Mitsubishi claims world first with hydraulic wind turbine breakthrough

www.powerengineeringint.com
24 Jan 2013

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has started testing a large-scale wind power generation system that adopts a hydraulic drive train instead of a gear-driven system. The company claims it is the first time such a trial has been carried out anywhere in the world and is anticipating a market launch for a mass-produced commercial model in 2015.

The tests are being carried out at MHI's Yokohama Dockyard & Machinery Works in Japan and is a part of a project launched in September to develop a hydraulic drive train for offshore wind turbines. On the back of the test results, MHI plans to accelerate its development of an offshore generation system in the 7 MW class, with installation and operation due to begin at Hunterston, in the UK, later this year.

The model being tested is based on an existing MWT100 gear-driven system that was retrofitted with the new hydraulic drive train. The retrofitting involved replacement of the step-up gear-which functioned as the power transmission system to increase the rotation speed of the rotor from 10 rotations per minute to the rotation speed of the generator, 1000 rotations per minute.

MHI developed the new hydraulic drive train based on digitally controlled technologies developed by a UK company, Artemis Intelligent Power, which was acquired by MHI in 2010.

Gaia to ship wind turbine unit to Tonga

www.heraldscotland.com
25 Jan 2013

Glasgow-based Gaia-Wind has been appointed to supply a turbine to help Tonga Power assess the potential for the technology in the archipelago. As Tonga relies on fossil fuels such as diesel to generate power, a shift to renewable energy might allow the country to achieve big reductions in its import bills and carbon emissions.

John van Brink, chief executive of Tonga Power, said: "This project will deliver fossil-free power to the grid and, most importantly, it will be another step forward in meeting our strategic targets for renewable energy delivery". While Tonga has been developing solar power resources, the 11 kW wind turbine developed by Gaia-Wind will be the first of its kind installed in the country. It will produce enough power for a farm or family home.

The company hopes a successful trial of the turbine in Tonga could result in widespread adaptation of the technology in the kingdom. Gaia-Wind says its turbines are ideally suited for farms and rural properties, which are common on Tonga's 170 plus Islands. "Tonga is a prime example of the kind of market for 'distributed energy' for which the Gaia-Wind-wind turbine is eminently suited", said Gaia-Wind chief executive Johnnie Andringa.

The project will involve shipping the Glasgow-assembled turbine from the port of Grangemouth on the Forth to Auckland in New Zealand, via Singapore. It will make the final stage of the journey to Tonga in a smaller boat.

Asked if there was any contradiction involved in transporting a turbine so far for a renewable energy project, a spokesman for Gaia-Wind noted Tonga is in an isolated position. "They are entitled to source the most appropriate machinery for their requirements", said the spokesman, who added: "As part of that, they will have taken sustainability issues into account". Gaia-Wind beat off competition from manufacturers in the US and mainland Europe.

The company increased turnover to around £10 million in 2012, from £7.7m in 2011. Its 11kW turbines sell for around £55,000 in the UK. While the bulk of sales were in the UK last year, Gaia-Wind has exported to more than 10 countries, including the US, Canada, France and Germany. It wants to grow exports to 50% of sales.

The quest for the monster wind turbine blade

www.technologyreview.com
23 Jan 2013

Blade Dynamics, a six-year-old company that's partly owned by American Superconductor, a wind turbine designer and supplier of wind farm electronics, says that it has developed technology that will make possible the world's largest wind turbine blades. It's demonstrated the technology by manufacturing 49 meter blades, and now the Energy Technologies Institute, a partnership between the U.K, government and major corporations such as BP, Shell, and Caterpillar, has given the company nearly $25 million to build 100 meter blades. They could enable 250 meter-tall wind turbines that would tower over the Washington Monument, which stands a mere 169 meters tall. The largest wind turbine blades now are 75 meters long.

The effort is no mere record-setting spectacle. Finding affordable ways to make the enormous wind turbine blades is one of the biggest challenges to making offshore wind competitive with fossil fuels, and leading wind power companies, including GE and Vestas Wind Systems, are developing technology to solve the problem.

Some of the best winds for generating power are found offshore, where wind can be steadier, faster, and less turbulent than on land. Wind turbines only make up about a third of the cost of offshore wind farms--installation costs are the major expense, as they involve enormous, specialized ships and are subject to delays from bad weather. Using larger wind turbines reduces the number of wind turbines needed, decreasing installation and maintenance costs.

Read More…

GE to snatch German wind-turbine share from Siemens and Nordex

www.bloomberg.com
23 Jan 2013

General Electric Co. (GE) plans to win a "double-digit" share of Germany's onshore wind market in two years, taking orders from peers like Siemens AG (SIE) and Nordex SE. (NDX1) GE developed a 2.5 MW turbine for low wind speeds that will help it benefit from surging installations in southern Germany, Stephan Reimelt, chief executive officer of the Energy Germany division, said in an interview in Berlin. GE will present the turbine at a conference in Vienna next month.

"We have the first orders and we're very optimistic that the product will be successful", Reimelt said today. "In Europe, Germany is currently the place where things are happening". GE is "well on track" to achieve its projection of doubling sales in the country by 2015, he said. Germany, Europe's biggest power market, plans to replace nuclear reactors with fossil fuel-fired plants and renewable energy, and build or upgrade 5,700 km (3,500 miles) of power lines. The nation, GE's current focus in Europe, offers a "huge" market for managing energy-related data, Reimelt said.

GE has carried out European acquisitions in the past two years led by the $3.2 billion purchase of Converteam, a French maker of power-conversion products. GE this month announced it would buy Berlin-based energy planning company BLS Energieplan GmbH to strengthen its offerings in the energy industry. Reimelt declined to comment on other possible deals. "It's obvious that the German Mittelstand is highly innovative", he said. "That's interesting to any company with a global focus".

New solar cells hit efficiency record

www.upi.com
21 Jan 2013

DUBENDORF, Switzerland, Jan. 21 (UPI)--Swiss researchers say they've developed thin, flexible solar cells with a record efficiency of 20.4% for converting sunlight into electricity. Scientists at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology say the cells on flexible polymer foils offer a significant improvement over the previous record of 18.7%.

Such lightweight and flexible high-performance solar modules will offer an attractive technology for applications such as solar farms, roofs and facades of buildings, automobiles and portable electronics, the Swiss lab said in a release. They are also closing the efficiency gap with rigid, silicon wafer cells, the researchers said, and can be produced using a continuous roll manufacturing processes that should offer further cost reductions compared with standard silicon technologies.

