Britain largest solar installation for their national grid

Britain largest solar power system in Howberry business park, Oxfordshire which connected to the national grid will supply energy that estimated about 683 Megawatt hours per year. The solar energy farm install about 3,000 solar panels to provide a quarter of its electricity needs.

Solarcentury is the company chosen to provide solar panels for this UK's largest solar park. Solar farm will receive incentives from the tariff scheme paying a premium for supplying green energy. It is also expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions upto 350 tonnes per year.

Constraints of less sunlight availability in the UK is not a major problem for the use of solar power system, because even in overcast the solar installations can still produce green energy. And according to the company, the amount of energy generated by the system will be predictable over the life of the system. Howbery Business Park is expected to be one of business parks that allow residents to secure its electricity needs from solar energy.

Samsung solar powered netbook will price about $399

Samsung will begin introducing its solar powered netbook NC215S which claimed to be able run with a battery of up to 14.5 hours with solar panels built on its lid for easier automatic charging. In addition to reducing CO2 emissions, netbook also offers colorful and vivid LED displays even in direct sunlight.

Samsung NC215S made ​​using materials that can be recycled. It comes with a 10 inch screen size displays and automatic inbuilt solar panels make it environmentally friendly. Netbook is powered by Intel ATOM N570 (166 GHz) with 1 GB of RAM and comes with features Fast Start mode for fast start. The LED display is coated with an effective anti-reflective for image quality. It also has superior Duracase as scratch-resistant on the lid.

To perform charging using solar energy, the netbook will take approximately 2 hours and should be assisted with electricity from the source. Samsung NC215S will start first introduced into Russia and then to U.S.

Nokia tried to harness solar power to their cellphone

Nokia has recently being tested its new mobile phone products of Nokia C1-02, which is entirely solar-powered cellphone without providing a plug-in for charging. Electricity will be provided by solar panels on the backside of the phone body.

The manufacture of Nokia C1-02 solar-powered cellphone is expected to address the problem of electricity need from the current type of mobile phone that adds lots of features in the devices such as internet, music player / video, photographs that require additional power. Solar-powered cellphone is expected to meet the electricity needs of the cellphone wherever available sunlight.

In order to test its mobile phone performance, Nokia has spread its Nokia C1-02 to use in several areas to determine the performance of cellphones in different area and weather conditions. The Nokia green step is expected to go on, at the next they could remove the obstacles of solar-powered cellphone use such as the cellphone electricity need at night and habits of people who always keep their phone in a bag or pocket, which means no sunlight.

Alta Devices managed to make 28.2 percent solar cell efficiency

Alta Devices has developed a technique for achieving a record 28.2 percent solar cell efficiency or higher of about 1 point more than the last record for single-junction solar cells, NREL verified.

Company that boosted funding from Silicon Valley company, has been trying to optimize the ability of solar cells in capturing sunlight emitted to reach the highest efficiency solar cells. Scientists have conducted tests last year and has reached 27.6 percent efficiency.

According to the company, solar cells have the ability to emit its own light and the light emission efficiency is the key for these high efficiencies. The engineers use the material from gallium arsenide (GaAs) to generate a lot of photons inside the solar cell, it typically uses multiple semiconductor layers.

Materials of gallium arsenide that expensive encourage companies to develop a novel production method in which the bottom layer of the solar cell would be made ​​of microwire arrays embedded in another material and then made ​​thinner with a simple peel-off process. The company has also made a thin-film GaAs cell that can be placed on a flexible substrate.

High-speed trains get power from Solar Tunnel

The high-speed trains use some of its journey by solar power has succeeded in taking the first trip from Paris to Amsterdam. A Solar Tunnel project has installed about 16,000 solar panels along the 3.4 km above the roof of man-made train tunnel in Belgium.

The project was the result of cooperation between municipalities Brasschaat and Schoten in Belgium. Its expected to generate electricity up to 3,300 megawatt-hours annually for 950 homes in Belgium. Solar Tunnel are located along high-speed rail line at E19 highway.

The solar tunnel panels installation by Solar Power Systems and solar developers Enfinity and its have provided power for the signaling, lighting, and heating for the Antwerp North-South junction and the Antwerp Central Station. The results of the project will be scrutinized for the possibility could be applied to other projects.

SolarCity gets $ 280 million from Google for residential solar installations

Google Inc. as a non-banking company will invest $ 280 million to SolarCity in order to support solar installations in residential areas across the company's services. The funds from Google is expected to create more leases offered by SolarCity in its existing markets.

