Mike’s ramblings

Researchers from the German university of Kassel have linked together several wind, solar, biogas and hydro power plants to explore the possibility of satisfying Germany’s electricity needs only from renewable sources. The problem they are trying to solve is that wind and sun can not be controlled.

If the power from these plants would go into the grid without any precautionary measurements they could take out the whole system. There have to be mechanisms to react to too much or not enough power going into a grid. With the addition of storage through hydro plants and controllable biogas plants, these problems seem to be solved. The researchers say their study shows, that Germany could be powered by 100% of renewable energy.

Nanosolar a company started by German founder Martin Roscheisen recently shipped its first CIGS solar panels. They have developed a technique to print their light active ink onto all kinds of materials. The thin-film panels produced this way come out at price of $1/watt for a total installation cost of around $2/watt. This makes the technique comparable to coal energy (which costs about $2.10/watt)!

In this price included is a nice margin for Nanosolar. They report that the costs to produce the panels are around 40 cents/watt. These numbers are amazing. What is even better is the fact that this company is already mass-producing these panels. If they continue to drive down the costs, we can soon cover all kinds of surfaces with these panels. These are truly exciting times in my opinion.

As Techcrunch notes, costs for solar cells are steadily coming down so maybe after all it won’t be that long until we see the solar roadway? The good thing with this announcement is that its not about a new invention that was just made, but rather about its soon start of its mass production. Colorado State University has developed cells that only cost $1 per watt to manufacture and will be available to the the customer at $2 per watt, which is roughly half of todays prices. The new cells are made from cadmium telluride rather than silicon and there is less waste in their production.

The production of the panels, which have a efficiency of about 11-13%, will begin at the end of next year. The factory will initially produce panels with a capacity of 200 megawatts.

AutoBlogGreen has a story about a nice idea developed by Scott Brusaw and his wife. The idea itself is pretty simple and tries to solve several problems at once. We all know solar energy is good, but there is also the problem, that it uses a lot more space than its ungreen counterparts like coal plants et cetera. If we would put solar cells into our roads under a translucent layer, the deserts would remain a free habitat for wildlife. The potential space to use in America is huge. There are 65′000 square kilometers of roadways and parking lots that could be used as space for solar cells. Of course this makes only sense if we manage to produce cheap solar cells, and even better organic cheap solar cells. That these cells only come at an efficiency of about 4% is no problem, if we consider the huge amount of space that could be covered with them.

Another interesting possibility of this type of road would be the possibility to include LEDs to show all kinds of signs, including warnings from accidents. The problems to solve are, as mentioned above, the production of cheap solar cells and to find a material that is translucent and hard-wearing. It would probably also make sense if the parts would be reusable, because roads get rebuilt quite often.

CNN Money reports that John Deere, the big tractor company, has found a way to make profits while developing rural America and producing green energy. They accomplish this by financing wind turbines in these areas.

A project with the size of about 5 windmills works as follows: John Deere pays about $4,950,000, the farmers pay $50,000 and another $5 million comes from a loan from a bank. John Deere gets all the revenue for the first 10 years or until their initial investment is paid off and they’ve made a profit. The farmers get $20,000 a year each for maintaining the turbines. After the 10 years, the farmers get all the revenue, which estimates to about $1 to $1.5 million plus another $500,000 federal tax credit. This results to a good profit for everyone that will help develop these areas drastically.

It is nice to see that with a good idea you can accomplish something valuable, in this example develop rural areas and protect the environment/produce green energy/reduce the dependence on foreign oil, and still make profits. Sadly good ideas don’t grow on trees and as long as one can make their profits easier without doing something good, people will go the easy path.

(via EcoGeek)

The Bahrain World Trade Center will be the first building in the world, that has wind turbines of a respectable size included in its structure and built in to support its aesthetics. News of this has been out for some time now, but lucky EcoGeek has received first hand pictures of the turbines getting installed and I have to say it looks as stunning as it did on the renderings from the architecture firm.

The three turbines, each measuring 29m in diameter, will produce approximately 11-15% of the buildings energy needs, which equates to 1100-1300 MWh per year. (This is about the equivalent of powering 300 homes for a year.) The buildings is facing the Gulf and is shaped aerodynamically so that the turbines fixed position is not a problem and they get enough wind.

It is kind of paradox that this is built with money that most certainly has its base in oil, but I am not complaining when something as nice as this comes out of it.
(For more pictures go right over to EcoGeek.)