The cells are based on CIGS semiconducting material (copper indium gallium (di)selenide.) "The series of record efficiencies for flexible CIGS solar cells developed at [the lab] demonstrates that thin film solar cells can match the excellent performance of polycrystalline silicon cells", lab director Gian-Luca Bona said. "Now it is time for the next step, the scale-up of the technology to cover large areas in a cost-efficient roll-to-roll manufacturing process with an industrial partner".

Nanowires make good solar cells

physicsworld.com
21 Jan 2013

Researchers in Sweden and Germany say they have made an important breakthrough in the development of highly efficient solar cells based on nanowires. They have shown that cells made from tiny wires of the semiconductor indium phosphide (InP) have efficiencies as high as 13.8% while covering only about 12% of the surface of a device. While an efficiency of 13.8% is not as good as the best commercial silicon devices, the team believes that it could be improved significantly by further research.

Nanowires-tiny semiconductor wires with a thickness of just a few hundred nanometres or less-show great potential for making solar cells that are more flexible, lightweight and cheaper than conventional planar devices. Nanostructures such as wires are efficient absorbers of light and can act as "antennas", harvesting much more light than a device with a planar surface. This is thanks to collective oscillations of charge carriers-called plasmons-that interact strongly with light. "One consequence of this strong absorption on nanowires is that we observe high light-absorption efficiencies even though only a small part of the device's surface is covered by the nanomaterials", explains team member Magnus Borgstroem of Lund University.

Millions of wires
The devices made by the team measured about a square millimetre and each contains about four million InP nanowires. The researchers grew their nanowires using an established technique called "vapour solid growth". "Our nanowires needed to be uniform, having a certain diameter and length in a certain pitch. From our first working p-n InP junctions, it has taken us four years to reach this result", Borgstroem explains.

The team, which includes scientists from Solid State Physics in Lund, Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg, the University of Kassel and the start-up company Solvoltaics, also in Lund, chose InP because it has a direct band gap of 1.34 eV, which means that it can absorb light over a range of solar-spectrum wavelengths.

In this latest work, the team was able to identify the ideal diameter of the nanowires-which turned out to be about 180 nm. "The right size is essential for the nanowires to absorb as many photons as possible. If they are just a few tenths of a nanometre too small, their function is significantly impaired", says Borgstroem.

Proof of principle
The cells made by the team have efficiencies as high as 13.8%-which is promising but still significantly less than the best commercial silicon devices, which operate at 15 22%. "Our findings are the first to show that it really is possible to use nanowires to manufacture solar cells", says Borgstroem. However, the highest efficiency ever reported for a conventional InP solar cell is 22% and the team admits that it still remains to be seen whether that record can be broken using smaller amounts of nanowire material.

The researchers also believe that the way forward for nanowire-based solar cells is the multi-junction approach, which boosts efficiency by using several different structures tuned to different wavelengths of light from the Sun. "We believe that the road ahead for solar cell application involves multi-junction technology with nanowires, for which the record is 44% in thin films", says Borgstroem.

The work is reported in Science.

Wind power delivers too much to ignore

www.newscientist.com
21 Jan 2013

Although aesthetic concerns need to be heard, qualms about wind's reliability are wide of the mark, argues energy policy researcher Reg Platt

THE location of the British Isles at Europe's wild and windy western fringe does not always seem like a blessing. But in one important respect it is: the UK has the greatest potential for wind power, both onshore and offshore, of any European country.

Onshore wind power has expanded steadily across the UK in recent years and is a key plank of the country's commitment to greening its electricity supply. But as the turbines have gone up across the countryside, so has the level of opposition. Wind power has become a deeply divisive issue in British politics.

The issue exploded last year when 106 members of parliament, mostly Conservatives representing rural constituencies, signed a letter to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. They urged him to cut subsidies for the onshore wind industry, describing wind technology as "inefficient and intermittent".

Things escalated in the autumn when the recently appointed Conservative energy minister, John Hayes, told two newspapers that "enough is enough" and that no new onshore wind farms would be built. He was slapped down by his boss Edward Davey, the secretary of state for energy and climate change and a member of the Liberal Democrat party. But simmering tensions remain at the top level of the coalition government. Another Conservative, finance minister George Osborne, is known to be sympathetic to the anti-wind cause. Wind turbines also became an important point of contention between the parties in a recent by-election.

Two of the anti-wind campaigners' main concerns are the impact of turbines on the beauty of the countryside and the opposition of local people. It is absolutely right that these be taken into account. But they need to be balanced against the bulk of public opinion, which strongly supports the increased use of wind turbines.

Any misgivings must also be balanced against the important role that this technology can play for the UK, both in fulfilling its climate-change commitments and for future economic success.

Anti-wind campaigners frequently make claims about the shortcomings of wind power. Their main complaints are that the turbines are so inefficient that they actually increase CO₂ emissions, and so unreliable that they require constant backup from conventional coal and gas-fired stations. If correct, these claims would be devastating to wind power. But they are not.

My organisation, the Institute for Public Policy Research, recently published a report tackling these questions. Our conclusions are unambiguous. Onshore wind power reduces carbon emissions and is a reliable source of electricity, at least up to the capacity of wind power that is forecast to be installed in the UK by 2020.

To answer the carbon question, we used a simple model of the UK electricity market. As demand increases, say on a weekday morning when people are waking up and getting ready to go to work, power plants increase output to meet it. Plants with the lowest marginal cost-that is, those that can produce additional electricity most cheaply-are selected first by the market. Here wind beats gas and coal, as no fuel is needed to generate electricity.

The upshot is that, in theory, adding wind power to the energy mix should displace coal and gas, and hence cut carbon. This is backed up by empirical data on emissions reductions from wind power in the US.

There is another way of looking at it. In 2011, wind power contributed approximately 15.5 TWs of electricity to the UK. If this had been supplied by fossil fuels instead, CO₂ emissions would have been at least 5.5 million tonnes higher, and as much as 12 million tonnes higher.

Read More…

U.S. Wind Power Accounted for 6% of Generation Capacity in 2012

www.bloomberg.com
18 Jan 2013

US wind power accounted for 6% of the nation's total electricity generation capacity after developers rushed to finish projects before expiration of a subsidy, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.

The threat that the US Production Tax Credit would lapse on Dec. 31 prompted developers to complete as many projects as they could last month, the London-based research group said. A record 13.2 GWs of turbines were installed last year including 5.5 GWs in December, the most ever for a single month. Total wind capacity is about 60 GWs.

