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.

A little bit of Light Activism...

Dear Lowes Representative,

Please pass this email up the line.

I'm a long-time Customer of Lowes. I notice, however, that you have no items under the keywords "Solar Inverter," no items under "Solar Module," and only four items under "Solar Panel."

I completely understand your not stocking these items in all of your stores, but online availability only makes sense, considering the potential future growth in this market*.

I also notice that you have no books on Solar, or Energy Efficiency in your bookshelves. This kind of information will be in increasing demand in the near-term, and should be available ASAP!

Thanks,
D P


* As of 1/1/09, a 30% investment tax credit with no cap has gone into effect for purchases of Solar Systems, and by the end of January, the Federal Government will have passed a bill with particular stimulus of the Solar Industry in mind.

Lowes stands to benefit by these programs, and likewise, Lowes Customers across the country will benefit by access to Solar Equipment from a trusted and convenient Vendor.

Neat Trick with a Prius - Backup Residential Power.

A Prius can power your home.

Great News from Congress, Markey to take Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairmanship.

Rep Markey possible to take Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairmanship...

This is great news! Boucher is from Virginia, which is a Coal State. He'll have over the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, while Markey from MA will be very influencial in Climate Change / Energy Policy.

I've seen Markey talk about Energy, and he's a Solar Warrior. This is good.

Happy New Year part 1. Tax Credits are Effective Today!

Here's a short article on the Credits.

Here's a good article on Inverters by the same author

I'm starting to think that a good way for to go for a self-starter, or one with limited funds upfront, would be to buy an Inverter, and a minimal number of Panels ASAP. This would make the home Solar-Ready, with the inverter reflecting the greatest single-item cost, and would allow for expansion in production over time.

I'm going to go to the Bank soon, and start looking into financing. They WANT to lend money, but they want to lend money safely. What's a safer bet these days than lending money on a system with a potential immediate payback of 30% in Tax Credits, which not only adds real value to the home, and provides for immediate and long term payback in in the form of free electricity.

Solar Investing on CNBC

Solar Set to Shine Again

Great Poly / Wafer Presentation by Wacker.

Link

Here's another one. This one reads like the Chinese gameplan for Solar Domination. It mentions LDK, and many other companies, back from October of 2005.

Looking forward to 2020.

Per Wikipedia, Total World Consumption of Energy in 2005 was somewhere in the area of 15TW. It's suggested that 86.5% of this total is derived from Fossil Fuels, which amounts to a total World rate of Energy Consumption of 13TW. Note, this value includes the energy content of Oil and Liquid Fuels, so is not just the Electricity component.

Using 2005 as a rough basis:

The Total Energy Consumed over the whole Year could be written as 13TW*1Year.

There is a growing consensus in the World that the first International Targets will be in the area of 20% production of Energy from Renewables by 2020. Let's be conservative, and suggest that this target will be missed, at least on a Worldwide scale. There are several major Economies that might not play along, particularly among the heavy coal users.

We'll go with just a 15% target. 15% of 13TW*1Year = 1.95TW*1Year of renewables needed for, say, the year 2020.

Pulling a number out of my butt, let's say that Solar PV will provide just 10% of this amount of Energy by 2020. That makes for a Solar PV contribution of 195GW*1Year in 2020.

Since a Solar Panel doesn't provide constant Energy, we can take some averages, and assume that over an entire year, the panel will have provided a total Energy of about about 20% of its Peak Power Rating, so in order to provide 195GW*1Year, you'd need to install 971GWp of Solar Panels.

Hmm, 971GW of installed Solar Panels by 2020. Sounds crazy.

2007 Total Installation was in the area of 8.7 GWp. That leaves 962GWp to produce over the next 12 years.

What would this look like?

Photon Consulting put out some numbers quite some time ago suggesting what the growth curve in Solar would look like up to 2012. I took 10% off of the top from each of their yearly estimates to reflect the effects of the present slowdown, and came up with the following path to 962GWp by 2020.

The Spreadsheet is here.

For sake of completeness, I also made a more conservative scenario where the present downturn caused the Photon Numbers to be slashed by 30% over the next 3 Years. See the "Scenario 2" tab.

In the end, it makes little difference whether we slow down a bit for the moment, as the long term goal is largely set, and will almost certainly be acted on with great vigor by the Obama Administration.

Is it any wonder that I look with some scorn at the short-sighted calculations regularly drawn up by Yahoo bashers who suggest that today's Solar Manufacturers will wither due to lack of future demand for their products? The market that we're talking about is simply larger by orders of magnitude than most people can visualize, and it follows that so is the opportunity at a time when wholesale replacement of Existing Technology and Energy Sources are the order of the day.

