Posts by John Fitzgerald Weaver
NREL aiming to bring HVPE to Earth – hoping for 20-80¢/W
The researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are trying to bring back, and refine, a solar cell technique from the 50-60s to help make the same solar cells as are on NASA’s Mars rovers. The technique makes solar cells from gallium arsenide that are already hitting 25.3% efficiency. David Young,…
Read MoresPower secures 100 MW solar power PPA with California aggregator
Community choice aggregator CleanPowerSF has signed a 22-year PPA with sPower for a 100 MW project in Lancaster, California. The project is expected to be online in 2019. …
Read MoreLowest public solar power contract in the United States: 2.49¢/kWh
Arizona’s largest power user has approved a 20-year power contract with a 30 MW solar project at 2.49¢/kWh, the lowest confirmed price for a public solar power contract to date. The deal also involves shutting down a coal plant. …
Read MoreJapan building solar (freaking) parking lots
Way back in the day, the argument was that the global energy industry was too large for a simple technology as the ‘solar panel’ to scale and feed it. What’s that tiny little thing go to do when consider New York City’s power needs? Cute stuff. Today, we debate how to deal with too much…
Read MoreAustralia is so cool – HVDC undersea power lines might be coming
The island of Tasmania did an analysis and determined they could offer up to 5GW of pumped hydro storage, and that it could then deliver that electricity to the Australia mainland via undersea powerlines. The losses are now, and the electricity is available on demand and CO2 free. The undersea cables though are the most…
Read More$17 billion a year to bail out the nukes
Trump wants to bail out nukes and coal plants because some old guy from Ohio is going bankrupt. $17 billion a year. This doesn’t build anything new. This doesn’t advance our actions. This simply takes your money and gives it to a dying industry. The whole of the solar power industry was $20-30 billion in…
Read MoreFormer coal plant make wind turbine foundations
We’re going to see a bunch of announcements on various manufacturing sites connected with offshore wind turbine manufacturing along the costs. A local electrician that I share a beer with at the pub has been talking to me about becoming an offshore turbine technician. That’s about as cool as it gets it my book. Get…
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