SolarCity currently offers business and residential solar leases as well as power-purchase agreements in Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland,DC, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Until now, SolarCity has got 15 funds worth $ 1.28 billion to finance their projects. According to Jonathan Bass from SolarCity, The great thing about these, its return to the investors for stable and safe during the life of the fund.

SolarCity also provide a full-service solar installer which installed the utility, commercial and institutional-scale solar systems. The funds that have been used has also provided employment opportunities for 600 new employees.

Until now, Google Inc. has invested a total of about $ 680 million in renewable energy including $ 168 million investment in Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Systems at the beginning of this year. But this is the first investment will directly help others install solar for less.

Most efficient solar microinverter available worldwide late of 2011

The Enphase M215 solar microinverter with 96 percent efficiency in convert DC electricity from solar panel to AC power for household devices or businesses used, now available for sale in North America and will be introduced to the worldwide market later in 2011.

The Enphase Energy U.S.-based company was introduced the most efficient microinverter in the world at Germany Intersolar 2011. The device converts DC power of photovoltaic panel to AC at modular level that less heavy wiring as electricity flows from microinverter to a centralized hub henceforth be used.

The microinverters on each panel allows to report data back to a hub and gives a better picture as to whether or not the each module is working properly. The device is a same type with the current system which designed to integrate with the new Engage Port and Engage Cable system to ease interconnection.

The M215 comes with cabling system, lightweight, quick to install and reduces cable waste with its flexible cut-to-length design. Its also offer same level of data about each module. Previously, Enphase Enegry has partnered with some photovoltaic manufacturers and installers to integrate its microinverters directly into their photovoltaic modules.

Gemasolar power plant still produces electricity even dark

Gemasolar power plant near Seville in southern Spain is the world's first solar power plant that can generates electricity during the night. The solar power plant comprises 2,650 solar panels that spread over 185 hectares of rural land with heliostat mirrors for 95 percent of solar radiation on a receiver at the center of the giant plant.
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The plant is actually a collaborative effort between Abu Dhabi's Masdar energy company and a branch of the Spanish engineering firm Sener called Torresol Energy. Heat up to 900C is used tanks molten salt heat, creating steam to power turbines £ 260 million station.
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But, unlike all other plants, solar heat stored in these reservoirs can be released from up to 15 hours in the night or during periods without sunlight. The sun of southern Spain claims rather solar energy during most of the morning allowing the plant to produce clean, green electricity to an estimate 270 days a year, three times more than other solar energy projects. It is planned to generate 110 GWh per year that would be enough to power about 25,000 homes in the region of Andalusia.

Solar energy to make raw petroleum from waste plastics

A Japanese, Akinoriis Ito who worked for the company Blest Corporation, has designed a tower called Plastikoleum tower to use solar energy to convert tons of waste plastic into the original form of raw petroleum to make gasoline, kerosene, or diesel.

Plastikoleum tower is a conventional solar power tower variation that using the same process. Its utilize heat from the sun to create steam to run turbines for electricity that is used to process plastic waste into oil. Tower can generate electricity of about 10MW and produce about 60 barrels of oil every hour.

The first idea emerged to make Plastikoleum tower is due to the large energy requirement to convert plastic waste into oil. Blest Corporation company selling the plastic converters device around the world in the form of a small desktop version to make 1 liter of oil from 1kg of plastic waste. In addition to utilizing the waste, the resulting oil can be sold for $ 100 per barrel.

Record 18.7 percent efficiency CIGS solar cells

Record 18.7 percent efficiency CIGS solar cells has been achieved by scientists from Empa Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, in collaboration with Swiss solar start-up Flisom.They have put CIGS solar cells on a polymer substrate to boost efficiency of CIGS solar cells.

Previously, Empa has mounted CIGS on the steel foil substrates and has successfully reached 17.6 percent efficiency. Scientists trying to recombination losses by improving CIGS layer structural properties and the proprietary low-temperature deposition process for growing the layers as well as in situ doping with Na during the final stage. The results showed that the polymer films have proved superior to the metal foils to achieve the highest efficiency as a carrier substrate.

According to NREL, the previous record of 15.7 percent efficiency CIGS solar cells ever achieved by a start-up MiaSole in December 2010.

Although efficiency was still lower than silicon cell, but CIGS solar cells offer several advantages over traditional solar cells. Flexible CIGS can be made ​​by print system on rollers and more flexible, lighter and cheaper cost to make. It also gives the option to install in accordance with the frames.