Residential thinking..

I mentioned housing back in December of '07, and though the idea behind the post hasn't become reality, I stand behind what I said.

The question right now is, how is Obama going to help to create this scenario. As it stands, we have the 15% Investment Tax Credit, but this isn't enough to give the market a sense of direction.

One item that I'd like to see would be a kind of a Government loan guarantee to banks that would support the financing of alt-energy projects. Domestic Energy Installations pay for themselves over time, and so the guarantee itself, would likely cost the Taxpayer very little. If the Government were to guarantee lending on some limited time and scale basis, banks would be incented to start to produce the lending programs that will benefit both, the banks, and the borrowers over the long term.

GT Solar Company Profile (pdf).

From November 19th

There are various factoids about GT, and the World Polysilicon Scene.

Video - Obama on Climate Change and Energy.

Sit down and watch some Alt-Energy Documentaries.

Kudos to Aholdd of Yahoo for the find, for both of these videos.


Here Comes The Sun
Directed by: Rob van Hattum
48:19





The Gospel of Green
Directed by: Neil Docherty, Gil Shochat
41:52



(This image links to external page with video)



Both of these include conversations with Hermann Scheer, who is apparently one of the primary architects of German Solar Policies. Quite an interesting and persuasive fellow. He has the kind of vision about the future that should definately be spread. On the other hand, he also sees the conflict, between the present Entrenched Interests and Alt-Energy, very clearly. He rightly talks about their eventual destruction in the face of changing technology, and their interest in delaying the onset of the kind of change that people like myself and so many others are interested in bringing about, each in our own way. I happen to believe that the moment that "Big Fossil," and "Big Nuclear" are particularly looking to delay, is that moment in which one of the biggest industry players decides that for their own survival they must no longer suppress the Alt-Energy Industry, but must own it.


The First Video, in particular, is an excellent discussion of the big picture in Solar, and gives several good examples of the Corporate Interests in Solar, with mentions made of of Applied Materials, Solarfun, Schott, Sunpower, BP Solar, and others. Projects and Ideas from across the World the are described by various industry players.

The Second video has a greater focus on Canada and Germany, but includes some great examples of how Germans are making money off of this industry, as well as some of the outrageous hurdles faced by technology developers in Canada.

A Letter to my Representative - 11/10/08

Dear Representative XXX,

I'd simply like to voice my support for the replacement of Dingell, on Energy and Commerce, by Henry Waxman.

I'll say that I do not strongly dislike John Dingell, from what I've seen of him, but I do strongly support Waxman's consistant demonstrations of willingness to battle for what is important. Dingell is too close to US Auto Manufacturing Behemoths, and has not shown that he has any ability to stand up to those Lobbies. By doing so, he has abetted their present state of finance. Example: when US Auto Manufacturers wanted to avoid improved CAFE standards, Dingell has been their ally, and yet, modernized standards would have been exactly the incentive that our Domestic Manufacturers could have used to support not only the production of efficient vehicles for domestic use, but also to produce vehicles that would stand a greater chance of being in demand outside of the US, where people don't have money to throw into their gas tanks like Americans have had.

So, yes, I think that an independent fighter would be of great value in this environment of great change. We need to help our Auto Industry, but not by simply throwing cash at them, at the whim of their lobbies. We need new standards and incentives to empower and to direct our manufacturers in a sustainable direction, and we need leadership to back it up in Congress. Bailing out the companies, and then supporting their Lobbies in defense of the status quo, is exactly what we can't afford to do.

Thanks,
D P

Election Eve Thoughts - 11/3/08.

Obviously this election is critical in many ways, but the direction of Future Energy Policy is at the top of the list.

In the last few months we've seen Billions of Dollars come out of stock holdings of Exxon and other Big Oil Companies. We've seen literally Trillions of Dollars get pulled out of the markets as a whole, as fear of losses AND uncertainty in US policy direction has weighed on Investors' sense of security. This has been in addition to, and in part, caused by, massive losses and fear of losses in the Derivatives Markets, which will likely continue.

On the other hand, while Trillions of Dollars have been pulled out of the Stock Market, rather alot of it has been converted to various forms of Cash and Bonds. The money doesn't want to stay in these forms, it wants a place to grow. Without direction from the top, though, there has been no safe place to park this money; no safe place, at least, in which long term growth has appeared likely no matter who would take the Presidency.

