Renewable Energythrough

Photovoltaics and Wind Generation

The debate goes on regarding the pros and cons of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Green Building Rating System. There are certainly aspects and components that are worthy of critique. It is difficult to argue that LEED remains the single most transformative tool in the history of modern green building movement.

By now you’ve undoubtedly heard about green buildings and sustainability, as well as the myths and legends regarding what they are and are not. But where do you go to find out how to make your building greener or help your organization down the path toward sustainability? For starters, I suggest: www.greenfacilities.org

The best practices toward sustainability means striving to minimize construction waste, to avoid the use of nonrenewable materials, and to design structures that require minimal energy input to maintain indoor comfort.

In my opinion the most vital way to take care of our lives is to take the responsibility of our own energy foot print.

With the growing concern about the future and security of the world’s energy supply, renewable resources such assolar power are becoming increasingly important. Various solar energy technologies have been used through millennia of human history. Photovoltaics technology has been developing for more than 160 years, but has progressedexponentially in the last few decades. Photovoltaics is a direct energy conversion system which produces electrical power without any mechanical components. No energy conversion Is 100% efficient. Practical photovoltaic's, the direct conversion of solar energy into electricity, has a history of only 50 years.

Photovoltaics is a solar energy technology that uses unique properties of semiconductors to directly convert solar radiation Into electricity. Systems that are connected to the utility grid and use Photovoltaics energy as a supplemental source of power offer the greatest flexibility in possible system configurations. The supplemental power offsets a portion of the power needed from the utility, resulting in lower electricity bills.

Wind energy is growing faster than Photovoltaics. The threewindiest states in the United States: North Dakota, Kansas,and Texas have enough usable wind energy to satisfy all ofour national needs..

A camel carrying refrigeratedmedical supplies across the desert

Amid growing concern about climate change and carbon emissions, Photovoltaics offers a viable solution to the world’s increasing demands for energy.

Unlike fossil fuel based technologies, solar power does not lead to any harmful emissions during operation.

Manufacturers are making wafers thinner, using less silicon while increasing efficiency. Also, manufacturers are turning to other ways of manufacturing photovoltaics, such as so-called thin films.

Thin-film technology doesn’t require a rigid substrate like other Photovoltaic modules. Some use a very thin layer of a different kind of silicon called amorphous silicon that can be applied to a flexible substrate. A quicker manufacturing process and the reduction in materials makes this thin-film technology less expensive to produce. Thin-film technology isn’t necessarily tied to silicon. Two different manufacturing processes — one using cadmium telluride, the other based on copper, indium and selenium (CIS) films — are showing increasing promise in terms of lower costs and higher efficiency.

Konarka is calling their flexible, thin-film solar material, to be made in New Bedford MA, Power Plastic. Konarka’s patented Power Plastic® is a thin, lightweight, and very flexible material that will serve as an integrated low-cost source of power for portable devices, on and off-grid systems, and for structures.

Former employees of a closed Polaroid plant are getting jobs with Konarka, putting their roll printing expertise to use. In addition to acquiring the fully automated roll-to-roll manufacturing line, the company has also hired the leading technology and process engineering teams from Polaroid, with plans to hire over 100 additional employees as production increases toward capacity over the next two to three years. Who'd have thought that instant photography and roll-to-roll printing would lead to better solar energy capture technology on a commercial scale? Konarka apparently. Konarka’s advanced photovoltaic technology started with the work of the late Dr. Sukant Tripathy, an internationally known polymer materials scientist, provost at UMASS Lowell and founder of the Plastic Innovation Center and Dr. Alan Heeger, Konarka’s chief scientist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2000. The ground-breaking discoveries from both founding scientists, a manufacturing process at relatively low temperatures, enables the use of low-cost plastic substrate films. As a result of these pioneering innovations, the company has secured over $100 million from leading venture capital and private equity funds, as well as $18 million in government agency research grants from the U.S. and Europe. Konarka has developed proprietary semi-conductor organic polymers that exhibit: low cost, abundant supply, and low toxicity Power Plastic has distinct advantages relative to conventional PV technology.

Konarka is not only simplifying manufacturing and reducing costs, a 2nd generation known as thin film technologies was developed. These technologies are typically made by depositing a thin layer of photo-active material onto glass or a flexible substrate, including metal foils, and they commonly use amorphous silicon, copper indium gallium diselenide , or cadmium telluride as the semiconductor. Thin film PV is less subject to breakage when manufactured on a flexible foil.