"It's clear that the economics, aided by the Production Tax Credit, drove wind growth in 2012," said Amy Grace, lead analyst on wind in North America for New Energy Finance. "Capacity was built without any near-term state mandated demand. This means that in most areas, utilities are buying wind power because they want to, not because they have to."

The credit has been extended for a year to cover wind farms that start construction in 2013. Previously it only covered projects that started working by the expiration date. Uncertainty about whether the credit would be extended meant developers and investors haven't built up a backlog of projects for 2013.

Asset financing for US wind farms dropped to $4.3 billion in the second-half from $9.6 billion in the first six months of last year. This has hurt component makers such as Vestas Wind Systems (VWS) AS, Gamesa Corp Tecnologica SA (GAM) and Clipper Marine Windpower Ltd., which is owned by Paltinum Equity LLC.

Share Drops
Vestas Wind Systems declined as much as 41% in the past year and Gamesa Corp by 39%.

Equipment prices for wind have dropped by more than 21% since 2010, and the performance of turbines has risen. This has resulted in a 21% decrease in the overall cost of electricity from wind for a typical US project since 2010, New Energy Finance said.

Last year's numbers are especially "striking" given the current price of natural gas which sank below $2 per million British thermal unit in April, the lowest in a decade. At this price, natural gas plants present "stiff" competition for wind projects, the research company owned by Bloomberg LP said.

Novel solar photovoltaic cells achieve record efficiency using nanoscale structures

www.scientificamerican.com
17 Jan 2013

Here's how to make a powerful solar cell from indium and phosphorus: First, arrange microscopic flecks of gold on a semiconductor background. Using the gold as seeds, grow precisely arranged wires roughly 1.5 micrometers tall out of chemically tweaked compounds of indium and phosphorus. Keep the nanowires in line by etching them clean with hydrochloric acid and confining their diameter to 180 nanometers. (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.) Exposed to the sun, a solar cell employing such nanowires can turn nearly 14% of the incoming light into electricity—a new record that opens up more possibilities for cheap and effective solar power.

According to research published online in Science—and validated at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems—this novel nanowire configuration delivered nearly as much electricity as more traditional indium phosphide thin-film solar cells even though the nanowires themselves covered only 12% of the device's surface. That suggests such nanowire solar cells could prove cheaper—and more powerful—if the process could be industrialized, argues physicist Magnus Borgström of Lund University in Sweden, who led the effort.

The promise starts with the novel semiconductor—a combination of indium and phosphorus that absorbs much of the light from the sun (a property known as its band gap). "Now we absorb 71% of the light above the band gap and we can certainly increase that," Borgström says.

Read More…

Hoover Dam builder hired for Google’s ocean wind power line

www.businessweek.com
17 Jan 2013

Bechtel Group Inc., the US contractor that built the Hoover Dam, has been hired for a Google Inc (GOOG).-backed project to deliver offshore wind power to electricity users in New Jersey.

Bechtel will construct the first segment of the New Jersey Energy Link, a $1.8 billion system of undersea and onshore transmission cables as well as power converter "hubs," project developer Atlantic Grid Development LLC said in a statement today. The link, which will span the state's coastline when its three phases are completed, may carry as much as 3,000 MWs of electricity.

There are no US offshore wind farms operating or under construction, though companies have been planning to install turbines at sea for more than a decade. Installing the infrastructure needed to connect ocean-based turbines will remove one of the hurdles that have stymied developers, according to Rick Needham, Google's director of energy and sustainability.

"This will jump start an industry that will provide 20,000 jobs in New Jersey and GWs of long term, clean energy," Needham said today at a conference in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, has invested more than $1 billion in renewable-energy projects.

Using snail teeth to improve solar cells and batteries

www.sciencedaily.com
16 Jan 2013

An assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering is using the teeth of a marine snail found off the coast of California to create less costly and more efficient nanoscale materials to improve solar cells and lithium-ion batteries.

The most recent findings by David Kisailus, an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering, details how the teeth of chiton grow. The paper was published Jan. 16 in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. It was co-authored by several of his current and former students and scientists at Harvard University in Cambridge Mass., Chapman University in Orange, Calif. and Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY.

The paper is focused on the gumboot chiton, the largest type of chiton, which can be up to a foot-long. They are found along the shores of the Pacific Ocean from central California to Alaska. They have a leathery upper skin, which is usually reddish-brown and occasionally orange, leading some to give it the nickname "wandering meatloaf."

Over time, chitons have evolved to eat algae growing on and within rocks using a specialized rasping organ called a radula, a conveyer belt-like structure in the mouth that contains 70 to 80 parallel rows of teeth. During the feeding process, the first few rows of the teeth are used to grind rock to get to the algae. They become worn, but new teeth are continuously produced and enter the "wear zone" at the same rate as teeth are shed.

Kisailus, who uses nature as inspiration to design next generation engineering products and materials, started studying chitons five years ago because he was interested in abrasion and impact-resistant materials. He has previously determined that the chiton teeth contain the hardest biomineral known on Earth, magnetite, which is the key mineral that not only makes the tooth hard, but also magnetic.

Project tipped to grow wind power investment

www.abc.net.au
17 Jan 2013

The Energy Supply Association of Australia expects an upgrade of ElectraNet's power infrastructure will lead to more investment in wind power in South Australia. ElectraNet will upgrade the Heywood substation and reconfigure the south-east network at a cost of $108 million. The association's Matthew Warren says ElectraNet's upgrade will pave the way for more South Australian wind power to be transferred interstate, opening the door for more investment in the technology.

"There are times when there's a lot of wind power being generated and times where's there's not very much," he said. "At the moment, on those really good wind days, the network is constrained, all that clean power can't find a market and you can't store electricity, so this really unlocks extra value for South Australia.

"That wind farm investment is basically stalled now because of the constraint between the South Australian network and the Victorian and eastern seaboard networks, so this upgrade will allow more investment and more clean energy generation to come through from South Australia to the eastern seaboard."

China revs up wind power amid challenges

www.upi.com
16 Jan 2013

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- As the world's largest wind power market, China continues to push forward with wind power installations, yet it faces ongoing problems with grid connection. New wind power installations in China in 2012 brought the country's grid-connected capacity to more than 60 GWs, says the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

While a total of 100.4 billion kW hours of electricity was generated by wind power last year -- an increase of 35.5% over 2011 -- only 12.85 GWs was connected to the grid, compared to 2011's figure of 16 GWs

"In the past few years, wind farm development has been too rapid and grid construction has not been able to keep up. The huge gap put a lot of pressure on the grid," said Ma Jinru, vice-president and secretary of the board at Goldwind Science & Technology Co Group, one of China's biggest manufacturers of wind power equipment, China Daily reports.

