The costs and benefits of solar panels was one of the many topics explored during this year's 4th annual "Energy and You - Individual Choices ... Global Impact" workshop seminar at Wilson College.
As a renewable energy consultant with Mountain View Solar and Wind - and someone with a background in real estate - Michelle Liefke spoke about the real estate value of solar panels.
In her work, Liefke said she comes across four different types of buyers when it comes to solar panels - investors, libertarians, environmentalists and jet setters - each with different goals and purposes for their choice to go solar.
"It's appealing to use in many different ways," she said. "Understanding who you are will help you understand the next person who might be purchasing your home." Nancy Lindenmeyer, Fayetteville, agreed, stating she and her husband were a mix of the first three in their decision to install solar panels on their home.
They wanted to reduce their electric bill as well as be energy efficient and independent, Lindenmeyer said.
"We just liked that," she said. "We wanted to do out part."
There are many values of solar panels and the energy they produce which include reducing or eliminating your electric bill, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, providing a highly durable form of energy production and being a product with one of the best return on investment, Liefke said.
"The solar future looks really bright for our area," she said.
At Mountain View, in 2009 a five kilowatt system cost $42,000 but its net cost after state and federal incentives was $18,200, Liefke said. Today that same system costs $26,000 with a net cost of $18,200.
In addition, an April 2011 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that homes in California that had a six kilowatt solar system saw a $33,000 increase in the value of the home, she said.
From 2009 to 2010, solar integration has doubled and it has increased eight times since 2006, Liefke said.
In 2010, Pennsylvania was ranked sixth in terms of grid-connected capacity installed, which Liefke attributes to a healthy Sunshine grant act, since Pennsylvania wasn't even on the list a few years ago.
Although many of the top ranking states, such as California, New Mexico and Nevada, are ones that are extremely hot, Liefke advised that heat has nothing to do with solar production. It's the amount of energy absorbed from the sun at any given time that does.
Judy Bricker, Waynesboro, compared this to the fact that you can still get sunburned in the winter even though it's not hot out because the sun is still producing energy.
Bricker said she and her family took a lot of things into consideration - such as when they would realize their investment, what if they moved shortly after installing, the aesthetics of solar panels - before deciding to install them on their home.
"They're not tacky," she said. "They're showing people that I do care."
2012年2月12日星期日
2011年8月3日星期三
Solar industry still hopes to shine
New Jersey has been proud of its commitment to renewable energy, and legislative policies have encouraged the installation of photo-voltaic solar arrays to the point that the state is second only to California in solar power production, according to the Board of Public Utilities.
But in June, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration announced that it was withdrawing New Jersey from a 10-state regional energy plan, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
This was followed a few days later with the introduction of the proposed new Energy Management Plan, a blueprint for energy planning for the next decade. In the plan, the governor and his administration recommend the construction of gas-powered energy plants, and putting more emphasis on large solar arrays owned by power companies rather than arrays on private homes. Questions arose about whether these policies will weaken New Jersey’s solar industry.
As hearings continue on the Energy Management Plan this week, several executives in the solar industry have shared their perspectives on how they read the plan, how solar energy has worked in the state so far, and how their industry can remain robust.
Emphasis on arrays
In New Jersey, solar energy has been made affordable through ratepayer subsidies.
Here is how the system works: The state Legislature has mandated that each year the utility companies must produce an increasing number of megawatts of power through renewable means. If they are not producing that power themselves, the companies must go to sources that produce power through renewable energy and buy power from them. They do this in the form of Solar Renewable Energy Credits or SRECs.
Homeowners and commercial property owners are now producing electricity with their photo-voltaic arrays, and they earn an SREC for each megawatt hour they produce. They can sell the SRECs to the power companies on the spot market, which is regulated by the Board of Public Utilities, or they can sign a long-term contract to sell a power company their SRECs at a fixed price for a fixed number of years.
But in June, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration announced that it was withdrawing New Jersey from a 10-state regional energy plan, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
This was followed a few days later with the introduction of the proposed new Energy Management Plan, a blueprint for energy planning for the next decade. In the plan, the governor and his administration recommend the construction of gas-powered energy plants, and putting more emphasis on large solar arrays owned by power companies rather than arrays on private homes. Questions arose about whether these policies will weaken New Jersey’s solar industry.
As hearings continue on the Energy Management Plan this week, several executives in the solar industry have shared their perspectives on how they read the plan, how solar energy has worked in the state so far, and how their industry can remain robust.
