right into building materials such as windows and roof shingles.  The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the organic solar company New Energy Technologies have developed invisible solar cells, applying unique conductive polymers onto a transparent substrate.  The technology, called “plastic solar,” can be installed directly onto the surface of windows.

The technology for solar windows is still in its early stages.  New Energy Technologies, developing the SolarWindow, has been encouraged about the future of the technology by its development of the largest transparent solar cell to date.  But, until efficiencies are improved, there will not be a significant consumer market for see through solar power.

In the meantime, people who wish to make a switch to solar power will have to stick to traditional PV panels… and the building permits or HOA approvals that are required.

Solar powered parking meters

Instead of fishing your pockets for quarters (and finding only nickles and dimes), motorists can use a credit card system powered by solar panels to feed the parking meters in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The specialized meters, shown to the left, are called “E-Park.”  Not only do they run on power generated by the solar panels on their heads, but people who pay to park this way can even add time to the meter with a smartphone application!  Drivers pay for a certain number of hours ahead of time, and then receive a 4 digit pin to be used when they arrive at the solar powered parking meter.  Input the number and set the amount of time you estimate.

The power required for the parking meters is 100% from sunlight, and they can continue running for days, even when sun is scarce.   The beauty of this system is that municipalities can save more money, because they will not have to use funds generated by the parking meters to pay for the power to run them.

Just another example of how solar power can improve our lives!

Solar Panel Efficiency

Over the past 5 years, the price of solar panels has dropped dramatically while efficiency of solar arrays has increased significantly.

Yet, it appears that the renewable energy revolution continues to make life better and cleaner for many of us!  The University of Texas at Austin announced this month that one of its solar researchers has discovered a method to further double solar panel efficiency up to 60%!

Solar panel efficiency can be summarized as follows:  The term refers to the amount of solar energy that is converted to usable electricity after hitting a solar panel.  It does not need to be a bright, sunny day.  All you need is UV (ultraviolet) sunlight, filtered through clouds or even precipitation.  According to a recent article:

An issue with regular photovoltaic panels is that much of the energy delivered by sunlight results in the conversion of “hot” electrons, which are too high-energy to be converted to electricity in silicon and are instead lost as heat. University of Texas Chemistry professor Xiaoyang Zhu and his team discovered that an organic plastic semiconductor could double the number of electrons harvested out of one photon of sunlight.

Solar panel efficiency is currently about 30% for silicon photovoltaic (PV) solar cells.  But solar technology indicates that this figure can at least double, to reach 66% efficiency.

The importance of this discovery is the potential of reaching grid parity – the point at which the cost of purchasing solar electricity is less than the price of fossil-fuel based power.

Installation of solar shingles

Also known as solar roof tiles, solar roofing shingles, solar shingles originated as the brainchild of Dow Chemical in 2009.  The company announced that it had come up with solar technology that could be included as part of asphalt tile roofing material for homes.  Dow and Global Solar would be manufacturing solar shingles together.

The tiles are a premier example of building integrated photovoltaics – or building materials that can generate solar power.  Last year, Cobblestone Homes installed solar shingles on its new homes to help test the product.  After a successful trial run, Dow is  building a manufacturing facility in Michigan that will begin production of Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingles in 2012.

Consider these benefit of solar shingles:

• Installed just as regular asphalt roofing shingles
• Waterproof, glass-free and encased in UV-stabilized polymers, solar shingles are practically virtually indestructible.
• They can be dropped from a roof, walked on and stacked in pallets like any other type of roofing shingle
• Connections are simpler than for ordinary solar panels because solar shingles plug into each other to form a solar array

With respect to whether solar shingles are cost-effective for residential solar, one of the most influential factors is solar efficiency.  Reportedly, solar shingles are only 10% efficient (meaning that 10% of the solar energy that strikes the surface can be converted to solar electricity), while solar panels are 13% efficient.  In addition, the cost of solar roofing is about 10-15% more than ordinary PV panels.

The actual price of Dow’s solar shingles is not known as of the date of this publication.  Yet, some experts are predicting a cost of about $50 per square foot, with an output of 600 watts for every 100 square feet.

Homeowners can take heart in the fact that solar shingles, like ordinary solar panels can qualify for tax incentives and rebates that can defray the cost an additional 30-50%.  One estimate is that a solar shingle system for an average homeowner in Michigan will cost about $11,200, including rebates.

Solar shingles will soon be available for homeowners across the U.S.  Stay tuned for more information on pricing and other factors.

Transluscent solar cells

Solar technology and research continues to help find more efficient and less expensive ways of generating solar electricity.

One option may be transluscent solar cells (transparent).  Solar panels made using this solar technology, which consists of translucent crystal like cell with transparent backside, are now available for consumer purchase.

Switching to solar power via transluscent solar cells will help you save money in a number of ways.  First, it is only an initial cost investment.  After you pay for the solar panels, you can enjoy free electricity thereafter.  From watching TV, running your refrigerator and heating water with solar energy, you don’t have to rely on grid-based electricity any longer.  This means that you can save money on your utility bills, as well as feel good about the fact that you are not relying on polluting coal-based electricity.