In a news release Monday promoting a Shanghai wind power exposition, the deputy director general of China's National Energy Administration said that wind power is China's third largest source of electricity. "Wind power has become the third-largest electric power in China," Liu Qi said. "There is no electric power to substitute the position of wind power as number three, following thermal power and hydroelectric."

As part of the National Energy Administration's renewable energy development plan announced last August, China is aiming for 100 GWs of wind power to be connected to the grid by 2015, including 5 GWs of offshore wind power. Improved grid construction and dispatching, enhanced equipment performance help the wind power sector reach to reach the 100 GW goal, the news release states.

Also as part of the 2011-15 energy plan, State Grid Corp. of China will invest more than $80 billion to extend the ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission networks in North, Central and Eastern China, China Daily reports. Meanwhile, China's wind sector face challenges following a US decision to increase import duties on Chinese wind turbines.

In its final verdict in December on anti-dumping and counter-subsidy duties against wind turbine towers imported from China and Vietnam, the US Department of Commerce said that Chinese producers dumped towers in the United States and set anti-dumping duties of 44.99-70.63

"With rates of duty like this, it's impossible for the products of Chinese wind tower manufacturers to enter the US market," Zheng Kangsheng, secretary of the board of Titan Wind Energy (Suzhou) Co. was quoted as saying by China Daily. "The company's US market share will definitely decline sharply," he added.

Nitrogen servicing kit improves wind turbine ergonomics

www.gasworld.com
14 Jan 2013

Cv International has announced the release of an enhanced Nitrogen WINDPACK, offering improved ergonomics and productivity for wind turbine maintenance technicians.

The portable nitrogen servicing solution reduces by over 66% the weight and volume that technicians must maneuver into place when servicing a turbine's nacelle accumulator using traditional methods. The WINDPACK and previously released WINDKIT address the safety and productivity concerns of maintenance technicians supporting wind turbine maintenance.

Cv International's newest WINDPACK reflects users' requests for a lightweight and durable nitrogen servicing unit that enhances ergonomics by maintaining the load on the hips. Recognising that technicians are working in challenging vertical and space constrained conditions, "It was imperative that the unit be adjustable and comfortable for a wide range of body shapes, allowing technicians to work safely and effectively in the nacelle while enhancing their productivity," said Richard Browne, Vice-President of Marketing, Cv International.

Cv International's WINDKIT is used by major wind power OEMs, including Siemens Energy and Vestas Wind Systems American Wind.

"Traditionally technicians have had to manage large nitrogen storage tanks that are heavy and difficult for one person to safely handle in the confined space of the nacelle, or pull pressurised hoses up 200 plus feet from the ground. By using the WINDKIT, technicians are able to get a lightweight, highly portable unit that allows them to move and work with greater safety and productivity," stated Kevin Considine, Specialist, Sustainability & Management Systems, Vestas Wind Systems - American Wind Technology, Inc.

1st part of offshore wind power line moves ahead

www.nytimes.com
14 Jan 2013

WASHINGTON — An audacious plan to lay a multibillion-dollar wind power transmission spine under the seabed from southern Virginia to the New York City area will take a step forward on Tuesday with an announcement of plans for the first leg, a 189-mile segment running from Jersey City to a spot south of Atlantic City.

The proposed backbone, first outlined publicly in October 2010, is intended to link future wind farms far offshore, sparing them the expense and regulatory problems of bringing power lines all the way to shore individually, and to move power to land-based sources. The project's backers, which include Google and other prominent investors, argue that the buried offshore spine, impervious to storms, could also come in handy in an emergency, providing a backup for hospitals and police stations and restarting power plants in blacked-out areas.

The latter selling point has gained importance for the line's promoters as interest in offshore wind has suffered setbacks, including the declining price of natural gas, a competing energy source.

The Atlantic Wind Connection, the project's sponsor, says the first segment would run from a substation called Cardiff, near Pomona, N.J., operated by Atlantic City Electric, out into the ocean 12 to 14 miles. That leg represents less than half of the 350-mile project, but the plan was always to build it in stages. Near the line's southern end, it would tie into multiple wind farms in a region that the Obama administration has identified as prime territory for offshore wind.

Executives at Atlantic Wind say they chose to begin with a segment solely in New Jersey because the project could level the big price differences for electricity within the state, yielding an economic benefit that could justify at least some of the first leg's $1.3 billion construction cost. Remaining within one state simplifies the regulatory process, they added, and political support for offshore wind farms is relatively strong in New Jersey.

Duke completes Los Vientos wind power projects in Texas

www.pennenergy.com
14 Jan 2013

Duke Energy Renewables, part of Duke Energy's Commercial Businesses, announced the completion of its largest-ever wind power construction projects, Los Vientos I and II in south Texas, adding 402 MWs (MW) to the company's renewables fleet.

"2012 was a very significant year for us", said Duke Energy Renewables President Greg Wolf. "With five new wind power projects and three new solar power projects commissioned into service, we added 800 MWs of clean, emissions-free energy to our fleet last year alone. Now that Los Vientos I and II are on line, our total renewable power capacity grows to more than 1,700 MW, enough to power about half-million homes".

All of the output and associated renewable energy credits from the 200 MW Los Vientos I wind power project in Willacy County are being sold to San Antonio-based CPS Energy under a 25 year agreement. Austin Energy is buying all of the output and associated renewable energy credits from the 202 MW Los Vientos II wind power Project, sited in Willacy and Cameron Counties.

"We're proud to be partnering with CPS Energy and Austin Energy to bring renewable energy to this region", said Duke Energy Renewables Vice President Milton Howard.

"And, we couldn't have done it without the foresight of the leaders, landowners and people of Willacy County. Thanks to them, we were able to bring 600 jobs to the area during construction, and going forward, the Los Vientos projects will continue to boost economic development, support the local school districts, and be a source of dependable tax revenue for years to come".

Both phases of Los Vientos were completed and placed into service on time--based on customer agreements--in late December. Because of their geographical location, approximately 120 miles south of Corpus Christi and 20 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, these projects will generate the majority of their power during the day, when peak power demand is highest.

Duke Energy Renewables will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony and community open house at the Los Vientos operations and maintenance building on Jan. 26.

