Interesting new solar installations

Taken from PV-Insider 7 October 2011

Early PV tracking systems did not always hit the mark. But recent developments in tracking technology are helping to bring about genuine improvements in efficiency.

Josefin Berg sums up the tracking system challenge with an observation from the field. “In Spain you can see trackers pointing in different directions,” says the IHS Emerging Energy Research Europe solar power advisory analyst.

Since even sunny Spain only boasts one source of solar irradiation, if panels are facing towards different parts of the sky that means someone’s tracker is not working, and someone is not getting the full return on their PV investment.

And the irony is their investment will have been higher because of the tracker that is costing them money. “You get a 20% to 30% additional yield if it works well,” Berg says.

But, she adds: “If you install a tracking system the cost can increase, depending on the model, somewhere between 10% and 30%. You have to make your calculations pretty clear.”

Craig Stevens, president of the analyst firm Solarbuzz, confirms this. “The issue here is reliability and cost, including land cost,” he says. “The economics are a function both of the cell type and source, and the tracking system performance and cost.”

Furthermore, tracking systems only really make sense in latitudes where the sun is strong enough to make it worth following. That is why developers did not care much for such systems while the market was dominated by Germany.

Thin film modules located anywhere South of Berlin are dependent on trackers for a decent ROI, so their future in thin film is deeply engraved into the market’s future plans. First Solar understands this fact and recently acquired a US tracker firm for close to $40m earlier this year and is currently deploying single axis trackers at one of its solar ranches.

Solar resources

Berg says: “The standard is no tracking, because, on one hand, you have all the rooftop systems, and if you look at ground-based systems, because Germany is such a large market and does not have the solar resources to justify a tracking system.”

That is probably why Spain, with better solar irradiation, bore the brunt of the nascent tracking industry’s early research and development efforts.

“Trackers got a bad name in the early days because people put them together in the field,” admits Tim Keating, vice president of marketing and field operations at CPV manufacturer Skyline Solar. Now, though, trackers go through rigorous testing and “tracking is hotting up.”

In Italy, for example, there is a sound financial incentive to invest in tracking systems. Following the country’s 4th Conto Energia law in May, permits are only being granted to PV plants on agricultural land if they do not exceed 1 MW per installation.

As a result, explains Berg: “You see a lot of 0.99 MW plants going up. If you add tracking you get the return of a 1.2 MW system without having to worry about the permit.”

With the government generally scaling back incentives for PV, however, the Italian market alone is unlikely to be a major force for tracking research and development.

Evolution of tracking

“The evolution of tracking will be driven by the US, North Africa and maybe India,” says Berg. “There are still a lot of improvements to be made.”

Some major trends are becoming apparent, however, and perhaps not least because of the growing importance of technologies, such as CPV, which requires tracking as standard, and the efforts of leading players such as Amonix, DEGERenergie, Mecasolar, Sunseeker and Soitec.

For example, says Keating: “What I have seen is that the requirement for single-axis trackers is going to continue to balloon, and for dual-axis trackers it is going to go down, because the extra cost does not pay off. Typically it can cost four times as much.”

Jenny Chase, manager of the solar insight team at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, echoes this: “Single axis tracking is becoming more popular because you get 80% of the benefit for half the effort.”

Also, she says: “Improvements are happening in control software and control motors.”

There is still a split in opinion over whether directional systems should be based on optical sensors or computer algorithms, although, Chase says: “For something like CPV you probably want sensors; otherwise, if the ground shifts you are in trouble.

Flat-plate PV

“For flat-plate PV, it’s not so important, so it would probably depend on what’s cheaper.”

Because of all these advances, she says, tracking is now “generally considered to be more economically worthwhile. It’s not rocket science.”

As an example of what tracking can achieve, Keating points out that Skyline Solar’s tracker-based CPV systems have a performance of up to 55% better than that of flat-plate systems.

“In the case of Skyline, because we are following the light you really have to get it lined up,” he says. “We use a single-axis tracker and a trough to get highly reliable tracking.”

The best bit, Keating says, is: “We think we can get our system down to the same price as a fixed tilt system, purely through clever design.”

But while price remains the big bugbear for tracking, it will not be for long, says Chase: “What will make it more competitive is that the European large-scale PV market is going to die—so manufacturers will have to push into markets that pay less.”

Saferay builds world’s largest PV plant in 3 months

Berlin-based project developer and EPC saferay has constructed a 78 MW PV project as part of a 148 MW PV plant completed on former open-pit mining areas close to the city of Senftenberg, Eastern Germany. Saferay’s 78 MW plant has been completed within just three months and generates power for about 25,000 households. The plant consists of 330,000 crystalline solar modules and 62 central inverter stations.

The overall complex also includes a 70 MW plant which shares a common infrastructure with Saferay’s plant and an 18 MW plant, which was already completed last year, bringing the total installed capacity of the complex to 166 MWp. The €150m investment for the 78 MW plant was financed by three German banks. Saferay operates and owns two thirds of the project and was responsible for its financial structuring. SEE EXECUTIVE VIEWPOINT with Saferay Managing Director Michael Merz for more details on this project and the company’s future plans.