Across the Globe, Governments and Central Banks have been dumping money on the immediate problems; to try to cover losses; and to try to stop the selling; but what is missing is an overall plan to stabilize housing prices, and get Americans (and Europeans, and Asians) back to productive and sustainable work. Obama has a plan in the US to do this through middle-class tax cuts, infrastructure / energy investment, and other common sense measures such as extension of unemployment insurance. The goal is to help keep as many people as possible in their homes while they find a way to adapt to the changing Economy, as well as to provide an overall stimulus for smart growth. In addition, an Obama Presidency will likely bring some confidence to Investors around the World that the US Markets will be regulated, open, and fair to all investors. The long term Naked Shorting of stocks is an example of a reason for Foreign Investors to be wary of investing in US Securities, or of offering their shares on US Exchanges. We've recently seen the shinking of the Naked Short Threshold List down to a very few companies, and in fact, LDK has fallen off. Now we just need a President who will assure that these regulations are enforced.


Overall market conditions aside, this election will mark a turningpoint in the direction taken in US Energy Policy. Though the immediate need for Fossil Energy will be unchanged no matter who wins, the future under Obama will be clear, and it will be green. The Markets must move to reflect this once the decision is made.

Under McCain, for instance, you'd want to be invested in Fossils and Nuclear. The fact that McCain has paid lip service to Renewables does not counter his history of inaction, nor his active opposition to these technologies. His prioirities as President have been quite clearly demonstrated by his Campaign Activities. A great symbol of the McCain Camp's Antipathy towards renewables is Sarah Palin's recent visit to a US Solar Manufacturer, and her entirely inappropriate and uninformed littany of sales pitches for Coal, Nuclear, and "Drill, Baby, Drill." The term "Solar" was used twice.

Obama represents a sharp departure from this position, and he's stressed over and over that Energy would be his TOP Priority, and at the top of this list will be investment in a "Smart Grid," which will modernize the US Power Grid. The modernized Grid will provide High Efficiency transport of Electricity across the Nation, irrespective of start and end points. This is critical to supporting a Decentralized Power Production Infrastructure, such as we will see with the implementation Green Energy Production. For instance, if T Boone Pickens wants to install a Billion Dollars worth of Wind Turbines, then Obama would let him do it, and would make sure that when Pickens sets up a farm, he'll have access to Electricity Markets all across the US, without the limits imposed by todays outdated grid. Simultaneously, Obama supports moves to get as many cars off of gas as soon as possible. The end result of this will be lower demand for gas and oil, and higher demand for electricity.


Is it any wonder that big money has left the market, and stayed on the sidelines? Who's going to bet Billions of Dollars that a black man would become President of the United States? And then again, who's going to bet their Billions on a 72 year old man backed up by an(other) Incompetent Dominionist? I think we know the answer. Nobody is making either bet, but they've got to be getting edgy.


The big decision is tomorrow, and the markets will respond appropriately to whatever certainty follows. I can't wait!

Al Gore speaking today on Energy...

Here's the Youtube.

New SHO Rules - SEC

http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/txt-srch-sec?text=SHO§ion=Entire+Website&sort=rank

A cartoon by my Dad.

What this is.

This is assuming that the Market survives. I'm sorry that I have to preface this way.


This is a rare chance for "the little guy" to buy in BEFORE "the big guy." We KNOW how big the totality of the various alternative Energies are striving for, and it's as big or bigger than the totality of today's Coal and Oil Industries. That's freakin' big.

So, today's big money, that is invested in yesterday's technology, is looking at a situation where they are simply unable to take part in the presently tiny alt-Energy industry with any significant portion of their vast wealth, without creating an incredible bubble.

On the other hand, they are also looking at a situation where that tiny industry is going to replace them, unless they own it, and they simply cannot let that happen.

Therefore, they will have to buy in at some point, bubble or not, and the advantage goes to the little guy, as he can put a huge portion of his total wealth into this industry without moving the dial at all. The little guy can wait till the big guy comes looking for shares in final desperation for ownership of future productive capacity.

Now, this is always the game, right? Everybody is trying to get in before everybody else. The trick is to be right about where the big guy is going, beforehand. Why am I so confident? Because we're talking about Energy.

There is no Economy without Energy. That's a basic physical fact, and not even the most powerful equations of Economists can supersede it. The Economic Powerhouse that gives value to the present set of World Currencies, demands an incredible amount of Energy.

Therefore, since the Rich and Powerful benefit neither from the collapse of the economic system as a whole, nor from the inevitable replacement of the Fossil-based Industries that they currently own, the conclusion of greatest likelihood is that those Rich and Powerful will at some point move to own the future industries. When the move is made, there will be competition between the wealthy, and associated rapidly inflating prices.