In addition to the two Los Vientos wind farms, Duke Energy Renewables completed three other wind power projects in 2012, including:

• 168-MW Ironwood wind power project in Ford County, Kan.
• 131-MW Cimarron II wind power project in Gray County, Kan.
• 69-MW Laurel Hill wind power project in Lycoming County, Pa.
• Duke Energy also has three other wind power projects in Texas: Sweetwater in Nolan County; Ocotillo in Howard County; and Notrees in Ector and Winkler Counties. Since 2007, Duke Energy has invested more than $2.5 billion to grow its commercial wind and solar business.

Ontario electricity: Wind out-produces coal

www.thestar.com
11 Jan 2013

Wind turbines out-produced coal-fired power plants in Ontario last year for the first time.

Meanwhile, the underlying wholesale price of electricity crept up by 2.9%, according to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). Over the past two years, it has risen 13%. The rise in wind power is set to continue, with more turbines due to come on stream, and Ontario's last coal-fired plants set to shut down at the end of this year.

The Ontario Power Authority has said that Ontario has close to 2,000 MWs of wind power in operation with another 3,800 MWs under development. In its year-end review, the IESO reported that wind turbines churned out 4.6 TWs of electricity in 2012 up from 3.9 TWs the year before. (A TW is a billion kW hours).

That meant wind supplied 3% of the province's power last year, out-producing coal at 2.8%. The numbers delighted the Canadian Wind Energy Association. "It's a sign of things to come", said vice president Brandy Giannetta. "We've really proven ourself as a resource".

But wind's increase presents some challenges to the province's power system, which sometimes has too much power flowing onto the grid. Energy consultant Bruce Sharp noted that when there's a surplus, wind turbines continue producing power but the system operators throttle back production at Bruce Power's nuclear plants-while still paying them for the lost production.

Meanwhile, Ontario Power Generation also spills water at some of its hydroelectric-electric stations to make room for the wind power on the grid. In effect, he said, that replaces low-cost hydroelectric power with higher-priced wind power. nuclear power is still the mainstay of Ontario's power supply, making up almost 57% of last year's supply compared with 55% the year before.

That could well grow this year, as two long-idle units at Bruce Power's nuclear station returned to production late in 2012. The wholesale price of power also crept high in 2012, the IESO reported. It rose to 7.37 ¢ a kW hour from 7.16 ¢. In 2011, it was 6.52 ¢. That price does not include delivery and regulatory charges.

Consumers don't pay that price directly. They either pay time-of-use rates, which are adjusted twice a year; or they buy their power from an energy retailer. But the wholesale price underlies consumer prices. Critics have blamed the increase in renewable power such as wind for the rise in prices.

Giannetta argued that's not the case, noting that the price of wind power for contracts going forward was trimmed this year from 13.5 ¢ a kW hour to 11.5 ¢. That's competitive with other types of new generation, she said.

N.S. gives green light to joint wind power plan

thechronicleherald.ca
11 Jan 2013

A green energy partnership between a pair of Nova Scotia native communities received a key go-ahead from the province Friday. The Eskasoni First Nation received Energy Department endorsement for a 4.4 MW wind project it's developing in conjunction with the Millbrook band. The project was approved as part of the community feed-in tariff program, which encourages communities to develop and own renewable energy projects.

The program gives the projects a fixed price for the electricity they generate over a 20 year period. Millbrook First Nation already has department approval for a six-MW project on the same site, which the Truro-area band owns. Steve Parsons, general manager of Eskasoni's corporate division, said the project will get the band into the wind power business. "Working in conjunction with another First Nation just adds to the value of what we're trying to do", he said in an interview Friday.

Construction of both wind ventures is expected to begin in the second or third quarter, he said. Eskasoni and Millbrook announced in October that they were joining forces on small-scale wind development. Eskasoni had planned to build its project on another Truro-area site, at Camden, but its application was stalled by community opposition.

Millbrook chief Bob Gloade approached Eskasoni counterpart Leroy Denny about the possibility of moving the project to Millbrook's land. The move will enable the bands to share some project costs, including road construction and environmental assessments. "We've kind of merged with Millbrook in terms of sharing the same land and some economies of scale", Parsons said.

The Eskasoni project will have two turbines and Millbrook's will have three machines. The wind farms are slated to be operational in 2014. The partnership also involves juwi Wind Canada, the Canadian arm of a German renewable energy developer, and Community Wind Farms Inc, of Mahone Bay.

Mitsui to invest in Mexican wind power plant business

www.japantimes.co.jp
11 Jan 2013

Trading house Mitsui & Co, said Wednesday it will invest in a wind power project in Mexico involving France's EDF Energies Nouvelles S.A, to bolster its renewable energy business.

Under An Agreement with a local subsidiary of Edf Energies Nouvelles, Mitsui will buy a 50% stake for an undisclosed amount in Eoliatec Del Istmo S.a.p.i. De C.v., operator of the Bii Stinu Wind Project, which cost 5.1 billion Mexican pesos (about ¥35 billion).

The plant In Oaxaca is in an advanced stage of construction and scheduled to go online in June with a capacity of 164 MWs. Its output will be supplied to five major private companies in the country on a 15 year contract.

Pattern Energy starts providing wind power for Sempra

www.bloomberg.com
10 Jan 2013

Pattern Energy Group LP, a closely held energy developer, said its Ocotillo wind farm in southern California has begun providing power for Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric utility.

The 265 MW project in Imperial Valley entered operation last month, San Francisco-based Pattern said today in a statement. Ocotillo consists of 94 Siemens AG (SIE) turbines, and an additional 18 will be installed in the spring to provide enough energy for about 125,000 homes a year once fully operational, according to the statement.

SDG&E has a 20 year contract to purchase all of Ocotillo's power. The wind farm is the first clean-energy project to transmit power across the utility's 117 mile (188 km) SunRise Powerlink transmission line, which was completed in June and will eventually deliver 1,000 MWs of electricity into San Diego, Pattern said.

Lithuania wind power begins trading on Nord Pool Spot Exchange

www.bloomberg.com
8 Jan 2013

Electricity from Lithuanian wind turbines started trading on the Nord Pool Spot Exchange after the Energy Ministry authorized state-controlled Lietuvos Energija AB (LNR1L) to buy up power from local producers.

Trading started today on the exchange, which is owned by Nordic and Baltic transmission system operators, the ministry in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, said on its website. Lietuvos Energija's role is temporary, pending a public tender to choose a permanent wind power intermediary, it said.

"All produced wind power will be offered to the market", the Vilnius-based company said in on its own website. "That will ensure transparency, encourage the development of a free market and strengthen the role of the exchange".

Installed wind power capacity in Lithuania may double to 500 MWs by 2015, the Baltic nation's wind power association said in November. The expansion will help the country reduce its reliance on Russian electricity imports and offset a shortfall caused by the closure of nuclear capacity.

