V3Solar Verifies Spin Cell Generates 20X More Electricity Than Panels Through 3rd Party Testing

V3Solar – a designer, manufacturer, and distributor of solar technology – has just reached two major milestones in developing its new solar spin cell technology.

V3Solar solar spin cell. Image courtesy of V3Solar.

The company has just signed a contract with Nectar Design (an award winning product development company) to complete the engineering and commercial design of its spin cell technology. Last year, Nectar won four Bronze IDEA awards from the Industrial Designers Society of America.

V3Solar also just verified through third party testing that its spin cell technology can produce “over 20X more electricity” than conventional solar panels “while using the same type and amount of photovoltaic material as (those) flat static panels.”

V3Solar attributes the increased generating results to combining several force multipliers, involving: concentrated lenses, dynamic spin, the conical shape, and new advances in technologies.

The company compares the difference between the spin cells and conventional panels, saying spin cells can concentrate the same amount and more sunlight than panels but with far less heat.

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Blue Energy Seeking Investors To Build Africa’s Largest Solar Power Plant With 155 MW Capacity

Taking advantage of a new regulatory environment in Ghana that’s more favorable to investments in renewable energy, Blue Energy, a UK-based renewable energy investment and development company has a unveil plans to build the country’s and the continent’s largest solar photovoltaic power plant.

Westmill photovoltaic solar farm constructed by Blue Energy in Wiltshire, UK. Photo courtesy of Blue Energy.

The 155 megawatt power plant will be built by the company’s subsidiary Mere Power Nzema Ltd. on a 183 hectare site close to the village of Aiwaiso in western Ghana. The company has secured a 100-year lease on the site, with planning permission as well as permission to connect to the grid.

Extoling on benefits of the location, Blue Energy said the site has “good solar radiation, has excellent access to the major road systems and is within easy reach of a deep water port at Takoradi.

“The plant will be directly connected to the 161 kV West African Power Pool transmission line, which runs alongside the site, linking Ghana to [the] Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, and has available capacity for its load.”

Blue Energy expects to begin installing about 630,000 solar photovoltaic modules by the end of the year, and for electric generation to start early in 2014, with sections coming “on stream” as they are completed. The $400 million project is due to reach full capacity by October 2015.

Industry analyst Ash Sharma at IMS Research told the BBC News that this “is the biggest single project that’s going ahead at this moment. It is not the biggest in the world, but if it goes ahead it will be the biggest in Africa.

“The project has land, it has planning consent, it has a generating license, and it has received a feed-in tariff. It is the right plant in the right place at the right time.”

Blue Energy says that it has “secured all the consents that it needs to go ahead with the project,” and that, “Ghana’s electricity regulator, the Energy Commission and the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission have awarded it a generation license and a feed-in tariff for the plant’s 20-year operational life.”

 The only thing that still hasn’t been secured is investors. The company says that it’s in “discussions with a number of international financial institutions, and global equity and infrastructure funds which have expressed interest in providing debt financing or investing in the project.” Blue Energy expects to “reach financial close in the first half of 2013.”

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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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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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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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