America's energy infrastructure

Ever wonder what America's energy infrastructure looks like? All those power plants and coal mines and oil wells and transmission lines?

Then you're in luck. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has a fascinating new mapping tool that lets you take a detailed look at every aspect of America's energy system.

Below I've pulled out 11 maps of interest, but you can use the tool to customize the maps in any way you want (or zoom in to see state-level details and look at individual congressional districts).

1) Coal still provides 37% of the country's electricity:

This map shows every coal plant in the contiguous United States:

In 2012, there were 557 coal plants in the United States, generating about 37 percent of the nation's electricity — the biggest single source of power.
Coal has also fallen out of favor in recent year

But coal has also fallen out of favor in recent years. For one, a glut of cheap natural gas from fracking operations has steadily eroded coal's share and forced power-plant operators to close many of their older, less efficient plants. Between 2010 and 2012, electric utilities retired 145 generators, with an average age of 55 years old.

There's also pollution and climate change to consider. Coal emits plenty pollutants when burned — including the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Various new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency on mercury, sulfur-dioxide, and carbon-dioxide are likely to put further pressure on coal plants to retire in the years ahead. (Though even with those rules, the EPA expects coal to provide 30 percent of the nation's electricity in 2030.)

2) Natural gas has been surging — and now provides 30% of our electricity

This second map shows all the large natural-gas power plants in the contiguous United States:

Natural gas plants tend to be smaller, easier to build, and emit fewer conventional pollutants than coal plants — so they're more widespread. In 2012, there were 1,714 natural gas plants providing about 30 percent of the nation's power.

Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, though it tends to be cleaner than coal when burned for electricity — emitting fewer conventional pollutants like sulfur-dioxide and about half as much planet-warming carbon-dioxide. In the past, one major downside of natural gas was that prices could fluctuate wildly. But with the recent fracking boom, many analysts are predicting that cheaper natural gas will be plentiful for decades — and hence play a bigger role in the electricity sector.

3) Nuclear power has flatlined, but still provides 19% of our electricity

Here are all the nuclear power plants in the United States:

There are currently 62 nuclear power plants  in operation containing 100 reactors. Those reactors provide 19 percent of the nation's electricity — without emitting any heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
just five new nuclear reactors are being built

In recent years, however, a few reactors have started closing, under pressure from cheap natural gas and wind power, plus rising maintenance costs. At the same time, many power plant operators have managed to squeeze more power out of their existing reactors (a practice known as "uprating"), which has helped nuclear power maintain its share.

Relatively few people are building new reactors these days — there are just five in the works at existing sites in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. In general, the high cost of nuclear plants is a deterrent (these five reactors are all being built in highly regulated states where utilities can recoup their costs by raising rates). The key question is how quickly existing plants might retire in the years ahead. The EPA's recent climate rules give states some incentives to keep their nuclear reactors open for longer.

4) Hydropower is the largest renewable source, providing 7% of our electricity

This map shows hydroelectric dams around the country:

Hydropower is, by far, the biggest source of renewable power in the United States. In 2012, there were 1,426 hydroelectric dams providing 7 percent of the nation's electricity.

But not all dams are equal. The massive dams in the West provide a disproportionate amount of electricity — Washington, home of the Grand Coulee Dam, produces nearly one-third of the nation's hydropower. But there are small dams around the country providing more modest jolts of power.

It's unlikely that the United States will ever build any more massive dams — most of the best sites are already tapped, and dams can be controversial. (No one's going to dam up the Grand Canyon, for instance.) Still, one recent analysis suggested that the country could eke out even more hydropower by adding generators to existing dams that don't already have them.

5) Wind power is surging in the Midwest and Great Plains

Here's a map of the major wind farms in the contiguous United States:

Wind has been rising fast, albeit from a low base. In 2008, wind provided about 1 percent of the nation's electricity. That rose to 3.6 percent in 2012 and 4.1 percent in 2013.