Konarka scientists are also conducting advanced research in power fibers, bi-facial cells, and tandem architectures that could substantially raise conversion efficiency and open new markets. Power Fiber™ is uniquely enabled by Konarka’s proprietary chemistries. This innovative and patented form factor expands the potential of solar power production to woven textiles. Bi-facial cells are the result of a technical breakthrough that allows the use of two transparent electrodes. Bi-facial cells are transparent and allow light to reach the active material from both sides. Imagine a glass office building completely covered with material that produces power using both indoor and outdoor light, while allowing occupants to look through it: providing both shading and electricity generation.

On the other hand, Sharp's thin film offers reliability, long life, high efficiency and value. Their selection of silicon as the basic semiconductor springs from our exceptional knowledge of silicon thin films, based in part on our world-leading LCD technology and scientific knowledge base, access to abundant raw material, environmentally friendly manufacturing and performance relative to other thin film semiconductors.

Sharp’s U.S. market product launch incorporates a two-layer solar cell architecture. In 2010 we will see the introduction of a three-layer architecture. The multi-layer design will allow us to harvest even more of the sun's energy. These modules are made with less than 1% of the silicon used in our crystalline lines and are manufactured using automated equipment in fewer steps. This means a change in cost per watt and a lower effective cost per kilowatt hours for large-scale applications. With thin film, we address the emerging market for utility-scale solar power, especially for very large scale ground-based installations in hot climates.

My home in San Jose

Currently, thin film modules convert nearly 9% of the sun's total energy into electricity and are on track to reach 10% from the factory. And there is room for continuous improvement to achieve even greater conversion efficiency. For every kW of rated power, thin film delivers more kilowatt hours-up to 10%-than its crystalline silicon cousin, due to substantially greater resistance to losses caused by typical mid-day operating temperature.

Encouraged by State rebates, last year in California, homeowners and businesses had a record 158 megawatts of photovoltaic panels put on despite the recession. Despite a credit freeze that's stunting renewable-energy projects throughout the country, 2008 was a hot year for solar power in California, according to the California Public Utilities Commission .That's more than double the 78 megawatts installed in 2007.

Residential demand appears to be hanging tough in the face of the shaky economy. December saw the largest volume of homeowner rebate requests since the State of California launched the California Solar Initiative program two years ago. Launched in January 2007, the California Solar Initiative is an attempt to push photovoltaics on a mass scale in California to help cut greenhouse gas Emissions and shore up the state's energy supply.

Mariner 5 is shown in flight. Photovoltaic systems were an important power source for that mission. Solar cells have not only enabled America to explore space, the solar system, and The Earth in great detail, they Also have enabled the emergence of the telecommunications industry.

Wind Energy Generation:

December 12, 2008 Massachusetts-based FloDesign developed a wind turbine that generates electricity at half the cost of conventional wind turbines. The company's design, which draws on technology developed for jet engines, circumvents a fundamental limit to conventional wind turbines. Typically, as wind approaches a turbine, almost half of the air is forced around the blades rather than through them, and the energy in that deflected wind is lost. At best, traditional wind turbines capture only 59.3 percent of the energy in wind, a value called the Betz limit. FloDesign recently raised $6 million in its first round of venture financing. Their turbine design surrounds its wind-turbine blades with a shroud that directs air through the blades and speeds it up, which increases power production. The shroud concept is based on the same principles as a high bypass jet engine design that is used by all commercial jet aircraft engines to reduce noise and significantly improve efficiency. The new design generates as much power as a conventional wind turbine which use blades twice as big in diameter. The smaller blade size and other factors allow the new turbines to be packed closer together in the field compared to conventional turbines, increasing the amount of power that can be generated per acre of land.

From the front, these wind turbines look something like the air intake of a jet engine. As air approaches, it first encounters a set of fixed blades, called the stator, which are common in jet and steam turbines designs used in power generation. They redirect the air onto a set of movable blades, called the rotor. The air turns the rotor and emerges on the other side, moving more slowly now than the air flowing outside the turbine. The shroud is shaped so that it guides this relatively fast-moving outside air into the area just behind the rotors. The fast-moving air speeds up the slow-moving air, creating an area of low pressure behind the turbine blades that sucks more air through them.