Lots of good news Lately...

Check the left-hand sidebar. Lots of RSS Feeds there. Keep coming back, it's changing all the time.

In louisiana...

Louisiana has one of the better Solar Energy incentives. It's 50%, on top of the 30% provided by the Federal Government.

You could buy a 5KW system that originally will cost around $22,000 for a final price of $2000. It'll totally pay off in 5 years, then the energy is free for the life of the equipment (panels are usually warranteed to 25 years).

See: http://www.findsolar.com/index.php?page=rightforme

For my estimation above, I took the average power used per year (American Residential Rough) of 8000 kWh, converted to power used per month (666 kWh), selected "other" utility, zip code = 70822, and Electricity Offset = 50%.

Spread the word. Movement on these incentives will be beneficial to the local Economy, and Residents.

RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION STUDY.

Following my first Stimulus Post, here's one that's short and sweet. From the Stimulus Package. I'm presently in a class on "ITIL" which is a set of "Best Practices" for IT and Business. One of the basic tenents is "You can't manage what you can't measure." Well, here we see direction for the Energy Department to get some data on the real system that's out there. From this will be found Natural Priorities based on measured results, rather than on Politically Motivated Claims.

I like.

______________


SEC. 7005. RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION STUDY.

In completing the 2009 National Electric Transmission Congestion Study, the Secretary of Energy shall include—

(1) an analysis of the significant potential sources of renewable energy that are constrained in accessing appropriate market areas by lack of adequate transmission capacity;
(2) an analysis of the reasons for failure to develop the adequate transmission capacity; 20
(3) recommendations for achieving adequate transmission capacity;
(4) an analysis of the extent to which legal challenges filed at the State and Federal level are delaying the construction of transmission necessary to access renewable energy; and
(5) an explanation of assumptions and projections made in the Study, including—

(A) assumptions and projections relating to energy efficiency improvements in each load center;
(B) assumptions and projections regarding the location and type of projected new generation capacity; and 10
(C) assumptions and projections regarding projected deployment of distributed generation infrastructure.

Stimulus Bill - First Look - State Energy Grants.

There's alot to digest for Alt-Energy in this Stimulus Package. I looked it up and did some searching around. There are an incredible number of references, and I'm no Lawyer. I've decided that I'll take it a section at a time, and pull together references and resources as I find them. Skipping to the very end, leads me to the first section that I'm going to look at, or, SEC. 7006. ADDITIONAL STATE ENERGY GRANTS. At first look, I think I'd describe this as saying that if the State assures that they will move on setting the standards described in (1),(2), and (3), then they are eligible for direct grants by the Department of Energy for Renewable and Conservation Projects.

My interpretation of (1),(2), and (3) runs along the lines of "Decouple" the Utilities as has been done in California, Set Building Codes and other Standards, and prioritize Renewables and Conservation projects.

Sounds good to me!

My plan is to work on a letter to write to my State Congresspeople and Governor, to request that they begin this process of setting standards, and prepare to take full advantage of these Funds. In particular, I'd like to motivate people in the Southern States to start this process. These states are too often ignored, and yet they have excellent Solar Potential. Many are also Coal States, and so will require extra efforts to move towards Solar.


SEC. 7006. ADDITIONAL STATE ENERGY GRANTS


This section refers back to the earlier content of the Bill described as "paragraph (6) under the heading ‘‘Department of Energy—Energy Programs—Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’’ in title V of division A of this Act."


Here's the referred-to section.

(6) $3,400,000,000 shall be for the State Energy Program authorized under part D of title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act ((42 U.S.C. 6321).


Here's the referred-from section.

SEC. 7006. ADDITIONAL STATE ENERGY GRANTS.

