15 Photovoltaics Solar Power Innovations You Must See

Energy. The lifeblood of modern civilization. Finding clean sources of it is very high on the green movement's priority list, and one very promising field is solar photovoltaics (PV).
CoolEarth inflatable solar balloons; Thin Film Solar Record: 19.9% Efficiency; Sunrgi Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics; 'Hairy' Thin Film Nanowire Solar Panels and more.


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Creating Realistic Expectations for Renewable Energy

It's a delicate time for the renewable energy industry. Now that the public eye is focused more intensely on clean energy technologies, there are a lot of high expectations about their potential. Properly educating consumers, investors and journalists about what each technology can realistically offer will be one of the most important factors in moving renewables forward, say industry professionals.


At the consumer level, that means encouraging buyers to do the necessary research about the product they're purchasing and the company they're working with. If buyers don't really know what they are getting, that could make for a less-than-satisfactory experience — or even worse, a situation where the customer gets scammed.




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In the Lab vs. Real World

Beating solar PV efficiency records in the lab is great - just recently, a 40.7% record from 2006 was beaten by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with a new record of... 40.8% - but in the short-term, what matters most is what makes it to market.

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Indian Solar Loan Program Offers Access to Light

If you live in a rural area of southern India, two lights can literally save your life.

Just ask Vinoj Kanaya, farmer of silkworms who lives outside a small village located 250 kilometers from the new Silicon Valley of Bangalore. Like many people in developing countries, Mr Kanaya wanted something better than burning wood, dung or kerosene for which he paid a higher proportion of his income than someone in a developed country.

After he installed two solar-powered lights with the help of a solar loan, Kanaya says attacks by deadly cobras have gone down because the snakes are scared off by the brighter solar light. The lights are much cheaper to run than those powered by kerosene and there are fewer accidents and burns with solar lights. Kanaya says that both his helpers and his silkworms work much better without the smoke and fumes of kerosene lamps.

An extra light or two that may not mean much to many in the developed world, but for Kanaya and thousands of others, they've brought safety, profits and better quality of life. For SELCO Vice President, Mr. Thomas Pullenkav, the equation is simple: "quality of light equals quality of life."

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The economics of solar power

• Solar energy is becoming more economically attractive as technologies improve and the cost of electricity generated by fossil fuels rises.
• By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times higher than its current level.
• As the new sector takes shape, producers of solar components must drive their costs down, utilities must place big bets despite enormous technological uncertainty, and regulators must phase out subsidies with care.
• The actions these players take will determine the solar sector’s scale, structure, and performance for years to come.
• The Growing Competitiveness of Solar Power (Graph)
  
• The Global Solar Market in 2020 (Graph)

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China 'leads the world' in renewable energy

China is the world's leading producer of energy from renewable sources and is on the way to overtaking developed countries in creating clean technologies, according to a report by the Climate Group.

Published August 1st 2008, the group's report, China's Clean Revolution, shows that supportive government policies investing billions of dollars in energy efficiency and renewables are driving huge levels of innovation in China.

The Climate Group says that, despite its coal-dependent economy, China has become a world leader in the manufacture of solar photovoltaic technology - its six biggest solar companies have a combined value of over $15bn (£7.57bn). Around 820 megawatts of solar PV were produced in China in 2007, second only to Japan.

The country already leads the world in terms of installed renewable capacity at 152 gigawatts. In the next year, China will also become the world's leading exporter of wind turbines and it is also highly competitive in solar water heaters, energy efficient home appliances, and rechargeable batteries.

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Read the Summary Report - China's Clean Revolution

Tibetan Vocational Training

Today was the last day in Auroville for Chung and Norbu from the Tibetan Vocational Training Centre in Selakui, near Dehradun in Uttarakhand state.

They completed a 1 month on-the-job training at Aurore in solar thermal (ETCs) and solar PV (PhotoVoltaics), and will take their knowledge back to the Tibetan VTC with the intention to start up a vocational training course in solar for Tibetan youths.



We hope this will be the start of a fruitful cooperation between Aurore and VTC Selakui.

Chung and Norbu will join Aurore technicians Manikandan and Nitin to Jhansi (UP) for one more on-the-job installation of a solar pumping system there in the coming week.

We wish them all the best back in Selakui with the set up of the new vocational training course in solar.

Tashi Delek!

'Light A Billion Lives'

A host of Bollywood stars are teaming up with Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations climate panel, to help raise money for a project that will generate power for 100 villages in Asia and Africa.

Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan and several other celebrities from the Indian film industry are involved in the 'Light A Billion Lives' campaign, which aims to provide solar lanterns in villages spread across nine countries.

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