KYOCERA To Combine Solar With Lithium Ion Battery Power For Residential Use In Japan

By this summer, residents in Japan will have a new clean and cost-effective option for powering their homes.

Photo courtesy of Green Solar and Wind Power.

The partnership between KYOCERA Corp. and Nichicon Corp. has finally born results. They’ve created a new – home installed - power generating and energy management system, using solar power combined with lithium ion storage capacity required for meeting Japan’s growing residential energy needs.

KYOCERA says that the new system will offer multiple operating modes to meet the varying energy uses needed of different consumers.

The system is designed to accommodate customers “whether their peak energy consumption occurs in the daytime or at night; and for families who want to prioritize reducing their energy bills,” says KYOCERA, adding that system should also be considered by “those that place a premium on having a guaranteed electricity supply.”

KYOCERA says that the “system automatically switches to independent operation in the event of a natural disaster or electricity blackout. In the event of a prolonged blackout, the battery can be charged directly by the solar modules during the day, allowing users to draw from the battery at night or during inclement (severe) weather.”

The lithium ion battery has a high capacity of 7.1 kWh, which KYOCERA says can roughly last five times longer than conventional lead-acid batteries.

KYOCERA believes that it has a strong market projection for the new energy system, expecting that “up through the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, more than one million homes in Japan will have installed solar power.”

The company bases its projections on the hope that residents in Japan will feel an incentive toward solar stemming from Japan’s restart of the national subsidy program for residential solar power generating systems in January 2009, and the feed-in tariff, which were started in November of the same year.

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New England Energy Provider to Buy Power From Nation’s First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Farm

Scroby Sands Wind Farm, England. Photo courtesy of offshore-power.net.

As part of the nation’s continuing move to harness renewable energies that are both environmentally safe and cost-effective, National Grid - an energy supplier to about 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York - has entered into an agreement with Cape Wind to purchase 50 percent of its output.

Cape Wind is a 468 megawatt offshore wind project planned for Nantucket Sound and is expected to go online by the end of 2012. The project is being developed by Energy Management Inc., a New England-based energy company.

Under the terms of the contract - filed this week with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities - beginning in 2013, National Grid plans to purchase 50 percent of the wind farm’s output, including electricity, renewable energy certificates (tradable energy commodities), and other potential market attributes for 20.7 cents per kilowatt hours.

Based on its forecasts of what customers will pay for electricity in 2013, National Grid projects this translate to a total monthly bill increase of $1.59, roughly two percent per month.

“We recognize that all renewable energy, be it on-or-off shore wind, solar or other source has a cost associated with it. Carbon-based generation comes with its own set of long-term costs, such as to our health and our environment,” said Tom King, president of National Grid.

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Public Funding Making Business Sector Solar Retrofits More Viable

Solar Energy Consultant Bob Gentile and large solar array. Photo courtesy of Abundant Energy Inc.

As solar technology in the United States becomes more refined and public funds in the forms of federal grants and state rebates become increasingly available, more and more business are starting to retrofit.

Over the last few months, Florida has seen some of the nation’s biggest growth in the development and use of solar power. Last month, President Barack Obama was on-hand at the Florida Power and Lights DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center as it powered up for the first time.

With more than 90,500 solar panels, the plant is now the largest solar photovoltaic facility in the country, with the capacity to annually generate an estimated 42,000 megawatt-hours or enough power to serve about 3,000 homes.

By early next week, the installation of the largest privately owned solar array in Marin County, Fla. will be completed, according to Derrick Christenson, a real estate associate with Christenson Commercial.

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U.S. Renewable Energy Usage Trends Upward as Overall Power Usage Declines

Courtesy of the Energy Information Administration’s Office of Coal, Nuclear, Electric and Alternate Fuels.

Well it’s nice to know that real progress is happening in the renewable energy industry and not just a lot of speculative talk!

Consumer consumption grew by seven percent between 2007 and 2008, despite a two percent decline in total United States energy consumption, according to a newly released report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The total renewable energy consumption increased by 487 trillion Btu (British Thermal Unit) to 7, 301 trillion Btu.

The two biggest consumers of renewable energy were the electric power and industrial sectors, though the transportation sector is starting to take a bigger piece of the pie.

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Solar Joint Venture to Make a Footprint in the U.S. Southwest

An line-focusing parabolic trough collector. Photo from Solar Trust.

In the race for who will become the juggernaut of the emerging solar power market, two notable players in the industry have come together in a joint venture partnership to form Solar Trust of America, an integrated solar solutions company.

Parent companies, Solar Millennium and MAN Ferrostaal, jointly say that the new venture company will provide “a complete turnkey solution in connection with the development, construction, and financing of large-scale concentrated solar power plants in the southwestern region of the U. S.”

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