(a) IN GENERAL.—Amounts appropriated in paragraph (6) under the heading ‘‘Department of Energy—Energy Programs—Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’’ in title V of division A of this Act shall be available to the Secretary of Energy for making additional grants under part D of title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6321 et seq.). The Secretary shall make grants under this section in excess of the base allocation established for a State under regulations issued pursuant to the authorization provided in section 365(f) of such Act only if the governor of the recipient State notifies the Secretary of Energy that the governor will seek, to the extent of his or her authority, to ensure that each of the following will occur:

(1) The applicable State regulatory authority will implement the following regulatory policies for each electric and gas utility with respect to which the State regulatory authority has ratemaking authority:

(A) Policies that ensure that a utility’s recovery of prudent fixed costs of service is timely and independent of its retail sales, without in the process shifting prudent costs from variable to fixed charges. This cost shifting constraint shall not apply to rate designs adopted prior to the date of enactment of this Act.
(B) Cost recovery for prudent investments by utilities in energy efficiency.
(C) An earnings opportunity for utilities associated with cost-effective energy efficiency savings.

(2) The State, or the applicable units of local government that have authority to adopt building codes, will implement the following:

(A) A building energy code (or codes) for residential buildings that meets or exceeds the most recently published International Energy Conservation Code, or achieves equivalent or greater energy savings.
(B) A building energy code (or codes) for commercial buildings throughout the State that meets or exceeds the ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2007, or achieves equivalent or greater energy savings.
(C) A plan for the jurisdiction achieving compliance with the building energy code or codes described in subparagraphs (A) and (B) within 8 years of the date of enactment of this Act in at least 90 percent of new and renovated residential and commercial building space. Such plan shall include active training and enforcement programs and measurement of the rate of compliance each year.

(3) The State will to the extent practicable prioritize the grants toward funding energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, including—

(A) the expansion of existing energy efficiency programs approved by the State or the appropriate regulatory authority, including energy efficiency retrofits of buildings and industrial facilities, that are funded—
VerDate 0ct 09 2002 22:48 Jan 23, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00645 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 C:\TEMP\HR1.XML HOLCPC

(i) by the State; or
(ii) through rates under the oversight of the applicable regulatory authority, to the extent applicable;

(B) the expansion of existing programs, approved by the State or the appropriate regulatory authority, to support renewable energy projects and deployment activities, including programs operated by entities which have the authority and capability to manage and distribute grants, loans, performance incentives, and other forms of financial assistance; and
(C) cooperation and joint activities between States to advance more efficient and effective use of this funding to support the priorities described in this paragraph.

(b) STATE MATCH.—The State cost share requirement under the item relating to ‘‘DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; energy conservation’’ in title II of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1985 (42 U.S.C. 6323a; 98 Stat. 1861) shall not apply to assistance provided under this section.
(c) EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY MEASURES.—No limitation on the percentage of funding that may be used for the purchase and installation of equipment and materials for energy efficiency measures under grants provided under part D of title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6321 et seq.) shall apply to assistance provided under this section.

SEC. 7007. INAPPLICABILITY OF LIMITATION.

The limitations in section 399A(f)(2), (3), and (4) of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6371h-1(f)(2), (3), and (4)) shall not apply to grants funded with appropriations provided by this Act, except that such grant funds shall be available for not more than an amount equal to 80 percent of the costs of the project for which the grant is provided.



Followed by RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION STUDY.

Egolf (New Mexico) proposes tax districts for solar loans

Great Program!

Centrotherm - Presentation

Found by Uptothetrees of Yahoo.

Centrotherm.

Interesting Technology Option - Holographic Tuning.

Found at www.1st-solarenergy.blogspot.com.

Manufactured by Prism Solar

The Senate Bill, Not Yet Passed.

One source says that they pulled $5 Billion or so (most in planned loan guarantees).

There are Billions left in the Bill, though.

Real World Estimation of Land Use per Watt - Sunpower

Sunpower gives us an idea of a realistic value for Land Area per Watt of 2-3 Hectares per MW.

Convert Units:

2.5 hectare = 6.2 acres per MW.

Determine Total Peak Power Output:

1.5 Million Acres / 6.2 Acres/MWp = 241935 MWp = 241,935,000,000 Wp = 242 GWp

Calculate Average Annual Energy Output:

242 GWp * 18.75% Average Annual Insolation = 45.4 GW*Year = 3974 GWh = 397 Billion kWh

This is about 4 times less than the ideal number calculated in this Ideal Situation. Not a problem at all, IMO, considering that you don't actually want to cover every square inch of a chunk of land with flat panels. Tracking is sure a nice option.