There are two big reasons for that rapid growth: The federal government has provided both tax credits and subsidies (with a big boost in the 2009 stimulus bill). What's more, many states now have laws requiring utilities to get a certain portion of their electricity from renewables. (One notable exception here is the Southeast.)

The federal government may be withdrawing some of that support — it's not clear whether Congress will renew a key tax credit for wind power in the years ahead. Still, the costs of wind have fallen sharply in recent years, and some analysts expect it will continue growing regardless (albeit more slowly) in places like the Midwest and the Great Plains.

6) Solar is also growing fast, though is still fairly tiny

The map below shows large solar power plants around the country (it doesn't, though, show every last rooftop solar panel system):

Solar power still plays a bit part in the US energy system — providing around 0.11 percent of electricity in 2012.

The flip side, though, is that solar-panel prices have been plummeting fast. Indeed, some utilities have worried that as more and more people install photovoltaic systems on their roofs, that could cut into energy sales. David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, has called these trends "a mortal threat to the existing utility system."

7) All those power plants require a lot of transmission lines

Here's a map of all the major (345 kV or more) transmission lines in the contiguous United States:

The regulation of the US power grid is insanely complicated — and it tends to be really tough to build big new transmission lines (say, if you want to transport electricity from a giant new wind farm out in the Great Plains to population centers).

8) Coal mining is shifting from Appalachia to out West

Here's a map of all the major coal mines in the United States:

Judging by this map alone, you'd get the impression that Appalachia is the center of coal country. But in fact, that's no longer true.

Coal mining in Appalachia is in decline
Ever since the late 1990s, more of America's coal has come from west of the Mississippi — particularly from Wyoming — than from the East. And that trend is likely to continue for some time.
There are a few reasons for that. The coal out West tends to be lower in sulfur, which is useful for US coal plants that are trying to cut their sulfur-dioxide emissions in response to pollution regulations. What's more, states like Kentucky and West Virginia have already mined much of their easiest-to-reach coal seams — and many areas are now in decline.

Coal production is expected to take a hit in the future if the EPA's new climate rules lead to a decrease in coal-fired electricity. Some of the coal from Wyoming and elsewhere may start to get exported abroad, although that's a bit harder to predict.

9) The US produces about 60% of the oil it needs

This map shows every oil well in the lower 48 states (there are also quite a few in Alaska, although they're not shown):

It's worth noting that US oil production is actually growing — and fast.
US Oil production is growing fast
By November 2013, the United States was producing 7.8 million barrels of crude oil each day, the most in a quarter-century. Oil production is now expected to keep growing until it reaches a peak of 9.6 million barrels per day in 2019.

Why the uptick? New fracking and horizontal drilling techniques have allowed oil companies to extract more oil from shale rock and other difficult formations. Advances in offshore drilling have also played a role.

That also means US oil imports are slowly shrinking. In 2012, the US relied on foreign countries for about 40 percent of the oil it uses. That's expected to keep shrinking in the decades ahead, as both domestic production increases and consumption drops (the US economy is becoming more oil-efficient and the growth in driving has slowed).

10) But that oil first has to make it to refineries to be useful

This map shows the pipelines that take oil to refineries (shown in squares), which refine oil into gasoline and other fuels for our cars, homes, airplanes, and so forth.

This map can also help shed light on a number of contemporary energy disputes.

For instance, a lot of oil is being dug up from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. But there aren't enough pipelines (or railways) to bring that oil to refineries. That's why oil companies (and Canada) want to build the Keystone XL pipeline — to bring that tar sands oil down to refineries in Texas.

Oil companies have also argued that there's not enough refining capacity down in Texas to handle the recent boom in oil production in North Dakota and elsewhere. They'd like to lift the longstanding ban on exporting crude oil from the United States — in order to boost the price.

