Solar

SolarCity said today that it will begin to offer installation services for solar-powered EV chargers compatible with any electric vehicle currently on the market.

To do so, the company is partnering with EV charger manufacturer ClipperCreek, which will supply chargers that use the standard SAE-J1772 charge cable.

Installation of a 240-volt Level II charger, which typically charges an EV battery to full capacity in about four hours, for a home or business will start at $1,500 including the price of the charger, according to SolarCity.

SolarCity said the offer is not just an add-on for customers who have the … Read more

First Solar today said a test cell using its cadmium telluride solar technology set a new world record of 17.3 percent efficiency.

The world's most valuable solar company said the cell's performance, confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab, topped the previous world record of 16.7 percent set in 2001.

A solar cell's efficiency is the percentage of sunlight that ends up being converted to electricity.

The announcement by First Solar, which rarely trumpets the performance of its test cells, comes a few months after rising competitor General Electric … Read more

DuPont today said it has bought Silicon Valley upstart Innovalight, which makes a "silicon ink" material to enhance the efficiency of solar cells.

The chemicals giant said that it intends to integrate Innovalight's technology into its existing solar photovoltaics business and expand the market for Innovalight's products. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Innovalight makes a black ink-like nanomaterial that is applied to silicon cells during the solar manufacturing process. Adding a silicon ink printing step can boost the efficiency of monocrystalline solar cells by up to 19 percent over the traditional process, according … Read more

Typically, cost is the driving concern when choosing one renewable energy technology over another. But a pair of studies that consider land use give the edge to niche forms of solar and wind power generation.

Caltech researcher John Dabiri, a professor of aeronautics and bioengineering, this week presented results of a test that found that vertical-axis wind turbines have the potential to generate more power per square meter than the propeller-like, three-blade wind turbines. The key is that vertical-axis turbines can be placed close together without creating the type of wind disturbances that would sap performance of traditional turbines.

Dabiri … Read more

Renewable energy and green technology companies are poised to crash, a recently released Foreign Affairs article argues. Despite the provocative title, the authors offer relatively familiar solutions for speeding energy innovation, such as boosting government funding for research and development.

The July/August edition of Foreign Affairs features "The Crisis in Clean Energy--Stark Realities of the Renewables Craze," which offers a grim outlook for solar, wind, and other green technologies--a crisis that will make it tougher for the U.S. to address energy security, the trade deficit, and global warming. Another piece by Devon Swezey of the Breakthrough Institute, teeing off the Foreign Affairs article, calls it "The Coming Cleantech Crash."

With government spending under intense scrutiny around the world, policies to subsidize renewable energy have become "politically unsustainable" in the U.S. and Europe, according to David Victor, a professor a the School of International Relations at the University of California San Diego, and Kassia Yanosek, founding principal at consulting and investment company Tana Energy Capital. Scaling back subsidies for solar and wind are already causing slowing growth rates, they argue.

"The root cause of today's troubles is a boom-and-bust cycle of policies that have encouraged investors to flock to clean-energy projects that are quick and easy to build rather than invest in more innovative technologies that could stand a better chance of competing with conventional energy sources over the long haul. Indeed, nearly seven-eighths of all clean-energy investment worldwide now goes to deploying existing technologies, most of which are not competitive without the help of government subsidies. Only a tiny share of the investment focuses on innovation," they write. … Read more

MIT researchers have shown how solar panels can be printed on paper and other cheap materials, opening a range of possibilities including homes with solar-panel window shades or wallpaper.

Last year, CNET's Martin LaMonica reported on how MIT had developed the world's first solar panel printed on paper. A recent MIT study in the journal Advanced Materials by Karen Gleason and colleagues details the innovation.

The paper photovoltaic arrays are created through an oxidative chemical vapor deposition process at temperatures less than 120 degrees Celsius.

Ordinary uncoated paper, cloth, or plastic can be used. The researchers printed solar cells on a layer of PET plastic, folded it 1,000 times, and found it would still work.

Multiple layers and a paper mask are used to print the cells in a vacuum chamber. MIT says the procedure is nearly as cheap and easy as inkjet printing. … Read more

Developers of solar thermal power plants are scrapping plans to use steam technology in favor of ever-cheaper solar panels that are easier to finance and could help assuage concerns about the systems' environmental impact.

So far this year, at least four California projects, representing about 1,850 megawatts of power generation, have elected to change most or all of their technology to photovoltaic solar panels, which turn sunlight directly into electricity, from concentrating solar power, or CSP, which uses heat to create steam that powers a generator.

The projects are being developed by NextEra Energy, Germany's Solar Millennium, AES … Read more

The Army plans to install microgrids in Afghanistan as part of its mission to reduce its energy-related vulnerability in the field.

A three-month experiment will deploy a system designed to use fuel more efficiency and pave the way solar and wind power in the field, the Army said earlier this week.

Right now, the Army uses diesel generators to power its bases. Transporting that fuel for generators and its vehicles comes at a significant financial and military cost as fuel convoys are often targets for attack.

The microgrids the Army plans to install will include diesel generators that are able … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Nuclear fusion suffers from an image of being too good to be true. But researchers here say they are already doing nuclear fusion on a small scale and it's just a matter of time--decades, realistically--before it becomes practical.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology houses an active research lab for nuclear fusion, which many consider the answer to weaning the world from its costly dependence on fossil fuels. A tour of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center last week, organized by the TEDx Boston conference, offered a crash course on nuclear fusion, a field of research which continues … Read more