Follows: Solar vs Coal, Land Area Comparison.

Great Solar article from Triplepundit.

Solar Stocks: Wall Street Heavyweight or Punching Bag?

Kudos on the find to mgraffis of Yahoo.

Low Cost, High Efficiency Tandem Silicon Solar Cells

Wladek Walukiewicz, Joel Ager, and Kin Man Yu of Berkeley Lab have developed high-efficiency solar cells that leverage the well-established design and manufacturing technology of silicon cells while delivering the performance previously achievable only by far more complex and expensive tandem solar cells.

Solar vs Coal, Land Area Comparison.

Thirty-eight years of Kentucky strip mining have, at one time or another, destroyed 1.5 Million Acres (6,070,284,633 m2) of land, and torn down 470 Mountains.

Let's roughly compare the land impact of Coal to the potential land impact of Solar, with this 1.5 Million Acres as a basis.


First, let's see how much Energy could be produced by all the Coal that was mined in Kentucky in 2007*. Answer: 553 Billion kWh.


Per Salon, 158 Million Tons of Coal were produced in Kentucky 2007. I know from previous calculations that a very efficient coal plant can produce around 3.5 MWh/Ton, so burning the entire 158 Million Tons of coal produced in Kentucky in 2007 gives, 158 Million Tons * 3.5 MWh/Ton = 553 Million MWh, or 553 Billion kWh.


Now lets look at how much Solar Energy is available to an equivalent area of Kentucky. Answer: 10,000 Billion kWh.


Take a look at the US Insolation Map and note that the State of Kentucky is almost entirely bright yellow. Look at the legend, and note the value of 4.5-5.0 kWh/m2/day for this color. This is the Average amount of Solar Energy striking a 1 m2 panel on some single Day of the year (Averaged over the whole Year). Let's take the low estimate, and get the total Solar Energy incoming onto a 1 m2 panel, over an entire year, by multiplying 4.5 kWh/m²/day * 365 days = 1642.5 kWh/m²**. Multiplying this by 6.07 * 10⁹ m² gives us the total Solar Energy Striking the mined area of Kentucky in 2007, or 10 * 10¹² kWh, or 10,000 Billion kWh.


So, how much of this Energy could actually be converted to Electricity using modern Solar Panels? Answer: 1,600 Billion kWh.


Of course, Photovoltaic Panels don't convert all of the Energy Striking them into Electricity. At this time, it would be fair to use 16% as a rough Average Conversion Efficiency***. So, if you were to cover that 1.5 Million Acres with Solar Panels, and each panel was 16% efficient at converting that light to Energy, that installation would produce 10,000 Billion kWh * .16 = 1,600 Billion kWh of electricity.


The Conclusion?


If you covered the 1.5 Million Acre area of Kentucky that has been affected by Strip Mining and Mountaintop Removal with Solar Panels like those commonly manufactured today, then you would produce 2.9 times the energy every year from that Installation than you would from mining the coal. In addition, unlike in coal mining, where once you've mined out an area, you have to move on to another, in the case of Solar, the Installation would produce Energy Year after Year from the same pieces of land. If you just wanted to produce the same amount of Energy as the 2007 Coal Production, you would only have to set up solar panels on 517 Thousand Acres of land. Of course, the Installation doesn't have to be all in one place, the Panels could be distributed among small Installations all across the State (2% of the total land area of Kentucky).

Note that this post does not attempt to address price. Those calculations are elsewhere, and ongoing. However, just in terms of land use, it becomes clear that the energy content of Coal could, in fact, be replaced by an Installation of Solar, while distrupting a Third of the land area of ongoing Coal Mining Operations.

Also note that this does not address the availability of Solar Panels. This will be addressed incrementally by a growing industry.



* Depends on numerous factors, including Coal Chemistry, and Power Plant Design. The values that I used assume very high Energy Content Coal, and highly efficient, state of the art, Power Plants.

** Note that this isn't quite correct, as the Insolation values on the map are not based on a panel laying flat on the ground, but are based on a panel tilted to the South. Within the scope of these calculations, though, this should be negligible.

