NewEnergyNews: THE WAY TO PV SUN/

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YESTERDAY

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    Founding Editor Herman K. Trabish

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    WEEKEND VIDEOS, June 17-18

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    Wednesday, May 19, 2010

    THE WAY TO PV SUN

    Solar power could produce 25% of global electricity by 2050, studies say
    Tiffany Hsu, May 12, 2010 (LA Times)
    and
    Technology Roadmap; Solar photovoltaic energy
    11 May 2010 (International Energy Agency)

    THE POINT
    The New Energy debate over whether it would be best to develop centralized generation infrastructure or distributed generation sources effectively ended in the Spring of 2010 when 29 men died in a West Virginia coal mine cave in, 11 more were incinerated in an offshore oil drilling platform fire and the entire Gulf of Mexico coastline faced the onslaught of ruination as a result of the drilling platform disaster.

    The debate’s dichotomy is a straw man, a non-existent choice in the real world. The age of fossil foolishness is rapidly waning. Centralized AND distributed New Energy capacities are both urgently needed. They complement each other.

    Technology Roadmap; Solar photovoltaic energy, from the International Energy Agency (IEA), complements the simultaneously released report on concentrating solar power (CSP) described in THE WAY TO BIG SUN . Together, photovoltaic (PV) solar – which uses the sun’s light – and CSP – which uses the sun’s heat – can generate over 22% of the world’s electricity by the middle of this century. PV will provide half of that, generating 11% of world electricity by 2050. As electricity-powered personal transport becomes the new norm, these emissions-free, domestically produced sources of power become a quarter of the answer to the question of how to live without the deadly, destructive Old Energices.

    So far, there is no reported instance of a PV solar panel or a CSP heliostat exploding. A rooftop system installer recently bumped his ankle on a PV panel and he considered it a small tragedy but it didn’t make the news.

    click to enlarge

    Generating power in the quantities the modern world now requires it – and in the even more humongous quantities that will be demanded as economies like Brazil, India and China emerge into modernity – will inevitably have consequences. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has already begun working to build the infrastructure to safely recycle the toxic ingredients in photovoltaic materials. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) is leading an aggressive effort to protect the most important undeveloped lands from CSP solar power plants and she is also taking the lead in a multi-state effort to completely ban offshore oil drilling on the Pacific Coast.

    Demonstrating the IEA’s fundamentally conservative bent, the PV and CSP Roadmaps are part of a thorough scientific, economic and policy assessment of 19 New Energy options in pursuit of identifying the best path to the IEA’s (completely inadequate) goal of a 50% reduction in world CO2 emissions by 2050.

    Among the options, the richness of the sun’s potential is unique. Only the right “effective, long-term and balanced” policy initiatives are needed to take away the Old Energies’ artificially-created cost advantages and build the economies of scale in the solar sector necessary to bring solar power prices into competitive alignment with other sources of electricity generation.

    Unlike CSP, which requires a special high-saturation type of sun, PV requires no special Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) of sunlight. It can be (and has been) put to work almost anywhere there is sunlight. World PV capacity has grown an average of 40% per year in this century and the world’s spending on PV research and development doubled in the 21st century’s first decade, from $250 million in 2000 to $500 million (in 2007). At current rates of growth and technological advancement, the IEA expects PV solar to be price competitive in the most sun-saturated parts of the world by 2020.

    When solar PV achieves widespread cost competitiveness with other sources of grid supply, the “effective, long-term and balanced” policies that helped build manufacturing capacity and deployment will “evolve” into those that support self-sustaining PV markets. Financial incentives will phase out in favor of those that obtain and maintain grid access and integration, ongoing investment in R&D and international cooperation in building capacity for emerging economies.

    click to enlarge

    THE DETAILS
    The IEA roadmap estimates PV solar can supply 11% of world electricity by 2050, thereby avoiding 2.3 gigatonnes (Gt) of greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) per year.