On the downside, transluscent solar cells with this technology require consumers to buy fans and lights for the specialized solar panels.  The energy draw for these operations will reduce efficiency of the panels.  In addition, the upfront costs of switching to solar power are often cost-prohibitive.  You will also need back-up systems to store generated solar energy.

What do you think about transluscent solar cells and solar technology in general?

Powerfilm Thin Film Solar

Powerfilm manufactures flexible solar film, applied in Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) to generate solar electricity from the vertical faces of buildings or windows. Flexible solar film is also a great innovation for bus shelters roofs and golf cart canopies.

Flexible thin film solar rolls, as shown to the left, are less expensive and just as efficient as other PV panels.  Roll-to-roll manufacturing is akin to newspaper printing and can produce long continuous strips.

PowerFilm will produce 1 meter wide and up to 2400 feet long strips. The interconnection between the transistors is made fully automatic on the machine, eliminating the cost and quality issues with manual interconnection. The substrate is made of polyimide and can be encapsulated in a variety of materials depending on the end application and environmental conditions.

PowerFilm flexible solar electronic technology includes fabric or fiberglass backing for easy installation of the thin film solar panels.

Powerfilm licensed technology for self aligning imprint lithography from HP for the development of the backplane, which took  5 years of research and development. Flexible displays are useful for large outdoor advertising displays, e-book readers and other applications, where the lower cost and the self-power feature of this thin film solar application would be helpful.

New solar cell technology allows silicon wafers to be cast without losing material to dust

The United States Department of Energy is expected to provide a $150 million loan guarantee for a company developing new solar cell technology.  The company, 1366 Technologies, is positioned to revolutionize the manufacturing process of silicon cells, which will make it possible to create cheaper solar panels.

In fact, estimates are that the cost of manufacturing a solar cell could be cut by 40%.

The solar technology is used to directly cast silicon wafers (only 200 microns thick, or 8/1000th of an inch) instead of slicing them from a block, which results in about half the material being lost as dust.

The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, commented:

“This project is a game-changer that could dramatically lower the cost of photovoltaic solar cells.”

Federal funding for the new solar cell technology, through the loan guarantee program is consistent with the DOE’s goal of developing a cradle-to-market innovation strategy.

Identifying promising solar technologies like this one of 1366 Technologies, and then providing support early in the process to help them mature, will eventually benefit everyone.  By streamlining and reducing solar panel production costs, this renewable energy resource becomes more affordable and available to everyone.

HyperSolar's solar concentrator improves solar cell efficiency

HyperSolar, based in Santa Barbara, California has developed a patent-pending solar technology to effectively improve solar cell efficiency.  Ordinarily, efficient solar cells convert only 15% of the energy from sunlight into electricity.  With HyperSolar’s technology, photonics (guiding light) acts like a magnifying glass, concentrating sunlight onto solar cells.

The company is developing a thin, flat solar concentrator that would be placed on top of existing solar cells.  Not only will the solar concentrator enable solar panels to generate significantly more energy, but its inexpensive to create and install.  The solar technology allows fewer solar cells within a single solar panel, which means less silicon is required, further dropping the cost of solar electricity.

Breakthrough solar technology from HyperSolar

HyperSolar’s solar concentrator uses four innovations:

• Micro-concentrators — A matrix of small, highly efficient solar concentrators  collect sunlight from a wide range of angles, eliminating the need for tracking mechanisms
• Photonics light routing — A solid-state photonics network underneath the micro-concentrators transports light from collection points at the top to the concentrated output points at the bottom
• Photonics light separation — The photonics network separates collected sunlight into different spectrum ranges, which can be routed to different types of solar cells
• Photonics thermal management — The heat from unused portions of the solar spectrum is filtered out, thus avoiding overheating, which can degrade solar cell  performance

HyperSolar plans on entering into a partnership with a PV solar panel manufacturer that will use the solar concentrator to improve solar cell efficiency and reduce costs of solar power.  The potential for this product is huge.  With solar power demand on the rise, consumers are continuing to look for cleaner, cheaper, reliable means of generating electricity.

Floating solar panels

Since 2007, SPG Solar has been promoting its floating solar panels to government officials and commercial enterprises, such as wineries and industrial mine owners.  Floating solar panels, or “floatovoltaics” as they are cleverly called, can help increase the use of solar power where it might not otherwise be practical or possible.

So what does this entail?

Instead of installing solar panels on rooftops, or even ground-mounted, floating solar panels rest on pontoons on a body of water.  For example, at Far Niente Winery, one of its irrigation pond holds 994 solar panels to help generate clean, green, free solar electricity.

And, Why is this helpful to the company?  According to Larry Maguire, Far Niente’s CEO:

“Vineyard land in this part of the Napa Valley runs somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 an acre.  We wanted to go solar but we didn’t want to pull out vines.”

Beyond vineyards, other commercial uses could benefit from floating solar panels.  For example, an owner of an industrial gravel mine is considering Floatovoltaics for a settling pond where traditional solar panels may not work otherwise.  Golf courses, amusement parks and other similar uses are also prime candidates for this solar technology.

Would floating solar panels work for your business?  Using prime “real estate” like ponds with ample sunlight exposure may be just the answer to reducing energy costs and carbon footprints.