*** Expect Conversion Efficiencies of low cost Crystalline Silicon Solar Panels to increase significantly within the next 3 years.

Conversions:
1.5 Million Acres = 6,070,284,633 m2
Kentucky total area = 104 658 829 550 m2 = 40409 mile2

For more information on "Insolation," see "A Note on Units of Energy and Insolation".

This article is followed by http://americansolareconomy.blogspot.com/2009/02/real-world-estimation-of-land-use-per.html, which estimates the Solar Output of 1.5 Million Acres of Kentucky Land, using real Land Use data from Sunpower Corporation.

Note on CEC Ratings for Modules.

Here's a list of CEC ratings from California.

Here's a description of "derating" of Energy Output. In other words, the panels aren't perfect, here's how to estimate actual output to AC from DC.

Bolivia nationalises BP Natural Gas Field.

News from the BBC.

Not good news for Fossils. International Companies will face increased risk of such events when they invest in production capacity in Developing Nations.

PDF on Carbon Sequestration

Carnegie Mellon

An Idea to take up-front cash on long term debt via Solar.

Based on Amendments to the Bailout Bill that Passed in November, there's a 30% Tax Credit for Solar Energy Installation Costs.

Let's see. If you borrow the cost of a Solar Project to be payed back over some number of years, you'll get 30% back all at once around tax-time (if you payed out the equivalent in taxes that year). If you don't owe on taxes, there's still the possibility that the 30% credit will become fully refundable under the upcoming stimulus package.

Do you think that some folks wouldn't like 30% upfront on a long-term loan, particularly on a loan for a product that will pay itself off in the long term?* These guys need all the upfront money they can get, and you can bet that this 30% will look appealing to many. It's like a money machine. Watch Solar Equipment Demand take off over the course of this year.

*Depending on circumstances.

CNBC is a total joke.

Kudlow is an elitist ass, for one thing.

Cramer and many others have been pushing the "bad bank" idea very hard today, which immediately makes me think that it's probably a very bad idea as far as public policy is concerned.

Fast money is entertaining, and I'd say is the best of the bunch, at least there's some free debate.

In any case, for real business news, got to Bloomberg.

What a Market this could be.

Forget Large-scale Energy Production for a moment. Turn your eyes from the rooftops, fields, and deserts where you could put PV or Concentrating Solar. For a moment, look around your house and think of all of the possibilities for very Small-scale Solar.

Somebody at Yahoo joked about giving someone a Solar Powered Flashlight, as if, I suppose, you waited until you needed it before you decided to try and charge it up. Thinking about it, though, who wouldn't want a solar powered flashlight for an emergency (with LED lighting). I have a flashlight sitting at my desk, and for the few hours of actual emergency light it's provided, I've changed the batteries numerous times (my Son likes to play with it). Rather than going hit and miss with a flashlight that may or may not have charge in its batteries for an emergency, why not have a flashlight that is constantly charging, as long as light is present?

Another example that's come up is based on the smoke detector that is currently sitting on my kitchen counter. The Smoke Detector is dependent on the tiniest flow of charge to trigger the alarm, and yet, they come with batteries that just might not be there when you need them. The smallest solar chip or thin-film coating could keep a very small battery charged up for a very very long time.

The list goes on. Remote Controls, MP3 Players, Cell Phones, Game Controllers, ... remote devices in general. Sure, depending on your amount of time talking on the phone, or listening to music, you might need a way to plug in the device to give the batteries a boost, but it seems to me that if you could bake a durable thin film onto the surface, you'd be set for rather a much longer time between charges, at the very least.


BTW: Googling "solar flashlight" does turn up solar flashlights. On the other hand, I just did a bunch of calculations, and I have a hard time believing that the quality of these things, based on today's common batteries, solar collectors, and manufacturing scale, is terribly high. It will take some time, and some good combinations of technological advancement before quality solar remote items become commonplace.

General Comment - 1/19/2009

I haven't been posting much here, though I've still been reading a heck of alot of news, and doing alot of thinking. Other things have been busy, though, and putting words together takes alot of time. As usual, I've been throwing stuff at the Yahoo Board, but those are typically just snippets, and not at a state of preparedness that I'd typically put here.