Grid operator Litgrid AB (LGD1L) said it would publish aggregate Lithuanian wind power production plans daily by 10 a.m, in Vilnius on its website.

Quebec’s Caisse invests $500-million in wind power

www.theglobeandmail.com
8 Jan 2013

Quebec's big pension fund manager, the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, has beefed up its investments in renewable energy by taking a stake in 13 wind farms in the United States and Canada.

The $500 million investment will give the fund a share of 11 U.S, and two Canadian wind farms currently owned and operated by Invenergy Wind LLC, a company based in Chicago that owns renewable energy projects across North America and Europe.

Up to now, the Caisse's direct renewable energy investment has been limited to a $25 million financing of the Seigneurie de Beaupre Wind Farm developed by Montreal-based Boralex Inc. The pension fund also owns equity in Enbridge Inc, and Gaz Metro L.P., utilities that operate some renewable energy projects among their broader portfolios.

The Invenergy Wind investment "is our most important to date" in the renewable sector, Caisse spokeswoman Sarah-Emilie Bouchard said. One of the projects in the group of assets is located in Quebec-the Plateau wind farm, a 139 MW development in the Gaspe region that has been producing power since early last year.

Caisse senior vice-president of infrastructure Macky Tall said the wind projects will broaden the pension fund's presence in a "forward-looking sector" and generate stable and predictable returns over the long term. The companies would not reveal what proportion of the wind projects the Caisse will own, but Invenergy Wind will remain the controlling shareholder of the developments. Over all, the portfolio generates about 1,500 MWs of electricity.

Invenergy Wind is one of the largest independent power companies in North America, with more than 55 facilities that generate power from wind, solar power and natural gas.

Wind energy tax credit

www.theaustralian.com.au
8 Jan 2013

CONTRARY to Graham Lloyds article, the US production tax credit for wind power was extended as part of the fiscal cliff deal passed on January 1 ("Blow to big wind in the power-market stakes", 5 6/1).

Given that most major fossil fuel power plants in Australia were built and funded by governments-and many are still owned by governments-it is not unreasonable that renewable energy is provided with a modest level of support until it becomes more established. The cost of wind power, for example, makes up less than 2% of power bills.

While world markets have proven volatile over the last 12 months due to the stop-start nature of government support in some countries, Australia's 20% Renewable Energy Target has been a consistent and relatively low-cost policy that has provided enough stability to attract financiers and investors.

Australia is well-positioned to substantially increase the share of renewable energy in our generation mix between here and the end of the decade, creating tens of thousands of jobs and unlocking billions of dollars of investment in the process.

Russell Marsh, Clean Energy Council, Southbank, Vic


Graham Lloyd is a recidivist when it comes to misrepresenting the facts, exaggerating or misleading by omission.

New path to more efficient organic solar cells uncovered

www.sciencedaily.com
7 Jan 2013

Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar power lighting up Earth's land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency. For polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells, which are far less expensive to manufacture than silicon-based solar cells, scientists have long believed that the key to high efficiencies rests in the purity of the polymer/organic cell's two domains -- acceptor and donor. Now, however, an alternate and possibly easier route forward has been shown.

Working at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a premier source of X-ray and ultraviolet light beams for research, an international team of scientists found that for highly efficient polymer/organic photovoltaic cells, size matters.

"We've shown that impure domains if made sufficiently small can also lead to improved performances in polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells," says Harald Ade, a physicist at North Carolina State University, who led this research. "There seems to be a happy medium, a sweet-spot of sorts, between purity and domain size that should be much easier to achieve than ultra-high purity."

Ade, a longtime user of the ALS, is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work in Advanced Energy Materials titled "Absolute Measurement of Domain Composition and Nanoscale Size Distribution Explains Performance in PTB7:PC71 BM Solar Cells." Co-authors are Brian Collins, Zhe Li, John Tumbleston, Eliot Gann and Christopher McNeill.

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Superconductors for efficient wind power plants: Researchers develop cooling system for novel generator

http://phys.org

January 4, 2013

Wind power will make a major contribution to the energy turnaround. Efficient power generation by means of offshore power plants requires powerful, reliable generators that do not cause disproportionately high logistic efforts and do not require complex foundations. Using generators with superconductors, performance can be increased to 10 MW while at the same time reducing the units' weights and sizes. Besides, superconducting generators can be built with less than one hundredth of the quantity of rare earths required for manufacturing the currently most frequently used permanent magnet generator. Superconduction, hence, allows setting up of efficient, robust, and compact wind power plants at reduced building, operating, and maintenance costs.

It is the objective of the EU-supported project SUPRAPOWER (SUPerconducting, Reliable, lightweight, And more POWERful offshore wind turbine) to use the high potential of supraconduction for expansion of wind power. In the four-year project that has started now nine partners from industry and science cooperate under the coordination of Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation, Spain. Together, the partners develop a wind power plant with direct-drive superconducting generator. The innovative direct drive, in addition, reduces transport and maintenance costs and extends the service life of the turbine.

The Cryogenic Engineering Division at KIT's Institute for Technical Physics (ITEP) contributes the cooling system: Below a certain temperature, superconductors have no electrical resistance and conduct electricity without loss. To ensure proper operation of the superconducting generator, the coils must be cooled below this so-called transition temperature. The researchers at ITEP are developing a rotating low-loss cryostat that cools down the superconducting coils to 20 Kelvin (minus 253.15 °C) through pure heat conduction by means of small Gifford-McMahon coolers provided by the project partner Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum.

"Since the cooling performance of such coolers is limited, we must ensure that heat between them and the superconducting coils is conducted well. Besides, we must consider the influence of rotation on the heat pipes we may use. On the other hand, the cryostat needs a highly effective thermal insulation", explains Head of the Cryogenic Engineering Division Dr. Holger Neumann. Work on the cooling system translates the findings from fundamental research to practice and, hence, is most attractive to young scientists.

Jordan to receive Gulf aid for renewable energy

www.albawaba.com
1 Jan 2013

Jordan is set to receive $300 million from the Gulf states to boost investment in renewable energy, officials say, as Amman looks to solar and wind power as potential solutions to the country's chronic energy woes.

According to Minister of Energy and Transportation Alaa Batayneh, some $300 million of a $5 billion grant from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has been earmarked for a series of solar and wind power projects in southern Jordan expected to produce over 125 MWs (MW) of electricity.

