The second big round of SolarWorld’s controversial trade cases ended in the usual fashion on Wednesday, with the U.S. International Trade Commission handing the Oregon-based unit of the German company a final victory that expands duties on Chinese solar manufacturers and penalizes Taiwanese companies that underpriced their solar products in the United States. The ITC… Keep reading →
The QBotix Robotic Tracking System is irresistibly retro-futuristic, like something out of a ’60s-era World Fair, with compact modules zipping around commercial and utility-scale solar installations on a monorail, stopping briefly to adjust the panels and keep them aimed at the sun. It draws crowds when demoed at trade shows, and has landed many an… Keep reading →
In a way, it’s new: A U.S.-based company is among those charged with dumping solar products (instead of doing the charging). But India’s move toward imposing duties on First Solar and more than 20 other solar companies that sell products in the country is really just the latest dose of uncertainty added to the solar… Keep reading →
The Obama stimulus planted the seeds, and now big solar is sprouting in the desert Southwest. The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced that the Agua Caliente solar project in Yuma, Arizona, was now fully online, producing up to 290 megawatts of power, making it the world’s largest photovoltaic plant. Agua Caliente was backed… Keep reading →
Chinese firms are becoming increasingly competitive in the global oil field services market, undercutting South Korean and Singaporean suppliers while gaining business from the majors. “Manufacturing energy equipment is an expensive, labour-intensive and lengthy process, and with global energy firms trying to cut costs, the affordability of the services offered by Chinese firms has trumped… Keep reading →
Fifty cents a watt? Wow. That’s the module cost claim for utility-scale installations that Cogenra is making with its new T14 PV system. The emphasis on the system’s ability to deliver low-cost benefits with low-concentration photovoltaics is a bit of a shift for Cogenra, which had long sold itself as uniquely able to combine PV and… Keep reading →
From insomnia to an off-grid power system; Hurricane Sandy relief; modern art; doctoral degrees and community clean energy projects; these engineers are tackling some of today’s pressing energy challenges. Rob van Haaren and his friend Garrett Fitzgerald, Columbia University engineering students, became unexpected heroes in post-Sandy Far Rockaway, Queens, NY when they brought solar-generated electricity… Keep reading →
No, the idea isn’t to power commercial air travel with photovoltaic solar – that’s being left that to super-lightweight, experimental efforts like Solar Impulse. Nevertheless, a French collaboration this week plans to unveil a new way of bringing solar power to aircraft, with a photovoltaic window. The pitch is that it can automatically adjust the… Keep reading →
The industry will soon install one solar system every minute and a half. A lot happens in America every four minutes. During that short time period, 30 babies are born, 4,080 McDonald’s Big Macs are consumed, and 48,000 tons of CO2 are emitted. And as it turns out, the U.S. is now installing one solar photovoltaic (PV) system… Keep reading →
Mega Cities of the Future Require Local Electricity Production – Solar ‘Roof Energy’ is the Answer
By Sven LindströmSeven billion people will live and work in urban areas by 2050 and the demand for energy for all these people will be huge. Local production of energy will be needed with building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) key to make cities at least partially self-sufficient with energy. Rapid development in thin film solar cell efficiency strengthens the… Keep reading →