I'll try to manage a few posts tonight, in part from recent comments on Yahoo.

On another topic, I did do some updating of code at http://AmericanSolarEconomy.com, have set up RSS Feeds off of my semi-automated news reader / link import system, and have linked them to this blog (see left hand side bar) along with some other relevant blogs. If you know of good RSS Feeds that should be added to this sidebar, let me know!

A Note on Units of Energy and Insolation.

This post is in reference to my use of units like "Watt*1Year," or "Watt*25Years," etc, in posts such as This, This, and This, and might just be useful in laying out some of the basic math behind Solar Energy Output. Feel free to critique.


In Physics, Power is described in Watts. Energy is described by Power * Time. Typically when we think Electrical Energy, we think in terms of Kilowatt*Hours, but the actual units used for Time are arbitrary, it's just a matter of the increment of time over which you are considering the flow of Power.

The Quantity of Energy streaming down on the planet can be measured in terms of its Insolation. The problem that I'm seeing out there is that it's not firmly decided what units we should be using for Solar Insolation, and there is little way to translate at a glance quantities from one choice of Unit to the next. Now, maybe there's a reason that somebody would want to use "kW·h/(m²·day)" or "kWh/kWp•y" for practical applications to Solar Energy, but the rationale certainly escapes me. What I do know is that a Solar Module is rated in Watts Peak (W_p), which is the Power Generated when the Panel is exposed to an Insolation of 1000W/m². So, to match this, I want my units to be comparable to W/m².

Following is a map of US Annual Insolation in kW/m²*.



By taking the given values in terms of kWh/m²/day, converting from KiloWatts to Watts, and multiplying each by 1day/24h to cancel out the elements of time, we get the Annual Average Power, in W/m². Once we know this Annual Average Power, then by dividing it by the 1000W/m² rated Peak Power used by the Photovoltaic Industry, we get a very useful percentage.

Example: Looking at the map, let's take a spot on one of the bright yellow areas, like is found in most of Virginia. The legend shows an Insolation Value of 4.5-5kWh/m²/day. Converting to Watts, and taking the range's lowest value of 4500Wh/m²/day, multiplying by 1day/24h, and canceling out the hours and days, gives 187.5W/m².

So, now that we have the average Rated Insolation for the location, then we divide this number by 1000W/m² in order to get the Actual Insolation as a percentage of Rated Peak Insolation, in this case, for Virginia, at 18.75%.

I've run this calculation for the various brackets in the map legend, and have added these percentages to the graphic. The spreadsheet is here.

Lets say that you want to know roughly how much actual Energy some Solar Installation will produce over a year. You just take the Peak Power rating of the Installation, and multiply by the Percentage that was calculated above, and then multiply by 1Year in order to get the Energy produced on average over that Year.

Example: You want to know how much Energy is going to be produced over the year by a 5kW_p Installation in Virginia where the expected average Insolation is 18.75% as calculated, above. Simply take the Peak Rated Power of the Installation, and multiply by the Percentage and 1Year, in this case, 5kW*18.75%*1Year = 937W*1Year.

This is the Average Energy Produced over a Year for this Installation, even though it's not in the usual units. To convert to kWh, just convert the Year to Hours using the factor of 8760Hours/Year and 1kW/1000W to get 8208kWh.


Now let's say that you want to make a comparison in Cost per Watt between a Solar Installation and a Coal Plant, or a Natural Gas Turbine, or any other conventional Electrical Generator running at a Constant Output over the year. Just remember that the total Energy Produced by a constant generator over a year, in W*1Year (or kW*1Year, or GW*1Year), is roughly it's Rated Output * 1Year, so a 100MW Coal Plant should produce in the area of 100MW*1Year in Energy over the year. We could convert this to kWh just like was done above for the Solar Installation, but there's no need to do so if we're just using it for comparisons-sake.


* This map measures Insolation assuming optimally angled panels, so for flat-roof installations, particularly at higher Latitudes, will over-estimate output. For a European Map and Insolation Values that assume flat placement of Panels, see Lightbucket.