11) The shale boom is upending the US energy landscape

This map shows shale plays of oil and gas (in brown), as well as tight gas plays (in blue):

The rise of new fracking and horizontal drilling technologies has made many of these resources newly accessible. There are currently more than 63,000 shale oil wells and shale gas wells around the country. Much of the activity is concentrated in Texas, North Dakota, Louisiana, and the Marcellus Shale region in the East.

There are more than 63,000 shale oil and shale gas wells
The shale boom has reshaped the American energy landscape. Domestic production of oil and natural gas has risen sharply, leading to cheaper energy and a reduced reliance on imports.

Advocates often argue that fracking is creating jobs, boosting manufacturing, and helping to tackle global warming by reducing the amount of coal we use. Opponents often argue that the industry is poorly regulated, the global warming benefits are overhyped, and that fracking has led to increased air and water pollution around the country.

Courtesy  :
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/12/5803998/the-us-energy-system-in-11-maps

Solar power is growing so fast that older energy companies are trying to stop it

Updated by Brad Plumer on September 29, 2014, 10:10 a.m. ET

Workers with solar city install rooftop panels in California.

If you ask the people who run America's electric utilities what keeps them up at night, a surprising number will say solar power. Specifically, rooftop solar.

hat seems bizarre at first. Solar power provides just 0.4 percent of electricity in the United States — a minuscule amount. Why would anyone care?

But utilities see things differently. As solar technology gets dramatically cheaper, tens of thousands of Americans are putting photovoltaic panels up on their roofs, generating their own power. At the same time, 43 states and Washington DC have "net metering" laws that allow solar-powered households to sell their excess electricity back to the grid at retail prices.

That's a genuine problem for utilities. All these solar households are buying less and less electricity, but the utilities still have to manage the costs of hooking them up to the grid. Indeed, a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argues that this could soon put utilities in dire straits. If rooftop solar were to grab 10 percent of the market over the next decade, utility earnings could decline as much as 41 percent.

So, to avoid that fate, many utilities are now pushing for reforms that would slow the breakneck growth of rooftop solar — say, by scaling back those "net metering" laws. And that's opened up a war with many fronts. There are solar advocates who'd prefer not to see any changes. There are conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) pushing to get rid of solar subsidies. There are even Tea Party groups defending solar. Meanwhile, state regulators are struggling to find compromises that would both allow solar to expand but also ensure that there's enough money to maintain the grid.

The war over solar is now raging in more than a dozen states — from Arizona to Utah to Wisconsin to Georgia. (It's also flaring up abroad, in countries like Germany and Australia). And the debate raises some legitimately hard questions about how best to deal with a new energy technology. Here's a broad overview:

How cheap solar could crush traditional electric utilities

 

 

(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Solar panels are still a niche product. But the cost of solar rooftop systems has been plummeting in recent years (see chart). Firms like SolarCity will now install solar systems at no upfront cost to customers, who can then make monthly payments. Plus, there's a 30 percent federal tax credit for residential solar systems until the end of 2016.

So even though solar provides just 0.4 percent of America's electricity, it's growing at a shocking rate. Rooftop solar generation has roughly tripled since 2010. By some estimates, a new solar system is now installed every four minutes in the United States.

To electric utilities, this poses a dilemma. As rooftop solar becomes more popular, people will buy less and less electricity from their local power company. But utilities still have plenty of fixed costs for things like maintaining the grid. So, in response, those utilities will eventually have to raise rates on everyone else. Trouble is, those higher electricity rates could spur even more people to install their own solar rooftop panels to save money. Cue a vicious cycle.

Sound far-fetched? This was the doomsday scenario laid out by the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group, back in January 2013. Even a relatively modest increase in rooftop solar power could cause havoc. David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, has called these trends "a mortal threat to the existing utility system." (Some utilities also have their own solar plants, but those don't pose a threat.)
One recent study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that some utilities could face serious financial trouble in the coming decade. Distributed solar now makes up nearly 2 percent of retail sales in some areas. If solar penetration reaches just 2.5 percent, shareholder earnings for some utilities could fall an estimated 4 percent. (Electricity prices, meanwhile, would rise just 0.1 to 0.2 percent.)