Isofoton and Affirma launch into EV sector

Affirma Energy and Isofoton are working together on project for battery charging stations for electric cars using photovoltaic solar technology. They are developing two types of charging stations: the regenerative braking train chargers, linked to the railway system, and PV chargers. The development of future charging stations for electric car batteries expected to spring up all over Spain in a relatively short period of time.

Both companies are working with ADIF (the Administrator of Spanish Railway Infrastructures) in a project supported by the INNPACTO research program. The regenerative braking stations, like the photovoltaic stations, will be covered with canopies on which photovoltaic panels are mounted and have an intelligent tracker that will optimise system performance. This project is being tailored to the needs of the export market on behalf of authorities from different countries.

Mecasolar supplies 11.5MW to PV plants across Europe and Australia

Mecasolar has supplied several PV projects in recent months including 6.4MW in solar trackers and 5.1MW in fixed structures for PV solar energy projects in Greece, Great Britain, Italy, Australia, Spain, and France, among other countries. One of the projects included a new solar farm in Wales (2.9MW), two in Italy (5MW) and one in Greece (1MW). The company has also has closed a deal to supply solar trackers in Australia and fixed structures in France for various PV solar projects.

New extension rules for UK large scale FITs come into effect 18 October

DECC has announced that the consultation on extending the large-scale Feed-in Tariff (FiT) had ended, and that the new rules on extensions will come into effect on 18 October 2011. The decision effectively closes the loophole that had allowed solar companies to continue for 12 months to construct later phases of large-scale solar installations under the higher (pre 1 August) FiT rate, so long as the initial phase had been completed before 1 August. Those later phases now have to be complete by 18 October 2011.

Paul Latham, managing director of Octopus said in reply to the DECC announcement that the venture capital trust manager had responded early to the likely changes to the FITs for large-scale solar and all of the investor’s sites have been constructed, completed and connected. Octopus raised the funds for its solar investments from investors in its Venture Capital Trust (VCT) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) tax-efficient vehicles, is currently receiving inflows of £10 million a month into its Octopus EIS and Octopus VCT 3&4 products, both of which are still open to new investment.

Camco bags $1.8m in African contracts

UK-based Camco International has won contracts worth $1.8m to develop two clean energy projects in Tanzania and Uganda. At the time of the announcement last week, Camco’s shares were up 5.41 per cent to 14.475 pence per share.

The first contract, awarded by the European Union, is to develop a $1m solar PV cluster project in Tanzania, which will install small scale solar systems in 15,000 homes in the Lake Victoria region over the next three years. Camco will provide technical assistance to the Belgian Development Agency under the second contract to develop clean energy projects worth $800,000 in Uganda.

Eight19 brings affordable solar electricity to the developing world

Eight19, a technology developer in solar electricity for off-grid applications, has launched IndiGo, a pay-as-you-go, personal solar electricity system for the developing world. The company says that by combining solar and mobile phone technology, the IndiGo solar electricity system is inexpensive to buy and allows users to light their homes and charge mobile phones as a service, paid for using scratchcards.

Customer trials are now underway in Kenya and will be extended to Zambia, Malawi and the Indian sub-continent over the next 3 months. The commercial roll-out of IndiGo will start early in 2012. Samuel Kimani of Mwiki who has installed the IndiGo system in his house said: “I am very happy now because this new IndiGo system replaces my kerosene lighting, which has been a very poor quality of light and creates a lot of air pollution. I am very happy because I can do the charging right here in my own house.”

Bisol signs recycling deal with CERES

PV module maker Bisol, has signed a contract with French association CCERES, which is set to implement the solar industry voluntary commitment to collect and recycle the end-of-life products and production waste. BISOL says that it eliminates the use of toxic materials and takes responsibility for the life-cycle impacts of its products by testing new materials and processes, and designing products which can be easily recycled.

All the components and materials used in the production of PV modules originate from well-established and verified suppliers, says Bisol, and are a guarantee for achieving the highest power output possible without polluting the environment. BISOL guarantees that their PV modules will not contaminate the environment at their end-of-life and has therefore signed a contract with Ceres.

Taken from MONEY, BUSINESS & ECONOMY (U.S. MAGAZINE) 21 February 2008 !!

It’s a big week for mirrors in the desert—with two big southwestern projects putting a spotlight on a form of big-scale solar energy that its most ardent advocates believe has the best chance of expanding the nation’s share of electricity from renewable sources.

Today, Arizona’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service, is announcing plans to build the world’s largest “concentrating solar power” plant, a $1 billion project to spread parabolic mirrors over a 3-mile-square stretch of desert 70 miles southwest of Phoenix. To be designed and built by the Spanish firm Abengoa, it would generate 280 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 70,000 homes.

