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The US government, along with many investors such as Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and Google, is confident that solar power could become much cheaper than coal within the next 12 years. Taking into consideration tax incentives, carbon-capping legislation and the rising prices of natural gas, experts think that solar power is going to be more economical than coal by 2020.

“Chevron, Goldman Sachs, FPL, PG&E and other companies have filed more than 50 applications with the Bureau of Land Management to lease government-owned desert property for solar power systems. Google’s philantropic division put $10 million into eSolar, a start-up in Pasadena, California.” –Greg Chang, Bloomberg.

Along with the good progress of photovoltaic panels towards becoming cheaper and more efficient, investors are getting more excited about the potential of solar thermal technology. Implementing mirrors to direct sunlight to power turbines in desert areas could cover at least 50-percent of the local power requirements.

In the Mojave Desert, Sun Microsystems developed a thermal solar plant which contains 550,000 mirrors that tie together the sun’s energy and convert it into enough power to supply about 112,500 houses in the Los Angeles area. Though the costs are much higher than coal, this power station certainly shows the effectiveness of solar energy.

Sooner or later, it is going to happen.

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via CleanTechnica

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Silicon photovoltaic panels are the most expensive solar installations at the moment but things are about to change because IBM claimed they have the technology to reduce the cost of harnessing the Sun’s energy for electricity, down to $2 / W.

The company announced in a press release on Thursday, that using a large lens that concentrates power to around 2300x, they managed to capture a record 230 Watts on a square centimeter of solar cell which was later converted into 70 Watts of usable electric power. The main problem with such a power concentration is cooling down the silicon cell but I guess IBM engineers are experts in doing it, though not for photovoltaics.

“Specifically, the IBM team used a very thin layer of a liquid metal made of a gallium and indium compound that they applied between the chip and a cooling block. Such layers, called thermal interface layers, transfer the heat from the chip to the cooling block so that the chip temperature can be kept low.”

If IBM’s technology turns out to be true and the company is able to cool the solar cell efficiently, concentrated photovoltaic systems may become the cheapest type of solar energy available on the market. This would be a very big step in going mainstream, don’t you think?

A new survey by two Californian college researchers proved that companies in the solar power business will need more and more workers.

The attractive domain of turning the sun light into energy is very active in California where 16,500 to 17,500 people are employed to work for such companies. The study estimated 5,000 more jobs next year and most of these will be in the Bay Area.

Though there are open jobs for designers and salespeople, the biggest increase will be for people to install rooftop solar arrays. The technology is advanced enough, this being the reason why there will be a migration from lab jobs to field jobs. “You don’t need a Ph.D. or a B.A. to get into this industry. It’s an opportunity to rebuild the working-class jobs that have been lost,” said John Carrese, co-author of the survey.

Salaries for this kind of jobs will probably start from $31,200 a year for an entry-level installer, up to $83,000 a year for an experienced solar designer or engineer and the best candidates will be students from Californian colleges, said Carrese.

This may be the next boom in the economy, because it’s not rocket science to start such a business and you don’t need a Ph. D or a B.A., just intuition.

The efficiency of a solar panel is given by the percentage of the sun’s light that is being turned into electricity. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) innovated a new thin film solar panel that just broke the world’s efficiency record, reaching 19.9-percent.

“The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell recently reached 19.9 percent efficiency in testing at the lab, setting a new world record.” Treehugger noted.

Traditional silicon based solar panels may have a hard time when these multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells are going to be produced.

I am a big fan of solar cells and using them for a greener home, but we all know that investments to get solar energy are usually spicy and not everyone can afford. There is a solution though. Konarka Technologies, a company that builds low cost sources of renewable power affordable and universally available thinks we can print our own solar cells using an inkjet printer.

Konarka has built a printable solar panel film and with the help of a common inkjet printer they can produce build thin photovoltaic solar cells. The technology is innovative as it uses solar cell material as ink and Konarka’s light-activated Power Plastic® that is flexible, lightweight, lower in cost and much more versatile in application than traditional silicon-based solar cells, as paper.

“This essential breakthrough in the field of printed solar cells positions Konarka as an emerging leader in printed photovoltaics.”

Using such technology is only feasible to large productions of solar cells but as it evolves we can expect to see all kinds of solar cells from as small as a window or laptop to as big as car’s roof.

Press release via Inhabitat

The days when you had to go out and cut the lawn yourself are history, because these days we have automowers to do it for us. Husqvarna decided to please us and announced that they will be launching the world’s first electricity solar powered hybrid automower, which is extremely quiet and outputs zero emissions.

Using all sorts of sensors it’s smart to avoid garden furniture and will cut in a certain area if you setup the perimeter with a metal wire. The specs say that it can cut up to 2,300 square meters and can be programmed when to start (even the day of the week). With full batteries it will munch grass for about 40 minutes but with the help of the solar panels, on a sunny day this could increase by up to 50%, to a full hour.

Though it’s great for the eco-freaks we are the price is in the rich range, £2,000 (about $3,970). - via - Pocket-Lint

Press release