That's just the beginning. If the penetration of distributed solar reached as high as 10 percent — an admittedly aggressive scenario — a typical utility in the Southwest could see its earnings drop 5 percent to 13 percent, while a typical utility in the Northeast could see its earnings decline 6 percent to 41 percent. This is similar to the situation in Germany, where distributed solar has halved the market value of some utilities.

The LBNL study did suggest that there are policies that might help utilities recoup their lost revenues. Some states are trying to modify regulations so that utility profits are no longer wholly dependent on how many power plants they build and how much electricity they sell — a process known as "decoupling." But whether this softens the blow really depends on the fine details.

Utilities are now pushing to pare back solar subsidies

Photovoltaic solar panel project at the Lester Public Library in Two Rivers, Wisconsin (Lester Public Library/Flickr)

The potential disruptions caused by solar power have triggered a number of fierce policy disputes at the state level.

Some of the biggest fights are over "net metering" laws, found in 43 states and DC, that essentially allow solar homes and businesses to "sell" their excess electricity to utilities in exchange for credits on their electric bills. (In many states, utilities have to pay retail prices for this electricity, which is higher than the wholesale price they typically pay for generation elsewhere.)

Electric utilities argue that these policies have become far too unwieldy. After all, these new solar-powered homes and businesses are all still connected to the grid (not least because they still need electricity from traditional power plants when the sun isn't shining). But the utility is getting less money from these customers to maintain and repair that grid.

As such, utilities argue that they should be allowed to charge rooftop solar owners a maintenance or connection fee of some sort. Alternatively, in some states, utilities have proposed reducing the price paid to these households for their excess solar electricity.

(Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency)

Solar advocates, for their part, counter that solar power provides a wide variety of ancillary benefits — it doesn't pollute, it helps address global warming, and those panels provide a handy source of peak power on hot days when A/C use surges and electricity prices soar. So, they say, solar should get some sort of subsidy for this service, and net metering makes sense.

The first big battle over net metering came back in 2013, when Arizona Public Service proposed a new $50 monthly fee for all households with rooftop solar. That sparked a huge backlash from solar proponents, and regulators eventually pared the fee back to $5 per month.

Similar disputes are spreading to more and more states. As Zack Colman recently reported in the Washington Examiner, measures have now been filed in 20 states to either scale back or eliminate net metering laws. In Wisconsin, for instance, the largest utility in the state, We Energies, has proposed reducing the price paid to rooftop solar owners for their electricity, as well as charging all homeowners a higher price for connecting to the grid.

Some of these rollback efforts have been backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group that has drafted "model legislation" to weaken net metering. Their argument? The growth of rooftop solar will force utilities to raise rates on the rest of us in order to maintain the grid.

Yet policies to moderate the growth of solar can be motivated by a variety of concerns — it's not just a conservative plot. On Hawaii's Oahu island, for instance, anyone who wants to install solar panels on their roofs now has to get permission from the local utility, which argues that the current grid can't handle the strain. In Pennsylvania, utilities want to limit how much solar power a homeowner can install on his or her roof to 110 percent of what the house needs in a year, so as to limit excessive profiting off solar panels.

Some Tea Party groups have taken a pro-solar stance

 
 

Battelle researchers are currently using a solar array at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City to test a new power converter that easily integrates many DC sources into the power system. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory/Flickr)

The debate over solar has also created some surprising tensions among conservatives. On the one hand, right-wing groups like ALEC are opposed to the heavy subsidies given to solar power by Congress and states. But another subset of conservatives have begun to view solar power more favorably — and oppose efforts by states to restrict it or impose new fees.



