Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981

News on the idea / project / dream of 'shipping' vast amounts of solar power from Australia to Singapore:

Billionaires lead funding of 10GW Australia-Singapore power link

Two prominent Australian billionaires have allegedly invested “tens of millions” of Australian dollars in a plan to build a 10GW solar farm with 20-30GWh of battery storage that will ship energy to Singapore.

Grok Ventures, the investment firm of software company Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brooks and mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy have been revealed as co-lead investors in the megaproject after an inaugural round of development fundraising.

Cannon-Brooks had previously signalled his interest in the project to reporters at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in September.

The project is planned near Tennant’s Creek, a town in the centre of the Northern Territory (NT) and is being billed by as the largest solar farm in development in the world.

Energy from the project will be sent to Singapore via an undersea high-voltage cable. It will also supply energy to the area surrounding the NT’s capital, Darwin.

Martyn1981

Solar is one of the big issues for the coming election, though we are yet to see what the Conservatives would do.

Solar battle lines drawn as manifestos released in UK ‘climate election’


And another very cheap solar auction result, this time in Dubai, of $17/MWh:

Dubai confirms Saudi’s ACWA won 900 MW solar project tender with $0.016953/kWh bid

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Dubai confirms Saudi’s ACWA won 900 MW solar project tender with $0.016953/kWh bid

Solar is so cheap there is no need to support it as evidence by your links :rotfl:

Solar should find new markets
There is a potential market for 140GW of solar ped year on BEV cars

700 watt panels on a future output of 200 million BEV/Hybrid cars per year = 140 GW of solar demand

Most the world's population live in sunny countries
On board solar can self charge about 5,500 miles a year according to musk's (15 miles a day on the truck) claim

This is positive and should be embraced by BEV designs sooner rather than later
Such solar also avoids the 10% grid loss and losses in converting AC to DC

Coastalwatch

Solar farms look set to flourish once more in the new post subsidy era!

The UK solar market is set to return to GW-status during 2020, with over 6GW of live projects now making up the large-scale pipeline of projects being worked on across the country.
During the past 12 months, the large-scale utility pipeline has grown by approximately 3GW, all coming from new sites being scoped and screened, in addition to a host of full applications either approved or going through local council deliberation.
While only a handful of sites have been built during 2019, all the signs point to 2020 (and in particular from April 2020 onwards) being the timeline when the UK firmly moves into post-subsidy (or subsidy-free) utility-scale build-out.

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/list

Coastalwatch

PPA for 35MW of Solar signed between NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) and utility firm Anglian Water.
With the Solar farms being sited on Anglian water sites does this mean that further stress on the Grid is avoided or even reduced as a result?


NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) investment manager NextEnergy Capital has penned a power purchase agreement (PPA) for more than 35MW of solar with utility firm Anglian Water. Under the terms of the agreement, NEC will design, build, own and operate more than 35MW of large-scale solar assets, selling the generated power to Anglian Water through a 25-year PPA.
NESF will take ownership of the portfolio on Anglian Water sites, which will make a pivotal contribution towards the utility’s target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/list

Martyn1981

Big big solar & storage for Nevada has been approved:

Nevada approves 1.8GW solar storage bonanza

A plan to add nearly 1800MW of new solar and storage capacity in Nevada has been given the greenlight by the state’s regulator.

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) has approved NV Energy's ‘integrated resource plan’, which will bring an additional 1190MW of new solar renewable energy projects to Nevada plus 590MW of energy storage capacity.

Martyn1981

I sometimes post extracts from a weekly newsletter from Carbon Commentary, so this article on PV degradation might be interesting as the analysis of PV degradation (over 15yrs) for his install seems to be around 0.2% pa, which is good news.

How fast do solar panels degrade? Evidence from a single house over 15 years


Edit - Reminds me of an article (possibly a German article) quite a few years back that pointed out that PV was lasting far longer than expected, and that we might already be installing 50yr PV, but we just won't know for sure for another 40yrs or so. ;-)

Martyn1981

We've chatted many times about solar carports, be it to keep you dry in the UK, or for car shading elsewhere but this one is pretty darn big, and linked to a theme park, which I'd assume does more business (consumes more leccy) in good weather conditions:

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom To Be 80% Powered By Solar Carport

Borrego Solar Systems and sPower worked with the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom this year to manifest the first theme park on the West Coast powered by solar energy. In this case, the solar will account for 80% of the park’s energy usage.

