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 By Udi Paret
The square footage available on building rooftops, car parks, or other structures is not sufficient to allow for enough on-site electricity generation to get us to the holy grail of creating net zero energy buildings—or buildings that generate as much energy as they consume. If, as a society, we want to generate significant amounts of on-site renewable power without using up large swaths of land, as required by ground-mount solar and wind or biofuel production, cost-effective solutions are required for using the building envelope (and, in particular, windows) for both energy generation and energy efficiency.
Over the last decade, the adoption of renewable energy has accelerated as the effects of climate change become more accepted and energy security threats more apparent. However, in the US renewable energy still accounts for a relatively small portion of the overall generation, with solar only contributing a mere 0.07%. This percentage is increasing as the economics of the solar market become more favorable with equipment price declines and supportive public policies. But, it is still insignificant in aggregate. |
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 By Jack Calderon & Chaim Lubin
The market for solar energy continues to grow and is providing many opportunities for companies throughout the value chain. Although 2009 was a challenging year economically, solar installations managed to increase over 40% globally with total installed capacity reaching greater than 21GW as reported by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), by the end of the year. Many in the industry are forecasting even greater growth during 2010, potentially seeing annual installations for the year achieve greater than 10GW for the first time in history.
In the United States, solar continues to become a larger component of our energy portfolio with total installations now greater than 1.7GW, making the US the fourth largest market for solar in the world. A more recent trend has been the growth of utility scale solar projects, which have more than doubled since 2007. The major factors behind this trend are the national push toward having utilities source more energy from renewable sources and, in particular, the renewable portfolio standards that are coming to a head in California. |
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 Micro-inverters provide module level performance visibility. Although at first glance this feature may seem desirable, upon closer examination it becomes clear that there is also an inherent flaw with this feature. A system owner who carefully watches their PV system performance, and does not understand the mechanics of PV, is liable to panic when faced with such multifarious data points.
Consider that one under-performing panel could cause any tech-savvy homeowner immediate alert. The overall performance of the system may still be at an acceptable level; however, the system owner is likely to contact the installer and complain about their “under-performing” system. This will not only increase maintenance calls, but also user training costs. Add in the higher upfront cost of the hardware and software, and the lifecycle costs associated with maintaining this owner’s system is higher than it would be with a string inverter.
Keep in mind most micro-inverter technologies boast increases in kWh annually of anywhere from 4% to 10%. Therefore, the ability to monitor the performance of each module presents convenient and inconvenient scenarios for the system owner and operator. |
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 By Mike Tommasi
When it comes to renewable energies, most people tend to think of large-scale energy farms as the most efficient way of diminishing dependence on CO2 generating fossil fuels. Large-scale solar and wind farms are viable if two key prerequisites are satisfied:
1. The availability of huge tracts of unused land; and
2. Incentives, usually in the form of an attractive Feed-In Tariff (FIT).
Experience in Europe, however, has shown that land is scarce and high FITs generate distortions. For lack of available unused land, greed has encouraged some farmers and investors to take perfectly good productive agricultural land and convert it to energy production, with potentially catastrophic strategic consequences. |
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 Next-generation residential solar monitoring
By Ron Pitt
As the residential solar industry matures, consumer expectations expand to encompass previously overlooked aspects of the technology. It is no longer enough for a homeowner to boast of the benefits of solar power as he nods toward his PV panels. The market is expanding well beyond the early adopters, ideologues, hobbyists, and tinkerers to include a wide variety of users with diverse needs and expectations. Among other things, homeowners want to be shown exactly how much money their solar system is making them. Although the solar industry has moved at a slower pace, there are parallels to the computer revolution of the last decades, where solar users are beginning to expect more choices and a far more robust user-interface that allows them to optimize, troubleshoot, and readily see the value of their investment. |
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