Case in point: Earlier this year in Oklahoma, the legislature passed a bill that would charge rooftop solar owners more for the electricity they sell back to the grid. This bill quickly attracted the ire of conservative group TUSK, which stands for "Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed" and is led by Barry Goldwater, Jr. (See Slate's Josh Voorhees for the full Oklahoma story.)
TUSK, for its part, has argued that rooftop solar offers homeowners greater energy choice and should be valued by conservatives. "Monopoly utilities want to extinguish the independent rooftop solar market in America to protect their socialist control of how we get our electricity," its website notes. "They have engaged in class warfare and tried to sabotage net metering, a billing method that gives individual homeowners fair credit for power produced on their own rooftops."
Similar conservative splits are now showing up elsewhere. In Georgia, the Green Tea Coalition — a Tea Party offshoot — is pushing for policies that would allow homeowners to buy solar systems from third parties (something that Georgia restricts). "Solar empowers the consumer and the individual," Debbie Dooley of the Green Tea Coalition explained to Midwest Energy News. "These giant monopolies want to take away that consumer choice unless they can control it."

Is there a possible compromise on solar power?

 
 

Does this setting sun represent compromise over solar policies? Sure, why not? (Kevin Dinkel/Flickr)

In the meantime, some states are trying to find a balance here, mulling over policies that both promote solar power but don't leave utilities struggling to maintain the grid.

Minnesota, for one, has put forward a "value of solar" policy, in which regulators determine a "fair value" for electricity generated by rooftop solar panels — taking into account both their environmental benefits and the costs they impose on the grid. Utilities can then buy electricity at that price from solar homes (rather than buying it at the retail electricity rate, which can fluctuate over time).*

Still, even this has created rifts among solar proponents, with some arguing that current net metering policies work just fine.
One way or another, regulators will have to figure out a workable compromise if solar is to keep growing. Indeed, a recent report from the International Energy Agency argued that the continued success of the solar industry would depend on policies that "facilitate distributed [solar photovoltaic] generation while ensuring [transmission and distribution] grid cost recovery."

The issue's only likely to become more contentious as solar power keeps growing — and some experts are already suggest that utilities may be forced to make more drastic changes to their business model. See, for instance, this recent post by Matt Lehrman and Peter Bronski of the Rocky Mountain Institute on how radical changes to the old electricity-pricing model could be the best way to resolve this debate.

* Update/correction: Just to clarify, in both net metering and a "value of solar" system, the homeowner sends electricity to the grid in exchange for utility credits on his or her electricity bill. It's not a literal sale of electricity in exchange for cash income. (That seems like a trivial distinction, but it matters for tax purposes.)

Courtesy :
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/6849723/solar-power-net-metering-utilities-fight-states

New rechargeable ‘solar battery ‘promises to revolutionize solar technology

 

By Daily Digest News
October 04, 2014

 

 

Scientists from Ohio State University invented a revolutionary breakthrough green energy technology that has the chance to upend the solar power industry.

Led by Professor Yiying Wu, scientists created a solar cell that also doubles as a rechargeable battery– the first combined device of its type.“The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy,” Wu said. “We’ve integrated both functions into one device.”

Wu and his students designed the solar panel battery by layering titanium mesh gauze, then wove vertical rods of titanium dioxide through the mesh. They placed that on top of a sheet of permeable carbon as well as a lithium plate. 

When the battery absorbs light, the mesh solar panel reacts by generating electrons. The electrons then help break down lithium peroxide into lithium ions and oxygen. The oxygen is released into the air, and the ions get stored inside the battery. In order to consume the stored energy, the battery pulls in oxygen from the air to reform lithium peroxide.

“Basically, it’s a breathing battery,” said Wu. “It breathes in air when it discharges, and breathes out when it charges.”Currently, solar energy is created with panels, which are then connected to external batteries to charge. Normally about 20 percent of the power generated by solar panels is lost in the transfer of electricity to the battery storage.

