London-based Solar Water PLC recently signed an agreement with the Saudi Arabian government as part of the country's clean future $500 billion "NEOM" project. The company is building the "first desalination plant with solar dome technology", a CNN Arabia report (translated on Solar Water PLC's website) explains. //

The plant is essentially "a steel pot buried underground, covered with a dome," making it look like a ball, Solar Water CEO David Reavley told CNN Arabia. The glass dome, a form of concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, is surrounded by "heliostat" reflectors that focus solar radiation towards inwards. Heat is transferred to seawater within the dome, which evaporates and then condenses to form freshwater. The solar dome plant does not utilize polluting fibers that are typically used in reverse osmosis desalination technologies, and Reavley claims that it is cheap and fast to build at the same time as being carbon neutral.

Tesla aims to eventually become a massive distributed electric utility, and we’ve now learned of a new product, Autobidder, which appears to be the next step in that direction.

Solar energy can be stored by converting it into hydrogen using hematite. //

Researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have made a scientific breakthrough on the storage of solar energy, as reported by Energy & Environmental Science. A project led by Professor Avner Rothschild of the Technion's Faculty of Materials Science doctoral student Yifat Piekner from the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP has shown that hematite can serve as a promising material in converting solar energy into hydrogen.

The process entails the use of photoelectrochemical solar cells, which are similar to photovoltaic cells, but instead of producing electricity, they produce hydrogen using the electric power (current × voltage) generated in them. The power then uses sunlight energy to dissociate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

Hydrogen is easy to store and when used as fuel, does not involve greenhouse gas or carbon emissions.

Reliance on coal-fired electricity to produce solar panels raises concerns in the West

Solar panel installations are surging in the U.S. and Europe as Western countries seek to cut their reliance on fossil fuels.

But the West faces a conundrum as it installs panels on small rooftops and in sprawling desert arrays: Most of them are produced with energy from carbon-dioxide-belching, coal-burning plants in China.

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The world is moving away from fossil fuels, towards large-scale adoption of clean energy technologies.

Building these technologies is a mineral-intensive process. From aluminum and chromium to rare earths and cobalt, the energy transition is creating massive demand for a range of minerals.

Copper is one such mineral, which stands out due to its critical role in building both the technologies as well as the infrastructure that allows us to harness their power. //

Relative to 2020 levels, annual copper demand from solar PV installations could more than double by 2030, and almost triple by 2050. The largest percentage increase in copper requirements comes from offshore wind farms. IRENA’s REmap scenario requires 45,000 MW of annual offshore wind installations in 2050, which translates into 432,000 tonnes of copper—a 648% increase from 2020 levels. //

According to Citigroup, the global copper market is expected to be in a 521,000 tonne deficit in 2021—and the transition to renewables is still in its early stages.

While the demand for copper comes from a range of industries, the majority of its supply comes from a few regions, making the supply chain susceptible to disruptions. Mine shutdowns in 2020 exemplified this, as copper production fell by around 500,000 tonnes.

Additionally, average ore grades in Chile, the largest producer of copper, have fallen by 30% over the last 15 years, making it more difficult to mine copper

Many homeowners might have given up and bought a different home when faced with the utility hassle that landowner Derrick Zearley experienced. Instead, he looked to solar + storage to avoid interconnection altogether.

Zearley purchased land located on a boundary of two utility territories in Anderson County, South Carolina — Duke Energy and its energy cooperative Blue Ridge Electric. That led to a back-and-forth between Duke and Blue Ridge to determine whose territory it actually was. When Duke Energy laid claim to the plot, the next step in the process was getting signed petitions from Zearley’s neighbors to give right of way on their properties to run electricity to the site.

But after distributing the petitions, no neighbors signed. With half a year lost to the utilities and unwilling neighbors, Zearley reached out to Palmetto State Solar (now Firefly Solar), an installer based in Greenville, and pitched the idea of an off-grid solar system to be built for, and alongside, a 5,500-sq.-ft building in an unelectrified remote location in South Carolina.

Researchers imagine it might be possible to transform the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, into a giant solar farm, capable of meeting four times the world’s current energy demand. Blueprints have been drawn up for projects in Tunisia and Morocco that would supply electricity for millions of households in Europe.

While the black surfaces of solar panels absorb most of the sunlight that reaches them, only a fraction (around 15 percent) of that incoming energy gets converted to electricity. The rest is returned to the environment as heat. The panels are usually much darker than the ground they cover, so a vast expanse of solar cells will absorb a lot of additional energy and emit it as heat, affecting the climate.

If these effects were only local, they might not matter in a sparsely populated and barren desert. But the scale of the installations that would be needed to make a dent in the world’s fossil energy demand would be vast, covering thousands of square kilometers. Heat re-emitted from an area this size will be redistributed by the flow of air in the atmosphere, having regional and even global effects on the climate. //

The model revealed that when the size of the solar farm reaches 20 percent of the total area of the Sahara, it triggers a feedback loop. Heat emitted by the darker solar panels (compared to the highly reflective desert soil) creates a steep temperature difference between the land and the surrounding oceans that ultimately lowers surface air pressure and causes moist air to rise and condense into raindrops. With more monsoon rainfall, plants grow and the desert reflects less of the sun’s energy, because vegetation absorbs light better than sand and soil. With more plants present, more water is evaporated, creating a more humid environment that causes vegetation to spread. //

Covering 20 percent of the Sahara with solar farms raises local temperatures in the desert by 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to our model. At 50 percent coverage, the temperature increase is 2.5 degrees Celsius. This warming is eventually spread around the globe by atmosphere and ocean movement, raising the world’s average temperature by 0.16 degrees Celsius for 20 percent coverage, and 0.39 degrees Celsius for 50 percent coverage. The global temperature shift is not uniform, though — the polar regions would warm more than the tropics, increasing sea ice loss in the Arctic. This could further accelerate warming, as melting sea ice exposes dark water which absorbs much more solar energy.

