QUICK NEWS, 2-3: SOLAR AND THE RECOVERY ACT; FEDS STREAMLINE OCEAN ENERGY; THIN FILM SETS NEW RECORD; A PROPER WIND FARM

SOLAR AND THE RECOVERY ACT
The Report Card Is In: What Has The ARRA Done For Solar?
Jessica Lillian, 1 February 2011 (Solar Industry)

"Two years ago this month, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a far-reaching economic stimulus package with a significant focus on renewable energy investment…Clean energy investments account for a full 30% of ARRA appropriations directed toward infrastructure improvements, according to [ARRA Report Card: Two Years Later] from SBI Energy, which calls the ARRA ‘the boldest countercyclical fiscal expansion in U.S. history.’

"The $94 billion poured into public spending - in the form of both direct funding and tax credits - for solar energy and other forms of renewable energy was accompanied by lofty goals, including transitioning the U.S. to a clean energy economy and doubling the U.S.' renewable energy generation capacity by 2012…For solar power specifically, ARRA expectations included cutting the costs of solar power in half by 2015 - bringing them in line with the cost of retail electricity from the grid. For rooftop PV, power costs were expected to drop from $0.21/kWh in 2009 to $0.10/kWh in 2015."

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"Thanks to ARRA programs, the U.S. is on track to reach this milestone, according to an August 2010 report from the office of Vice President Joe Biden. Biden cited the Section 1603 cash-grant program from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) 48C Manufacturing Tax Credits program (also known as the DOE loan-guarantee program) and the DOE's PV technology incubator program as crucial in allowing the U.S. to stay on track in achieving its solar energy goals…

"The largest share of co-investment is in clean energy, with the ARRA's direct investments and tax incentives that require co-investments now supporting approximately $250 billion in total clean energy investments…[L]everaged co-investment has disbursed $4.7 billion in grants for individuals and businesses to cover 30% of renewable energy installation costs. This ARRA-sponsored grant program, which has spurred over $13 billion in total investment activity, has supported over 650 solar projects, according to SBI Energy."

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"In addition to solar project deployment, the Obama administration has targeted domestic solar equipment manufacturing capacity with the ARRA's investments, with the goal of doubling total annual renewable energy manufacturing capacity from 6 GW (as of the end of 2008) to 12 GW by the end of this year…SBI Energy says the U.S. is making "significant progress" in renewable energy manufacturing capacity.

"In fact, annual domestic manufacturing of PV modules is expected to grow from less than 1 GW in 2008 to almost 4 GW in 2012. This promising projection - which SBI Energy says is based on data from the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) - can be strongly attributed to the ARRA…[Without ARRA,] it is likely that the pace of renewable energy project construction and manufacturing growth would have slowed dramatically due to the sharp economic and financial downturn…"


FEDS STREAMLINE OCEAN ENERGY
BOEMRE to Undertake Conventional Rulemaking Process for Offshore Renewable Energy Rule; New Rule Will Eliminate Redundant Step in Leasing Process
January 24, 2011 (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Office of Public Affairs)

"The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) will continue to push forward with a proposed rule that will eliminate a redundant step in the noncompetitive leasing process for commercial renewable energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), BOEMRE Director Michael R. Bromwich said…BOEMRE announced on Nov. 26, 2010, that it would implement the new rule through an accelerated ‘direct final’ rulemaking process that is used for proposed rules that are considered to be non-controversial. The direct final rule could have been fully implemented after a 30-day public comment period if no adverse comments had been received. The agency, however, collected comments that it deemed adverse.

"As a result, the bureau is withdrawing the direct final rule and will instead proceed with a more conventional rulemaking process to make the change. BOEMRE expects to issue a proposed rule within the next month and initiate a 30-day public comment period…"

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"At issue is a requirement in the federal offshore renewable energy regulation related to the non-competitive leasing process. Under the current regulation, if BOEMRE issues a request for interest for a specific area being considered for commercial leasing, and only one entity responds expressing interest in acquiring a lease for that area, the bureau must still issue a second request for interest to ensure there is indeed no competitive interest in that area. This process can take several months, and the bureau determined that it is redundant.