By combining both the generation and storage processes, Wu and his team have been able to drastically reduce lost potential, saving nearly 100 percent of the electrons produced.
“Any time you can do that, you reduce cost,” said Wu.

The team estimates that their device brings down costs by 25 percent, which would be a significant boon to the solar energy industry.

Costs and inefficiency are the two factors consumers often point to that inhibits solar energy usage compared to traditional fossil fuel sources.

The team filed for a patent on the solar battery, and plans to license it to the broader energy industry for sale and distribution.

Courtesy  :
http://dailydigestnews.com/2014/10/new-rechargeable-solar-battery-promises-to-revolutionize-solar-technology/  

Solar power on track to be world’s largest electricity source by 2050

The 17.5 megawatt/22 megawatt Victor Phelan project, located in San Bernardino, Calif., is part of six Recurrent Energy developed projects acquired by Google and KKR.
Credit: Recurrent Energy

The cost of solar power is heading to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity

The sun could be the world's leading electricity source by mid-century with the amount of new photovoltaic (PV) panel installations soaring at 100MW daily, according to a pair of new reports.
The reports, issued by the International Energy Agency (IEA), stated that by 2050, PV panels could produce 16% of the world's electricity, while solar thermal electricity (STE) is on track to produce 11%. Solar thermal electricity is created by concentrating the sun's rays to produce steam, which then turns a turbine.

Photovoltaic panels capable of producing 137 billion watts (gigawatts) of power have been installed worldwide since the end of 2013, according to the IEA, a Paris-based agency that advises on global energy consumption.

Perhaps just as important, solar power could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 6 billion tons over the next four decades, the reports state.

Rooftop solar panels will account for half of the world's solar PV installations because as a distributed energy source, the technology is "unbeatable," the report said.

In the U.S., solar power capacity for producing electricity has grown six-fold since 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a federal agency that provides information about the nation's energy production across all markets.

Meanwhile, the IEA's report indicates the cost of solar power worldwide is expected to drop to four cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) by 2050. In the U.S., electricity costs about 13 cents per kilowatt hour for residential power and seven cents for industrial power.




IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven stressed in a statement that her agency's two reports do not represent a forecast. As with other IEA technology roadmaps, they detail the expected technology improvement targets and the policy actions required to achieve those goals by 2050.

However, van der Hoeven noted that the cost of solar system hardware is rapidly declining.
"The rapid cost decrease of photovoltaic modules and systems in the last few years has opened new perspectives for using solar energy as a major source of electricity in the coming years and decades," she said. "However, both technologies are very capital intensive: almost all expenditures are made upfront. Lowering the cost of capital is thus of primary importance for achieving the vision in these roadmaps."

Rooftop solar panel installations could cut utility profits by 15% or more over the next eight years, according to the federally funded report (download PDF) that studied two prototypical U.S. utilities -- one in the Southwest and the other in the Northeast.

The report, from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under the U.S. Department of Energy, predicts that rooftop solar panel installations will grow from 0.2% market penetration today to 10% by 2022.

Using that scenario, the analysis found that shareholder earnings fell by 8% for the Southwest utility and by 15% for the Northeast utility using the 10% photovoltaic (PV) rooftop panel market penetration assumption. However, earnings fell by as much as 13% and 41%, respectively, under certain other conditions.

New solar technologies hold promise

Several technologies are poised to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells, the technology that turns the sun's rays into electricity. Currently, silicon-based PVs have an efficiency rating of about 20%, meaning 80% of the solar radiation that hits a rooftop panel is lost.

MIT, meanwhile, published a report on a new a material that could be ideal for converting solar energy into heat by tuning the material's spectrum of absorption just right.
"It should absorb virtually all wavelengths of light that reach Earth's surface from the sun, but not much of the rest of the spectrum, since that would increase the energy that is reradiated by the material, and thus lost to the conversion process," an MIT press release stated.