    4 key actions needed from world governments to support moving PV to grid parity by 2020: (1) Set long-term targets and implement policies that will achieve those targets by creating investor confidence; (2) Put cost-effective financial incentives for PV expansion and innovation to work; (3) Create financing for rural electrification and PV expansion in emerging and developing economies; and (4) Expand R&D.

    PV is at present little developed. It provides ~0.1% of world electricity. But it is one of the most accessible of the New Energies, serviceable in the most urban and the most rural of settings. By meeting realistic technology, financing, policy and public engagement milestones indicated in the IEA Roadmap, PV could continue its post-2000 40% average annual growth rate and provide 5% of world electricity in 2030 and 11% of world electricity (4,500 terawatt-hours per year, or 3,000 gigawatts of total installed capacity) in 2050.

    This will do more than cut GhGs. In conjunction with the advent of electric-powered personal transport, it will improve energy security, shift world governments away from dependence on imported energy and deliver light to many dark, underdeveloped places. For all these good purposes, accelerated development is urgent. Accelerated development will come from the right policies.

    click to enlarge

    Despite the inane fossil foolishness that oil and coal are the world’s cheap abundant energy sources, the fact is that there is no richer source of energy in the world than sun. Enough solar energy hits the earth’s surface in one hour to power all human needs for a year.

    Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology transforms the sun’s light (“photo”) into electricity (“voltaic”). Other solar technologies - concentrating solar power (CSP) and solar thermal collectors for heating and cooling (SHC) - use the sun’s heat.

    The key to PV expansion is the right policy framework that advances the technology toward higher levels of conversion efficiency and expands manufacturing capacity so that economies of scale emerge, costs come down and mass deployment is driven by market demand.

    The IEA Roadmap drew on (1) the EU’s Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan and the Solar Europe Industry Initiative, (2) the European PV Technology Platform’s
    Implementation Plan for Strategic Research Agenda, (3) the Solar America Initiative (SAI), (4) Japan’s PV roadmap towards 2030 (PV2030) and the 2009 update PV2030+, (4) China’s solar energy development plans, (5) India’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, and (6) Australia’s Solar Flagship Initiative.

    click to enlarge

    A PV system is made up of PV cells, semiconductor devices that convert the solar light energy that hits them into direct-current (DC) electricity. PV cells are interconnected into a PV module (or panel) of 50-to-200 watts. Panels and components (inverters, batteries, electrical parts and mountings) form a PV system. Modular, PV systems can be a few watts or tens of megawatts.

    Panels can be made from crystalline silicon (c-si) or thin films (of several formulations but usually amorphous silicon, a-si, cadmium telluride, CdTe, or copper indium gallium disellenide, CIGS). The concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) concept and organic solar cells are just beginning to emerge. The different technologies offer a range of costs, efficiencies and applications.

    Conversion efficiency is the amount of the sunlight hitting the panel that is converted into electricity. Usually, higher efficiencies cost more. Often lower efficiencies convert more indirect light.

    High upfront costs are the most significant present barrier to PV deployment. Total system costs are module costs plus “balance-of-system” components (mounting structures, inverters, cabling and power management devices). As the PV industry continues to develop economies of scale, its costs fall. In 2008, large utility-scale systems were costing US$4,000 per kilowatt and small-scale residential systems were costing US%$6,000 per kilowatt.

    click to enlarge

    Levelised electricity generation costs for PV depend on the amount of yearly sunlight irradiation and the interest paid for financing the system. O&M is only ~1% of total cost per year because systems have no moving parts and high durability.

    At a 10% interest rate, 2008 utility-scale PV electricity (according to the IEA Roadmap) was ~US$240 per megawatt-hour with good sun and 23% efficiency. It was US$480 per megawatt-hour with poor sun and 11% efficiency. Residential PV costs were US$360-to-$720 per megawatt-hour. These rates, the Roadmap found, are competitive with retail electricity.