That makes it four times as large as Nevada Solar One, near Boulder City, Nev., which last summer became the first CSP plant to open in the United States in more than 17 years. Tomorrow, Nevada Solar One’s developer, a rival Spanish company, Acciona, plans a star-studded dedication ceremony for the facility, with speakers including former astronaut Sally Ride, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, and actor/activist Ed Begley Jr. The dedication, says Acciona Energy North America chief executive Peter Duprey, is meant to get the word out that concentrating solar “is a reality today, and we need to be developing it and exploiting it.”

Unlike the solar energy that most people know, CSP doesn’t use expensive semiconductor material to transform the sun’s energy into electricity. CSP relies on mirrors to focus sunlight onto a heat transfer fluid, which in turn heats water into steam, which turns turbines to generate power. The big Arizona plant, which will be called Solana Generating Station, will take the technology an exciting step forward by using molten salt to store solar energy for up to six hours. “When the suns sets, this plant keeps on ticking,” says Arizona Public Service President Don Brandt. “We’ll have solar energy in the dark.”

The big issue with solar energy has been the cost. Brandt says the Solana plant is expected to generate electricity at 12 cents to 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is about 20 percent more than the cost of the other electricity that APS generates with its mix of nuclear, natural gas, and coal. But Brandt notes that since the price of the fuel is free, it’s a 30-year contract with one big source of risk eliminated. If natural gas prices increase or if coal-fired power is made more expensive because of climate-change legislation, the CSP power could end up being one of the lowest-priced forms of electricity in the utility’s portfolio. “Any business wants to diversify its sources of supply,” Brandt says. “That’s why we feel right now the price is attractive. And you factor in the possibility of natural gas prices rising or any carbon legislation, and I think we’ll look back in five years and think this was an absolute grand-slam home run.”

In the late 1970s, it was the U.S. government that spurred research and development of CSP technology through a series of experimental projects in the Mojave Desert—one of which has been generating power for years, operated by Florida Power & Light. But in recent years, European companies have taken the lead in big-scale renewable energy projects, spurred by aggressive government incentives.

Duprey of Acciona says his company is building four more CSP plants in Spain and has a number in development in the United States. He says all will be two or three times the scale of Nevada Solar One, which was a $226 million project. “This plant is on the smaller side, because we wanted to see how it would work,” he says. “We had to start out with all new suppliers and build out this industry. It’s like an infant—we have to nurture it and bring it along.

“We believe the technology is proven, it’s a matter of getting more suppliers and getting competition among suppliers and driving the cost down,” he says.

A two-mile-long Belgian rail tunnel, built to shelter trains from falling trees, will from Monday provide a double environmental benefit by hosting a unique solar power project.

The high-speed line running from Paris to Amsterdam passes Antwerp and a nearby ancient forest. To avoid the need to fell protected trees, a long tunnel was built over the line which has now been topped with 16,000 solar panels. The electricity produced is equivalent to that needed to power all the trains in Belgium for one day per year, and will also help power Antwerp station.

“For train operators, it is the perfect way to cut their carbon footprints because you can use spaces that have no other economic value and the projects can be delivered within a year because they don’t attract the protests that wind power does,” said Bart Van Renterghem, UK head of Belgian renewable energy company Enfinity, which installed the panels.

“We had a couple of projects lined up around London with train operators and water utilities, but they have been put on hold.”

Van Renterghem said this was due to the UK government’s controversial review of subsidies for large-scale solar power projects, which will lower the returns available.

Guy Ritchie fills field of £9m Wiltshire mansion

He made his name as the director of gritty gangster film Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels – but film director Guy Ritchie is more interested in being in tune with nature these days.

A higher calling – BUCKINGHAMSHIRE CHURCH TAPS INTO POWER FROM ABOVE

A Buckinghamshire church has tapped into the power from above and become more environmentally friendly. The parishoners of All Saints Church, Wing with Grove – one of the UK’s finest Anglo Saxon churches

When the parishioners of one of the UK’s finest Anglo Saxon churches were looking at how to make their place of worship more environmentally friendly, they took inspiration from a BBC’s Songs of Praise feature on St Denys Church in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, which had fitted solar Photovoltaic (PV) power generating panels.

Now, after a £50,000 investment, the congregation at All Saints Church, Wing with Grove in Buckinghamshire has not only reduced the building’s carbon footprint significantly but also found a way of generating an income for decades to come.

We wanted to support the Church of England’s national environmental campaign called Shrinking the Footprint,’ explained former church warden Martin Findlay, who led the project. In light of the current global climate change crisis, we felt that, in addition to praying at services for Christians to look after God’s creation, the Church should take action to reduce its carbon footprint.’

The PCC began a feasibility study into the scheme and then began to raise funds, get a ‘faculty’ (special permission from the Diocese to carry out the work), and planning permission from Aylesbury Vale District Council.

Information taken from an Article shown in “Professional Electrical and Installer” 2011