The material is a two-dimensional metallic dielectric photonic crystal and has the additional benefits of absorbing sunlight from a wide range of angles and withstanding extremely high temperatures - up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.The new material first converts the sun's energy into heat, which then causes the material to glow, emitting light that can, in turn, be converted to an electric current.

Perhaps most importantly to the cost of a solar energy system is that the material can also be made cheaply at large scales, MIT stated. Since the material can absorb sunlight efficiently from a wide range of angles, "we don't really need solar trackers," said Jeffrey Chou, one of nine researchers who created the material.

Solar trackers are what move solar panels installed in a large field in the direction of the sun to maximize power production.

MIT is not alone in developing new, more efficient photovoltaic materials.
Ohio State University announced what it's referring to as the world's first solar battery.
The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications, combines a battery and a solar cell.



 An artist's rendition of a new material that MIT researchers say would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat by tuning the material's spectrum of absorption to include most wavelengths. The omnidirectional material would eliminate the need for expensive, motorized solar trackers.



The device works by using a solar panel created with a mesh material that allows electrons to pass on to a battery electrode. The light from the solar panel and oxygen play a part in a chemical reaction that charges the battery, according to Ohio State.

Yiying Wu, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio State, said the photovoltaic/battery combination would reduce the cost of solar power systems by as much as 25% over time.
"The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy," Wu said in the report. "We've integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost."



A microscopic look at the mesh material created by Ohio State University researchers that they say allows photovoltaics to be combined with energy storage.


Courtesy :
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2691389/solar-power-on-track-to-be-worlds-largest-electricity-source-by-2050.html

Unlimited Free Solar Power?

The price of solar modules has already fallen by 80 percent.

Ronald Bailey | October 3, 2014

SEIA"Despite the skepticism of experts and criticism by naysayers, there is little doubt that we are heading into an era of unlimited and almost free clean energy," the Stanford technology maven Vivek Wadhwa declared in the Washington Post last month. The technology that most inspires his enthusiasm is solar energy—and while solar isn't close to "almost free" yet, it is indeed getting cheaper. The prices of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules have fallen steeply by more than 80 percent since 2008.

This trajectory seems to be following Swanson's Law, named for Richard Swanson, the founder of U.S. solar-cell manufacturer SunPower. Swanson suggested that the cost of the photovoltaic cells falls by 20 percent with each doubling of global manufacturing capacity. The pattern is a product of constantly improving manufacturing processes: more automation, better quality control, materials reduction, and so forth.

But how plausible is Wadhwa's prediction that solar power will be unlimited and nearly free? To get a handle on solar's future, let's look at a measure called the levelized cost of energy. This takes into account the capital costs, fuel costs, operations and maintenance costs, debt and equity costs, and plant utilization rates for each type of electric power generation. Many different groups have tried to calculate and compare the levelized costs for building, operating, and financing coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass plants.

Let's start with the levelized cost analysis that is the most bullish with respect to solar photovoltaic. In September, the financial advisory firm Lazard reckoned that the levelized unsubsidized cost of utility-scale solar PV is as low as $72 per megawatt-hour. (A megawatt-hour is roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity used by 330 houses during one hour.) Lazard projects that these costs will drop to $60 per megawatt-hour by 2017. Meanwhile, the low-end of natural gas generation is now $61 per megawatt-hour; for coal generation, it's $66 per megawatt-hour; and for nuclear, it’s $124 per megawatt-hour. With the current U.S. tax breaks, the low-end solar PV utility-scale costs is $56 per megawatt-hour. George Bilicic, a vice chairman of Lazard, concluded that utilities "still require conventional technologies to meet the energy needs of a developed economy, but they are using alternative technologies to create diversified portfolios of power generation resources."