    World total installed PV capacity went from 0.1 gigawatts (GW) in 1992 to 14 gigawatts in 2008. Growth was ~6 gigawatts in 2008. 80% of world PV capacity is in the 4 countries with more than a 1-gigawatt total installed PV Capacity: Germany (5.3 GW), Spain (3.4 GW), Japan (2.1 GW) and the US (1.2 GW).

    Australia, China, France, Greece, India, Italy, Korea and Portugal have aggressive policies and development incentives and are growing fast.

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    There are 4 end-use PV sectors: (1) Residential systems, (2) Commercial systems, (3) Utility scale systems, and (4) Off-grid applications.

    Until the mid-1990s, most PV was off-grid. At present, most PV is grid-connected and off-grid is ~10% of PV.

    The Roadmap foresees grid parity for PV by 2020. It will come first where the DNI is best. The right policies can grow 3,000 gigawatts of installed PV worldwide by 2050 (4,500 terawatt-hours per year), 11% of predicted world electricity demand.

    This would require an average market growth rate of 17% per year from 2010 to 2020, which would produce a 200 gigawatt world installed capacity in 2020. The Roadmap assumes an 11% per year average growth from 2020 to 2030, producing ~900 gigawatts total in 2030.

    click to enlarge

    The IEA Roadmap includes detailed sections on (1) Applications and Market End-Uses, (2) Cost Reduction Goals, (3) Market Deployment and Competitiveness, (4) CO2 Cutting, and (5) Technology Development Goals.

    The predicted PV numbers require “strong, consistent and balanced policy support” which (1) drives deployment with tailored incentives that accelerate PV in markets, (2) produces innovative products and components, financing models and training and expand education, (3) reinforces R&D that drives technology advances in efficiency and cost, and (4)improves international collaboration on PV in emerging and developing economies.

    This also requires support all through the PV value chain (raw materials, module technologies, balance of system components) and throughout the PV product lifecycle.

    Suggested policies:
    (1) Predictable financial incentives and regulatory frameworks;
    (2) Regulation that facilitates large-scale PV grid integration;
    (3) Standards and codes;
    (4) New financing and business models;
    (5) Build a PV-skilled workforce;
    (6) Increase long-term RD&D funding;
    (7) Grow smart grids and enhanced energy storage;
    (8) Expand international collaboration for RD&D;
    (9) Implement PV best practices in developing economies;
    (10) Assess and demonstrate the economic value of PV; and
    (11) Bring in international aid providers on New Energy development.

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    QUOTES
    - From the Los Angeles Times summary of the IEA companion studies on solar PV and concentrating solar: “By 2050, the world could be getting a quarter of its electricity from solar [photovoltaic and concentrating solar] power…[T]he combination could enhance energy security while cutting carbon dioxide emissions by almost 6 billion metric tons per year…That’s the equivalent weight of nearly 900 million male elephants.”

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    - Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director, IEA: “Current trends in energy supply and use are patently unsustainable – economically, environmentally and socially. Without decisive action, energy-related emissions of CO2 will more than double by 2050 and increased oil demand will heighten concerns over the security of supplies. We can and must change our current path, but this will take an energy revolution and low-carbon energy technologies will have a crucial role to play. Energy efficiency, many types of renewable energy, carbon capture and storage (CCS), nuclear power and new transport technologies will all require widespread deployment if we are to reach our greenhouse gas emission goals. Every major country and sector of the economy must be involved. The task is also urgent if we are to make sure that investment decisions taken now do not saddle us with suboptimal technologies in the long term. There is a growing awareness of the urgent need to turn political statements and analytical work into concrete action…”

    click to enlarge

    - From the Roadmap: “The roadmap identifies the next decade as a critical time window in order to accelerate the development and deployment of PV technologies. Achieving this roadmap’s vision will require a strong, long-term and balanced policy effort in the next decade to allow for optimal technology progress, cost reduction and ramp-up of industrial manufacturing for mass deployment.”

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