In a recent interview with The Jordan Times, Batayneh said the money, set to be secured by the ministry next year, would fund some 50 75MW of solar power and 75-100MW of wind power projects in Maan and Aqaba governorates. The GCC aid, decided at a meeting of the Gulf states last December, includes $1.25 billion each from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, and will support development projects in the Kingdom over a period of five years.

The $300 million is the latest in a string of international assistance agreements for clean energy in Jordan, including a $112 million loan Jordan secured from the World Bank in July to support the establishment of a 100MW concentrated solar power plant. "These funds will help Jordan develop its one true energy solution: solar and wind", Batayneh told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

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Sempra Energy completes a wind farm in Maui

www.utsandiego.com
31 Dec 2012

San Diego-based Sempra Energy has announced the completion of a wind farm in southeast Maui capable of powering 10,000 island homes.

Perched on a ridge of the Haleakala volcano, the Auwahi Wind power plant consists of eight new turbines and a battery designed to sustain power during light wind conditions. The plant was built by Sempra US Gas & Power and BP Wind Energy under a 20-year contract with Maui Electric, a subsidiary of Hawaii's dominant regulated utility.

The state is requiring utilities to increase the share of electricity generated from renewable sources to 40% by 2030. California's renewable portfolio standard requires 33% renewable generation by 2020. In a written announcement Wednesday, Sempra recognized the support of neighbors to the project including the Ulupalakua cattle ranch.

Solar energy on the rise in Germany

www.dw.de
1 Jan 2013

Solar energy is on the rise in Germany, with a record 1.3 million photovoltaic systems in 2012. The increase comes as new consumer taxes on energy are to take effect in the country. The recent solar boom means the alternative form of energy now reaches 8 million homes in Germany, a 45% increase compared to 2011, the German Solar Industry Association (BSW) said on Tuesday.

"Germany is now reaping the fruits of its efforts in solar technology," said the BSW's chief executive, Carsten Körnig. "Its share of the power supply has quadrupled in just three years. At the same time, the price of a new solar power system installation has halved."

The new numbers come as a consumer tax increase on energy takes effect. Starting this month, taxes will increase on consumer power bills from 3.6 € ¢ to 5.3 ¢ per kW hour in a bid to help finance the cost of the country's switch to renewable energy. For the average three-person household in Germany, that 47% increase will cost an extra 185 euros annually.

Solar energy currently accounts for about 5% of the country's total electricity usage, the BSW said. The association aims to increase that number to 10% by 2020 and at least 20% by 2030.

Wind power deadline sees US firms rush to build turbines

www.bbc.co.uk
29 Dec 2012

US energy companies are racing to install wind turbines before a federal tax credit expires at the end of this year. Experts say that wind power has exceeded the construction of natural gas plants in recent months. However the financial incentive for wind could be lost as congress struggles to avoid financial deadlock.

Even if the credit is extended it is expected that new installations will decline in 2013. According to industry analysts, the federal government's production tax credit has played an important role in the expansion of wind power across the US since it was first introduced in 1992.

Wind passes gas
At that point there was less than 1.5 GWs of power generating capacity provided by wind across the country. That figure has grown dramatically. This year has seen around 12 GWs of wind power capacity installed, outpacing even natural gas projects which have boomed on the back of cheap shale.

The government subsidy works out at 2.2 ¢ per kW hour of power produced over ten years. This amounts to around $1m (£620,000) for every large turbine. However the deadline is absolute-to get the money the blades on new installations must be turning and generating power before the 31st of December.

"There's a lot of rushing right now to get projects completed by the end of the year", says Rob Gramlich, senior vice president at the American Wind Energy Association. "It is not a great way to run a business with this policy-induced uncertainty". The tax credit has proved contentious with some lawmakers criticising it as too generous. It lapsed previously in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Each time it lead to a collapse in new construction.

The American Wind Energy Association are hoping the tax credit will be passed as part of a compromise package of legislation to help the US avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. The say the most likely outcome is a short term extension of the subsidy. "There's a good chance we could get this extension, it is very hard to predict, but the industry is not making bets on the Congress getting it done", says Mr Gramlich,

Even if there is an extension there is likely to be a significant curtailment of wind installations in 2013. Wind energy companies say they need longer time frames to negotiate deals to sell the power they generate. Iberdrola Renewables is the second largest developer of wind power projects in the United States. The company is racing to finalise new wind installations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. However the prospects for new turbines in 2013 are slim according to Paul Copleman, communications manager for Iberdrola.

"Even if the tax credit is extended, our new construction plans likely will be ramped back substantially in 2013 compared with the last few years. So much time has passed without certainty that a normal one-year extension would not be a game-changer for our 2013 build plans".

Some analysts argue that all subsidies to wind should end and the industry should stand on its own two feet. They say that the current arrangements mean that energy companies continue to make money even when there is a surplus of wind and the market price is negative.

Dan Kish is with the Institute for Energy Research, a body long critical of subsidies for renewables. He told BBC News the extension of the tax credit was expensive, unnecessary and destabilising to the electricity grid. "Wind produces power at a fraction of its stated capacity, and is increasingly adding unnecessary costs to consumers, just as it is in the UK", he said "They are creations of government and serve only to make their builders and owners wealthy at the expense of the public".

Apple exploring alternative wind power technology and motion-control Mac mice

techcrunch.com
27 Dec 2012

Apple's patent filings today reveal one concept outside their usual product-focused applications, detailing a method for harnessing wind power in a manner different from that employed in traditional turbines. Electricity gathered from a wind turbine would be converted to heat energy and stored in a "low-heat capacity fluid" in Apple's patent, allowing it to be tapped on an as-needed basis whenever the wind dies down.

It all gets pretty technical, but painted in broad strokes, the system would potentially use the motion of the rotor shaft moving against a "low-heat capacity fluid" (such as ethanol or mercury, for instance) to generate heat through friction between the two surfaces. This can then be transferred from the storage fluid to a working fluid which is then boiled off to release steam. The steam powers a turbine, converting the energy to usable form.

Apple's system differs from basic wind-power generators that are highly subject to variances in wind power, as well as systems that use batteries to store energy made through rotational energy for later use when wind isn't actively making that much power. Instead, it is designed to make wind power available on a more "on-demand" basis, which is of significant importance for facilities requiring a constant, uninterrupted power supply. That likely explains why Apple is pursuing this kind of tech: Its massive data centers have huge power requirements, and the company has stated its commitment to harnessing wind, solar and other alternative energy sources to help keep these facilities running smoothly.

So far, Apple has been working mostly on building solar farms and biogas generators to help fulfill its energy needs at data center locations like the one it has in Maiden, NC, and competitor Google recently revealed that it has powered a data center with wind power for the first time.