Emphasis on arrays
In New Jersey, solar energy has been made affordable through ratepayer subsidies.
Here is how the system works: The state Legislature has mandated that each year the utility companies must produce an increasing number of megawatts of power through renewable means. If they are not producing that power themselves, the companies must go to sources that produce power through renewable energy and buy power from them. They do this in the form of Solar Renewable Energy Credits or SRECs.
Homeowners and commercial property owners are now producing electricity with their photo-voltaic arrays, and they earn an SREC for each megawatt hour they produce. They can sell the SRECs to the power companies on the spot market, which is regulated by the Board of Public Utilities, or they can sign a long-term contract to sell a power company their SRECs at a fixed price for a fixed number of years.
2011年4月14日星期四
IBM cools solar cells for water and power
Pumping water through micro-channels on the surface of a solar panel not only makes it more efficient but can also make seawater drinkable.
Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) cells use lenses to focus large areas of solar energy onto a relatively small section of photovoltaic material, so it is not surprising that they can reach temperatures of 120 °C. These high temperatures make the cells less efficient, reducing the amount of electricity they can produce.
That is why keeping them cool is so important, says Bruno Michel, head of advanced thermal packaging at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland. So with this in mind IBM has developed the "ultra-high concentrated PV", a hybrid solar panel that incorporates technology originally developed to help cool computer chips. The idea is to use water-filled microchannels to cool the cell - the hot water would then be used in desalination.
In arid areas where power generation is difficult this can solve two problems at once, producing electricity and clean water, says Michel. "Usually in areas with high solar irradiance there is little demand for heating," he says. "There is more demand for water."
One method of desalination uses hot water to distil seawater, evaporating it to remove the salt. This is expensive and you normally need to heat the water first. So it is far more energy-efficient to use water already warmed from cooling solar cells.
This is not the first hybrid of this sort, says Ian Tansley, chief technology officer of True Energy, an engineering firm specialising in renewable energy in Gwynedd, UK. "There have been some poorly designed incarnations of this on the market for some time ranging from a serpentine of pipes stuck to the back, to a stream of water trickling down the front," he says.
Michel claims IBM's approach is more efficient because each microchannel is etched onto the cell itself, which makes it better at cooling because the water is closer to the heat source. In tests, a 1-centimetre ultra-high CPV cell operated at between 70 to 90 °C, even with 5000 times the normal amount of solar radiation focused on it. This is five times as much as existing CPVs can handle.
Michel presented the findings at the International Conference on Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems in Las Vegas. He told our sister site New Scientist that IBM was working with a team at the Egypt Nanotechnology Research centre in Cairo to scale up the cell to a 10-square-metre prototype.
Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) cells use lenses to focus large areas of solar energy onto a relatively small section of photovoltaic material, so it is not surprising that they can reach temperatures of 120 °C. These high temperatures make the cells less efficient, reducing the amount of electricity they can produce.
That is why keeping them cool is so important, says Bruno Michel, head of advanced thermal packaging at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland. So with this in mind IBM has developed the "ultra-high concentrated PV", a hybrid solar panel that incorporates technology originally developed to help cool computer chips. The idea is to use water-filled microchannels to cool the cell - the hot water would then be used in desalination.
In arid areas where power generation is difficult this can solve two problems at once, producing electricity and clean water, says Michel. "Usually in areas with high solar irradiance there is little demand for heating," he says. "There is more demand for water."
One method of desalination uses hot water to distil seawater, evaporating it to remove the salt. This is expensive and you normally need to heat the water first. So it is far more energy-efficient to use water already warmed from cooling solar cells.
This is not the first hybrid of this sort, says Ian Tansley, chief technology officer of True Energy, an engineering firm specialising in renewable energy in Gwynedd, UK. "There have been some poorly designed incarnations of this on the market for some time ranging from a serpentine of pipes stuck to the back, to a stream of water trickling down the front," he says.
Michel claims IBM's approach is more efficient because each microchannel is etched onto the cell itself, which makes it better at cooling because the water is closer to the heat source. In tests, a 1-centimetre ultra-high CPV cell operated at between 70 to 90 °C, even with 5000 times the normal amount of solar radiation focused on it. This is five times as much as existing CPVs can handle.
Michel presented the findings at the International Conference on Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems in Las Vegas. He told our sister site New Scientist that IBM was working with a team at the Egypt Nanotechnology Research centre in Cairo to scale up the cell to a 10-square-metre prototype.
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