One difference in this theme park’s solar installation from other similar installations is that it will be powered by one of the most substantial solar carport installations in the country. The choice of a carport installation is a wise choice. The clearing of land for the cement below the carport is already done. Its use prevents more land being cleared — even clearing land for a renewable project is not ideal and not always in the best interest of the environment.

Obvious question ..... electric car chargers too? Given the time people spend at theme parks, a load of slow chargers would seem ideal, even if they charged for the leccy.

Martyn1981

Australia Solar & Storage News — In Your Face, ScoMo!

While the Australian government under Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues to paddle furiously backwards when it comes to promoting renewable energy and addressing climate change, the transition to zero emission electricity is gathering speed throughout the nation. Here are three recent examples of developments that will stick in ScoMo’s craw.

Breaking The Solar Ceiling In Melbourne

In Preston, a suburb of Melbourne, a 52-unit low income apartment block now gets electricity from its own microgrid, thanks to an innovative partnership between the government of Victoria, Housing Choices Australia, the Australian Energy Foundation, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and several companies, including Gippsland Solar, Allume Energy, and retailer Ovidia.

The roof of the apartment block now features a 70 kW solar array coupled with a 56 kWh storage battery. Using the Solshare energy distribution technology pioneered by Allume, it connects the 52 apartments and allows for the rooftop generated and battery stored solar power to be shared between them.

The rooftop PV system was installed at no upfront cost to the tenants through a 10-year “roof licence” with the landlord. Allume then charges the tenants for the solar electricity on a “pay for the power, and not the panels” basis. A power purchase agreement locks in a rate that is 30% lower than the prevailing retail rate of electricity.

The groundbreaking solar sharing plan breaks the so-called “solar ceiling” that locks people with no roof of their own to mount a solar array out of cheaper, cleaner energy.

Solar Hybrid Microgrids For Mine In Western Australia

Australia is an enormous country with a wealth of natural resources. It also has vast areas where there are not enough people and businesses to support the construction of a traditional electrical grid. Like many of the world’s islands, the interior of Australia has long relied on diesel generators to supply electricity.

Zenith Energy specializes in the deployment of remote, off-grid power systems for mining operations in Australia and Papua New Guinea. It currently supplies more than 400 MW of electricity to its customers.

Boosting Battery Storage In Australia

Battery storage may not have found a home in the mountains of Western Australia yet, but it will see an increase in urban areas this year thanks to a partnership between Solar Service Group and energy optimization company Evergen.

Evergen’s technology was developed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science organization. According to One Step Off The Grid, it tracks a home’s power consumption and weather forecasts to decide when to use solar power, when to store it, and when to draw from the grid. “With more than 8,000 batteries installed nationally already, our current and future customers will benefit from Evergen’s world class optimization software,” says Solar SG chairman Rod Woolley.

Together the companies plan to launch a virtual power plant initiative they believe will create the “biggest single fleet” of batteries globally.

Martyn1981

Some Carbon Commentary extracts:

3, Next generation solar panels. Germany’s Heliatek is the world leader in the manufacture of what are called organic photovoltaics, a very thin layer of a carbon based molecule printed on to a plastic backing sheet. These products work particularly well in very hot countries. After several years of relatively slow progress, Heliatek said it had contracted to install its first installation in the Middle East in the early part of this year. Its products also have the significant advantage of being very little and highly flexible, meaning that they can be easily installed on the roofs and walls of buildings

7, India solar. 2019 was an unsuccessful year for Indian PV installations as tariffs on Chinese panels changed, payments for electricity production were delayed and finance availability was curtailed. 2020 looks better, with the government suggesting that solar will drive Indian renewables deployment to well over 100 gigawatts during the course of the year. 30 gigawatts is ‘under implementation’ and the target of 175 gigawatts by 2022 looks achievable. The growth in India should mean that 2020 sees a major worldwide increase in the rate of installation of PV after a flat 2019.