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EnergyAustralia puts gas-fired plant on hold

www.theaustralian.com.au
28 Dec 2012

Energyaustralia has shelved plans for a $1.3 billion Victorian power station that had been slated to replace some of the big Yallourn brown coal plants in the Latrobe Valley. The gas plant, which had originally been planned as a baseload power station, would potentially have replaced two of Yallourn's four brown coal power units, Yallourn's Hong Kong-owned operator TRUEnergy said in 2010.

EnergyAustralia, the rebranded TRUEnergy, has now told the Victorian government it has put the big project on hold because of a drop in wholesale energy demand and prices. The shelving also comes as a combination of higher east-coast gas prices beyond 2015 -driven by $70bn of coal seam gas export projects being built at Gladstone--and lower expected carbon prices make gas-fired power less economically viable than coal.

Yallourn is currently operating only three of its units after lower demand meant it did not restart a unit that was shut down this year because of flooding. EnergyAustralia's head of markets, Mark Collette, said a new power station may not be needed until much later this decade. "We are seeing further deterioration in the energy market and wholesale prices, and we don't expect conditions to improve in the foreseeable future", he said.

The federal government's abandoning of plans to pay for closure of brown coal power stations has also meant there is little chance EnergyAustralia will look at closing more units at Yallourn.

In documents submitted to the federal Environment Department in 2009, TRUEnergy said the 1000 MW combined-cycle gas turbine plant would "allow for a transition over time from existing coal-fired plant to flexible, economically viable, low-emissions technologies". "The introduction of the (gas) plant is largely dependent on the electricity market and impact of a scheme that places a value on carbon emissions", the submission said.

High gas prices and the linking of Australia's carbon tax with subdued European prices have greatly improved the relative economics of brown coal stations. Earlier this month, GDF Suez--which owns Hazelwood, the nation's dirtiest power station--said high gas prices and lower carbon had improved the outlook for its Australian business.

The date for first gas-fired power from Yallourn had slipped from 2013 to 2017 in documents submitted to the Victorian government in June. In those documents, CLP Group quietly downgraded its plans from a combined-cycle to an open-cycle plant. This meant it would supply just peaking power, rather than baseload, but could be upgraded at some later stage to replace the coal-fired units.

Projects ion of wind farms helps finds endangered lizards

www.abc.net.au
28 Dec 2012

The South Australian Museum says the introduction of wind farms has led to greater discoveries of the pygmy bluetongue lizard in the State's mid-north. For 20 years the Museum has led a research project into the endangered species in the Burra region.

A community group has been formed to help continue the research which has now identified about 27 populations of the rare lizard. Senior herpetology researcher at the Museum, Doctor Mark Hutchinson, says greater environmental scrutiny for wind farm developments has had an unexpected side-effect.

"In the periphery of it where people are looking to put in tracks or other things, down the bottoms of hills and on the edges of where the windfarms are going, the lizards have turned up. "So about four or five of the latest populations have turned up as a side-benefit of having to pay for environmental attention to particular areas in the landscape".

Maine producing enough wind power to supply 175,000 homes

www.pressherald.com
25 Dec 2012

(US) AUGUSTA--Wind power generated in Maine is now producing nearly 500 MWs, enough to supply the average needs of 175,000 households. However, it's still well short of the state's goal for wind generation by 2015. But new projects that are in conceptual stages, under regulatory review or approved but facing challenges could catapult the state to half of its wind-power goal of 2,000 MWs by 2015. The Legislature has set that goal for installed wind power capacity, along with 3,000 MWs by 2020.

Maine's operating wind power plants have a capacity to produce 468 MWs online now, according to figures from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which regulates grid-scale projects in Maine's Unorganized Territory. The year's end brings the possibility of big change to the industry. The federal Production Tax Credit, used to encourage development of renewable energy projects, is due to expire at the end of 2012.

That's caused "very legitimate" concerns among wind power developers, said Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association. "It's a very important piece of development" in wind projects, he said. A national industry group, the American Wind Energy Association, says that with the looming expiration of the credit, wind project developers are not making plans in the United States and American manufacturers are not receiving orders, costing jobs.

Developers' interest does not appear to have waned in Maine, which is by far New England's largest wind producer but accounts for only a small fraction of total U.S, output. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S, wind industry totaled 51,630 MWs of cumulative wind capacity through the end of September.

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Flexible solar cells can stick to just about any surface

www.technologyreview.com
20 Dec 2012

solar panels are typically heavy, which makes them expensive to install, and rigid, which limits where they can be used. In the current issue of Nature Scientific Reports, researchers describe a novel, potentially cheap way to make solar cells that are both lightweight and flexible.

The technique is meant to work with thin-film solar cells. The active part of thin-film solar cells—the part that gathers sunlight and generates electricity—is thin enough to be flexible, but the cells usually have to be manufactured on rigid materials such as glass to achieve the highest quality.

Researchers led by Xiaolin Zheng, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, demonstrated a way to transfer the active materials of the solar cell from a rigid substrate onto another surface, such as a sheet of paper or plastic, the roof of a car, or the back of a smartphone. As with other solar cells, wires would then be connected to deliver power, but flexible solar cells could be used on curved surfaces, and, because they're lightweight, they would be easier to install than conventional panels.

Although Zheng has demonstrated that the process can transfer solar cells even to cheap surfaces such as paper, in practical applications, the materials used would be limited by the need to protect the cells from the elements.

These aren't the first flexible solar panels. Several companies already manufacture them. But Zheng says prior approaches to making flexible solar cells have drawbacks. Manufacturers often modify processing steps to accommodate flexible substrate materials that can't tolerate high temperatures or certain chemicals, but this can reduce the performance of the resulting solar cell. And manufacturers have typically used costly flexible substrate materials, such as foils with extremely uniform surfaces, in order to produce high-quality thin films.

The trick to peeling thin-film silicon away from a solid substrate of silicon dioxide involves depositing a layer of nickel on top of an underlying wafer. After the cell is finished, it's immersed in room-temperature water. The water interacts with the nickel and silicon dioxide, causing the solar cell to come loose. It can then be peeled away and deposited onto another material. The researchers demonstrated that the efficiency of the solar cell wasn't affected by the transfer process.

The current paper shows that the process works for dislodging a solar cell from a silicon and silicon dioxide wafer. Zheng says the group has also demonstrated the process with solar cells made on a glass surface, but this work has not yet been published. This could make it possible to use the technique with copper indium gallium selenide solar cells, which are nearly twice as efficient as amorphous ones.