Every couple of years the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit think tank sponsored by the electric power generation industry, issues a report on the levelized cost of energy for various power generation technologies. Its Integrated Generation Technology Options 2012 report calculates the low-end levelized cost for solar PV next year at $107 per megawatt-hour. For natural gas, coal, and nuclear, the low-end costs are $33, $62, and $85 per megawatt-hour, respectively.

The institute calculates that by 2025, the low-end levelized costs of solar PV will fall to $81 per megawatt-hour. By that time, the institute expects that coal plants will be required to capture their carbon emissions, so the levelized cost of coal will be $102 per megawatt-hour. Natural gas plants without carbon capture will face levelized costs of $44 per megawatt-hour. The report cautions that its calculations with respect to renewable energy generation do not take into account additional costs, such as back-up generation or integration into the electric power grid.

One other authoritative analysis is the Annual Energy Outlook published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In its 2014 report, the agency reckons that in 2019, the low-end cost of solar PV will be $101 per megawatt-hour. Conventional coal, nuclear, and natural gas levelized costs stand correspondingly at $87, $92.60, and $61.10 per megawatt-hour.

To judge from these estimates, the era of unlimited, nearly free solar power has certainly not yet arrived. But things are moving quickly. As recently as 2011, the EIA did not even bother trying to calculate levelized solar PV costs. In that year's report, the agency projected that the country would have an installed solar PV capacity of 8.9 gigawatts by 2035. As of the second quarter of this year, the figure is already 15.9 gigawatts.

In 2008, global production capacity of solar cells/modules amounted to 7 gigawatts. It is now projected to be 64 gigawatts by 2015. This rate of increase suggests a manufacturing capacity doubling time of about two years. As capacity ramped up, Lazard reports that the levelized costs fell from $323 per megawatt-hour in 2009 to $72 now. If Swanson's Law proves true, the levelized cost solar PV could be expected to fall to around $24 per megawatt-hour in the next 10 years. That would not be too cheap to meter, but it would cost far less than any of the forecasts for fossil fuel electric power generation technologies.

Of course, this rough projection does not take into account the intermittency issue (the sun doesn't always shine) that makes solar power problematic as a baseload source of electricity. On the other hand, disruptive new innovations could both greatly improve the efficiency of solar power and battery storage capacity. Will Wadhwa's prophecy come true? Perhaps not, but wagering against human ingenuity has always been a bad bet.


Courtesy : http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/03/unlimited-free-solar-power-soon

Vikram Solar to build world’s largest floating solar plant in India

Wednesday, August 13th, 2014 By Richard Heasman

    

Indian solar panel producer Vikram Solar has won the contract to build India’s first floating solar power plant on a lake in east India, which will be the largest in the world, dwarfing a similar development in Japan.

The company intend to complete construction by December this year, and the project will produce 15 kilowatts (KW) of electricity to the local grid.

The plant will be built upon a 1,400-square-foot (130-square-meter) platform, and will be anchored to the lakebed – right next to Kolkata’s New Town Eco Park.

S.P. Gon Chaudhuri, a spokesperson for the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency, said, “Acquiring land for solar projects is a very big problem now. Water bodies are available in plenty.”

A primary problem facing India’s renewable energy drive is the availability of private land, which has led to solar developments on lakes and rooftops. The floating solar project will cost 2 million rupees (£19,500), with another 2 million rupees dedicated to research and development.

The project will produce 15kw kilowatt-hours of electricity, which will be sold to the local grid. The project, which has attracted the attention of other private developments, will most likely act as an example of how Indian authorities intend to develop greater solar projects.

India is a leading country in large-scale renewable energy projects, with highly ambitious targets set to revolutionise the country’s energy development. A contributing policy to the newly elected government’s success was the promise of solar generated electricity to every household in India that does not currently have it, which is nearly 400 million people.

India has also recently expressed confidence in a close energy relationship with the UK, after UK secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Davey met with India’s power minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi earlier this month.

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/08/13/vikram-solar-to-build-worlds-largest-floating-solar-plant-in-india/