"The proposed amendment would eliminate the requirement for the second request for interest and potentially save up to six to 12 months in the leasing process…"


THIN FILM SETS NEW RECORD
United Solar Announces NREL Measurement of World Record 12% Efficient Thin-Film Silicon Cell; Large-Area Solar Cell Uses Proprietary Nano-Crystalline™ Silicon Technology * Potential to Reduce Cost of Generating Solar Electricity by 20%
1 February 2011 (Globe Newswire via World of Photovoltaics)

"United Solar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD) (Nasdaq:ENER) and manufacturer of UNI-SOLAR® brand photovoltaic (PV) laminates…announced that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has confirmed an initial 12% conversion efficiency of a large-area solar cell using UNI-SOLAR's proprietary Nano-Crystalline™ silicon. To date, this is the highest large-area cell efficiency confirmed by NREL for thin-film silicon PV technology.

"United Solar has worked with NREL for more than two decades in the research and development of advanced thin-film PV technologies…"

from Solar Novus Today (click to enlarge)

"The record-setting cell efficiency with an area of 400 square centimeters was encapsulated in UNI-SOLAR's proprietary thin-film polymer. UNI-SOLAR's triple-junction technology incorporates Nano-Crystalline silicon layers on a flexible stainless steel substrate and increases the cell's efficiency by about 50%, relative to current UNI-SOLAR cells in production…

"United Solar's technology roadmap takes this ground-breaking technology into commercial production in 2012. The technological advancement drives meaningful reductions in the cost of installing a UNI-SOLAR solar energy system and will reduce the cost of generating solar electricity by over 20%. Ultimately, the company expects to offer solar energy systems that are capable of providing electricity at a cost below the utility grid…"


A PROPER WIND FARM
Johns Hopkins Study Examines Proper Wind Turbine Spacing
Mark Del Franco, 27 January 2011 (Northamerican Windpower)

"Researchers studying the wake effects on wind turbines at Johns Hopkins University have recently discovered that the output from wind turbines could be greatly increased if wind turbines were spaced at twice the distance than the industry standard.

"Charles Meneveau, a professor and co-author of the study, says that placing wind turbines 15 rotor diameters apart - more than twice as far as current turbine layouts - could result in more cost-efficient power generation…"

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[Meneveau:] "We have been working on better understanding of the coupling of large wind farms with the entire atmospheric boundary layer…As a result of our computational fluid dynamics in the idealized geometries of the very large wind farm, we developed an improved understanding of the cumulative effects of wakes, coupled with the overall velocity profiles in the entire atmospheric boundary layer…[W]hen using the asymptotic model to ask about optimal spacing of the very idealized case of the infinite wind farm, the spacing ends up being about twice as large as current values…"

"In mathematical analysis, asymptotic analysis is a method of describing limiting behavior…[R]esults are only applicable in the context of very large wind farms in an idealized setting…[Standard] models for large wind farm[s]…were based on simply the adding up of what happens in the wakes of single wind turbines…The new spacing model…takes into account interaction of arrays of turbines with the entire atmospheric wind flow."

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"The experiments were conducted in the Johns Hopkins wind tunnel, which uses a large fan to generate a stream of air. Before it enters the testing area, the air passes through an active grid - a curtain of perforated plates that rotate randomly and create turbulence so that the air moving through the tunnel more closely resembles real-life wind conditions.

"…[W]hen results of the study were widely released, some resource assessment professionals were skeptical…[because it omits] the other real-world factors, such as working with landowners, electrical line and balance-of-plant costs…[But even skeptics say] the study has merits, particularly for the study on work on inter-turbine wake characteristics - how one turbine plays off another in the grid string…"