Yesterday, I focused a bit small-scale or medium-scale solar (in the US & UK) here on CleanTechnica. On the flip side, news today from Solarbuzz is that utility-scale photovoltaic solar is growing fast in North America and looking for 2012 to be its top year yet.

Q4 2011 Saw Record Installations “Sharp reductions in market prices combined with the impact of regional and national policies pushed the North American photovoltaic market to a new quarterly peak with 0.93 GW installed in Q4’11, according  to the latest North American PV Markets Quarterly report issued by NPD Solarbuzz, “the solar market research and analysis company notes. “The solar incentive policy mix in both the United States and Canadian markets drove up demand in large-scale ground-mount systems, which was 59% of this total. Regionally, the New Jersey, California, ...

“Turbine Cowboys” is a new reality series premiering on The Weather Channel this spring, and anyone with an interest in clean energy should check it out. Despite the highly mechanized nature of wind turbine construction and the use of robotic devices for maintenance, the human element is still very much at work. Turbine Cowboys is an important reminder that while renewable energy is cleaner and safer in terms of emissions and overall public health impacts, that does not necessarily translate into a low-risk work environment. Wind and Workers The Turbine Cowboys crew has been filming as far south as Baja California and up north to Alaska, which is a hint about the direction it’s going in. Along with the hazards you’d expect from working around electricity and huge ...

Greentech Media recently reported that Southern California electric vehicle startup Coda Automotive (Coda) launched a battery business called Coda Energy, which will enter the grid-scale energy storage market. Coda’s patent portfolio offers a window into the battery technology that might be part of the new business. Coda owns at least half a dozen U.S. patent applications relating to energy storage technologies, including U.S. Patent Application Publications Nos. 2011/0256431 (’631 Application), 2011/0256432 (’632 Application), 2011/0281145 (’145 Application), 2011/0304202 (’202 Application), 2011/0304298 (’298 Application, and 2012/0015242 (’242 Application). A search in Cleantech PatentEdge™ yields an additional international application, Publication No. WO 2011/060074 (’074 Application), entitled “Battery thermal management systems and methods,” which is the international, or PCT, filing of the ’145 Application. The ’431 and ’432 Applications were filed based upon the same provisional patent ...

Today, the BC Government announced another in a series of many energy plans and strategies. The 2012 Natural Gas Strategy actually puts energy front and centre for economic development in the Province. The policy is big on ideas, but short on details. According to the Government, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is to be the key driver for the provincial economy for decades to come.  The global demand for liquefied natural gas is strong and BC's estimated natural gas reserves are substantial. Local First Nations have expressed support for LNG facilities and the pipelines that will bring the natural gas from the North. Nominating LNG as a pillar of the BC economy makes good sense. How the new energy plan is implemented is of course, critical. For the BC renewable energy industry, growing the demand for electricity in the Province is a good thing. The important decision is how much of the new LNG development will be powered by ...

India has a Solar Mission to install 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022. Solar electricity is already cheaper than electricity produced with diesel generators. These optimistic figures from India, the second most populated country in the world, has led the New Scientist magazine to write an in-depth article about it saying that India’s solar power revolution could have a ripple effect across the globe. Solar panel prices fell by nearly 50 percent in 2011 and now they cost just one-quarter of what they did in 2008. This is good news for a good slice of the Indian population, one quarter of which lacks access to electricity. But electricity connection is not reliable, hence the use of diesel generators as backup power, increasing India’s share of greenhouse gases. Solar electricity has fallen to 8.78 rupees per kilowatt hour ...

In a report published by Scientific Reports, researchers say they’re successfully working toward making low-cost solar cells from plants. While, technically, all plants are some sort of solar cell (photosynthesis takes sunlight, water, and CO2 and turns it into sugar, as you may remember from high school chemistry), the key here is the word “low cost.” Photosynthesis On Your Roof The project in question is focusing on a way to produce “biophotovoltaics” without all sorts of sophisticated lab equipment. And while esoteric and possibly arcane lab equipment is all sorts of cool, it’s also rather expensive and not always workable for mass-producing items. The new system is incredibly user-friendly and costs a lot less – mix green plants (like grass clippings) with custom-designed chemicals, and out comes a photovoltaic material made with the power of photosynthesis. MIT researcher Andreas Mershin, ...

 

SDTC is accepting Statements of Interest from February 22nd to April 18th, 2012
SDTC invests in late-stage development and pre-commercial demonstration of clean technologies by Canadian companies in a range of innovative solutions across all industries that address Climate Change, Clean Air, Water and Soil.
CONNECT with SDTC Applications:
Applications@sdtc.ca & www.sdtc.ca/applications
JOIN one of their upcoming Statement of Interest Webinar Workshops: www.sdtc.ca/workshops
•         SDTC Investment Priorities webinar will take place February 17th 11:00am – 1:00pm EST.

•         Additional webinars related to preparing a Statement of Interest application to follow in February and March (dates to be confirmed).

 

Kyocera is introducing a new home energy management system that couples solar power panels with a lithium-ion battery for power storage that allows Japanese homes to operate off-grid if necessary.

ArrayPower says that it has invented a “sequenced inverter” design that could cut the cost of solar power by 10%. For those that don’t know what an inverter is, don’t worry, it is easy to understand and I will explain it: a typical inverter for a solar-powered home converts the DC (direct current) power that solar panels generate into 120- and 240-volt AC (alternating current) power, the same as what your power outlet provides. Small solar setups often generate DC at 12 volts, and that 12 volts of DC power is converted into 120 volts of AC power, which is suitable for most household appliances, portable devices chargers, etc. The new inverter setup mentioned above involves equipping each solar panel with a small inverter, instead of connecting all solar panels to one ...

The IPP Sea Breeze Power is launching a $300 million shovel-ready wind farm at the northern end of Vancouver Island, BC. The Cape Scott project will feature 55 Vestas turbines that will generate close to 100MW. It took ten years to develop in partnership with three First Nations and will be the first wind farm on the coast of British Columbia. It is expected to come on line in early 2013. Two other plants are already in operation in the north-east of the province. “The wind resource on Vancouver Island is one of the most economic in the world”, said Sea Breeze President and CEO, Paul Manson. “We collected four years of wind data, had twelve sites on an investigative use permit and ended up one of three bidders out of 19 to be approved by BC Hydro,” ...