This massive new heat source in the Sahara reorganizes global air and ocean circulation, affecting precipitation patterns around the world. The narrow band of heavy rainfall in the tropics, which accounts for more than 30 percent of global precipitation and supports the rainforests of the Amazon and Congo Basin, shifts northward in our simulations. For the Amazon region, this causes droughts as less moisture arrives from the ocean. Roughly the same amount of additional rainfall that falls over the Sahara due to the surface-darkening effects of solar panels is lost from the Amazon. The model also predicts more frequent tropical cyclones hitting North American and East Asian coasts. //

Some important processes are still missing from our model, such as dust blown from large deserts. Saharan dust, carried on the wind, is a vital source of nutrients for the Amazon and the Atlantic Ocean. So a greener Sahara could have an even bigger global effect than our simulations suggested.

The Duane Arnold Energy Center in eastern Iowa, the current site of a now-idle nuclear power plant, will soon host a 690-megawatt solar farm. The new solar farm plus storage will replace the single-unit, 615-megawatt nuclear plant, which powered more than 600,000 homes.

Owner NextEra Energy of Florida will build the solar farm across 3,500 acres at and near Duane Arnold in Palo, Linn County. NextEra also intends to include up to 60 megawatts of AC-coupled batteries for power storage.

The project is expected to bring in a $700 million project investment, $41.6 million in tax revenue, and around 300 construction jobs.

NextEra will negotiate leases with landowners in summer 2021 and begin construction in winter 2022. The company intends to have the solar farm online by the end of 2023. ///

3500 acres solar 8/24h vs. 600 acres nuclear 24/7

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Why Are Utilities So Expensive?
Charles McConnell
Feb 01, 2021

The cost of producing electricity has dropped significantly in the last decade. So why haven’t we seen those price drops reflected in our electricity bills? Charles McConnell, former Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration, answers this riddle.

Fossil fuel-supporting Chicken Littles have done their best to spread fear of renewable energy, warning that relying on wind, solar and storage would lead to blackouts and economic devastation.

For years, I have denounced the propaganda promulgated by lobbyists financed by the oil and gas industry. Now, the latest data proves that the New Year will mark the end of the beginning for clean energy, and the beginning of the end of our reliance on coal and natural gas for electricity. //

The tipping point was revealed in the latest capacity report from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the grid operator that delivers power to most of the state. After several years of thinning reserve generation capacity due to coal-fired plant retirements, solar facilities are adding cushion. //

ERCOT expects to add 3,039 megawatts of utility-scale solar resources, 1,765 megawatts of wind and 816 megawatts of natural gas-fired generation next year. The grid will have 86,842 megawatts of capacity to serve an expected peak demand of 77,244 megawatts in 2021, the council said.

In addition, ERCOT is working on adding large batteries that will provide even more capacity during the hour or so every August when demand peaks. The reserve capacity in 2021 will be 15.5 percent, well above the target of 13 percent, and will rise to 27 percent in 2022, ERCOT said. //
No new coal-powered plants are planned for the United States. New nuclear power technologies are a decade away from deployment. New natural gas plants struggle to compete on price with solar and wind, even after renewables lose the federal tax subsidies that are phasing out over the next few years.

On 28 August 1859, a series of sunspots began to form on the surface of…

Two flashes of lightning in Argentina and Brazil have broken two world records: one for the longest reported distance for a single flash, and one for the longest reported duration.
Technically, the lightning records are for "megaflashes," or horizontal lightning discharges that can reach hundreds of kilometers in length.
In Brazil, the megaflash traveled a staggering 440 miles. ///

We don't need solar or nuclear, we just need to capture these!!

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Around the world solar developers are turning array designs on their head and choosing to go east-west instead. Following on from a recent feature in PV-Tech Power volume 14, here are the five key considerations to bear in mind when designing an east-west array.

Getting more bang for your buck

Solar arrays that are situated east-west can squeeze in more rows and panels – and therefore a greater generation capacity – than their south- or north-facing cousins. Cleve Hill Solar Park Ltd, a joint-venture comprising solar EPCs Hive Energy and Wirsol, adopted that approach when designing the 350MW+ Cleve Hill solar farm situated on the UK’s south coast in Kent.

The developers now expect to fit more than 1 million panels onto the 400-hectare site. “We just realised how much more we could get on the site for an east-west layout,” Hive’s Hugh Brennan said. The similarly-designed 300MW Cestas project in Bordeaux, France, uses just 0.8 hectare of land per megawatt of solar generation capacity.

Shifting the value

While east-west solar arrays may have a reduced total output, the value of the electricity they produce is inherently higher in most markets. This is a result of the smoothing of the array’s generation curve, generating more electricity during the morning and evening hours and less during the midday peak when electricity is at its cheapest. Research conducted by Sheffield Solar using 1kWp systems found that east-west systems generated 15% less electricity than those facing south. //

One of the more interesting effects, and one that doesn’t immediately spring to mind, of east-west orientated arrays is how systems of that design impact on what’s happening beneath the panel. As the rows are packed in more tightly and in a convex manner, the frames and panels often create roof-like structures that block natural light and rainwater from reaching the ground underneath.

Solar panel ground mounts using concrete ballast blocks

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