SOLAR TODAY Blog

By Corey Dahl
SOLAR TODAY Associate Editor

National Geographic News posted an interesting article about solar projects in Cairo's slums today.

The article discusses the work of Solar CITIES (check out their blog here), a nonprofit that has been installing solar hot-water systems and biogas reactors in the city's neediest neighborhoods since 2003. The solar hot-water systems are somewhat primitive -- made of recycled materials, they consist of little more than copper tubes covered in darkened aluminum, a glass cover and an insulated plastic barrel for storage. But in a city where electricity and municipal water service are spotty at best, the set-up makes sense.

By Liz Merry
SOLAR TODAY "Ask Ms. Liz" columnist

What makes solar so especially special? We can't seem to fill up the "Find Your Dream Job in Coal" workshops, so there must be something that's unique about this field.

One factor making solar careers so popular is that the product (energy from the sun) is a "cause." Profits are paramount to industry sustainability, but the majority of people working in solar are highly motivated by saving the planet as well as making a living.

A press release from Boeing:

SYLMAR, Calif., Aug. 26, 2009 -- Spectrolab Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], today announced that a solar cell it manufactured has set a new world record for terrestrial concentrator solar cell efficiency. The cell can convert 41.6 percent of concentrated sunlight into electricity.

The U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., independently tested the efficiency of the Spectrolab cell in June, validating that it surpassed the previous record of 41.1 percent held by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany.

High-efficiency solar cells in concentrator systems require fewer cells to produce the same electrical output as conventional solar cells. They enable energy producers to generate more electrical power from typical industrial solar panels and pass on lower costs to homeowners, businesses and other end users.

"This latest record asserts Spectrolab's leadership position in high efficiency multijunction solar cells and brings the industry one step closer to achieving affordable solar electricity," said David Lillington, president of Spectrolab. "This cell is an advanced version of our lattice-matched cell technology that will be incorporated quickly and successfully into our production line. This milestone underscores our emphasis on realizing the highest efficiency cells in high-volume production."

Produced in February 2008, the new Spectrolab cell is an advanced version of the lattice-matched triple-junction technology already produced in high volumes for space and terrestrial applications at Spectrolab, which pioneered the technology more than a decade ago. The new cell incorporates multiple improvements in wafer processing to reduce metal grid shadowing and series resistance, raising the cell's overall efficiency for conversion of sunlight to electricity.

"Over the past decade, Spectrolab's efforts developing terrestrial solar cell efficiency have achieved an average improvement of approximately one percentage point per year, and we expect to continue that pace," added Lillington.

Spectrolab is the world's leading supplier of multi-junction photovoltaic solar cells, solar panels, searchlights and solar simulators and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Spectrolab products have powered satellites since 1958 and have contributed to the on-orbit success of numerous commercial, national security and civil space missions. Spectrolab's technological advancements have driven space solar cell efficiencies to more than 28 percent. Today, Spectrolab cells power 60 percent of all satellites orbiting the Earth, as well as the International Space Station. Spectrolab has made significant investments to meet the increasing demand of the terrestrial concentrator photovoltaic industry and expects to have an annual capacity of 300 megawatts when those investments are realized in 2010.

By Seth Masia
SOLAR TODAY Managing Editor

Keith Bradsher reports in today's New York Times that Chinese factories are moving full speed ahead to dominate the world market for photovoltaics.

The article says, in part:

By Joseph McCabe
SOLAR TODAY "Solar Prose" columnist

So you want to be in solar
Do you have what it takes?
Try installing on your house
It separates out the fakes

It was Gandhi who said
“You have to be the change”
So learn at your place
It is not hard to arrange

By Joseph McCabe
SOLAR TODAY "Solar Prose" columnist

What is Solar Prose
And who should care?
It is solar word fun
Read it if you dare

We will try to enlighten
A solar topic of the day
Look at things different
In a thought provoking way

By Ken Sheinkopf
SOLAR TODAY "Ask Ken" columnist

Q: You often write about sealing a house to stop unwanted airflow and how easy it is to do. We don’t feel any drafts in our home, so I wonder if that means this isn’t a problem in our home and not worth the time to do it. Is that right? ― D.P., Plainfield, Ill.

A: Not necessarily. One of the cheapest, easiest and most cost-effective things you can do to make your home more energy-efficient is to caulk the holes and cracks in your walls and foundation.

By Seth Masia
SOLAR TODAY Managing Editor

In this week's The New Yorker, Tad Friend has a great profile of Elon Musk and his electric Tesla automobile (see an abstract of "Plugged In" here).

According to Friend, Tesla now makes money on each Roadster sold (at $109,000 each). The business plan calls for each new model to sell for half the price of the previous one, so the Model S sedan should go out the door for about $45,00o, which is Chevy Volt territory. This implies that a third model ought to sell for about $22,000 and compete with Prius. Moreover, future Teslas will have quick-change batteries, like the Nissan-Renault Better Place cars. That means you'll be able to get a two-minute "refuel" while driving cross-country.

Is Tesla for real? You bet. Dan Shugar, president of SunPower and an ASES trustee, now commutes daily in his silver Roadster. Watch for a lively report of his transformation. He's become a threat to rice rockets everywhere, and a silent, invisible presence behind SUVs.

By Gina Johnson
SOLAR TODAY Editor

The Southeast gained an important training and demonstration center today as the Southface Institute hosted the grand opening of its Eco Office. Demonstrating the region’s growing stake in sustainable building as a path to green jobs, about 75 VIPs, project team members and reporters converged this morning for what Executive Director Dennis Creech lightheartedly called a “locally grown, organic vine-cutting” at the Eco Office.

This “office of the future” showcases the energy and water savings possible in a typical-sized commercial U.S. building using off-the-shelf products, materials and technologies. Southface estimates the three-story, 10,100-square-foot building saves approximately 61,000 gallons of municipal water annually and uses 53 percent less energy than comparable buildings. Because the building’s mission is pedagogic, it achieves this astonishing savings through what Creech calls “a Noah’s Ark of solutions” — two of every kind.

In fixing up the garage as a studio and crash pad for my college-age daughter, we've become happily familiar with ReSource, the local recycling yard for construction materials. Over the weekend we bought two exterior doors, with hinges, and a picture window, for a total of $150.

The detached two-car garage is 50 years old, stick-built with 2x4 framing for the walls and ceiling joists, and 2x6 for the rafters. This allowed for only R-13 insulation. We used cotton batting for the walls but settled on kraft-backed fiberglass for the ceiling because it was easier to staple it up from below, then nail up the ceiling panels. Later we may blow in additional cellulose.

The new east wall is where the garage door used to be. I framed it with 2x6 beams to take the heavy metal exterior doors with their insulated glass panels. They'll swing as French doors across an entry six feet wide. Cleo will be able to wheel big art projects in and out. The rest of that wall is a picture window with sliding wings, eight feet wide and 4.5 feet high. She'll have spectacular morning light, filtered through the foliage lining the lot's east fence.