Oregon’s legislative session went out with a bang. Building on the renewagble energy standard passed earlier this summer that requires 25 percent of energy to come from renewables by 2025, this week Governor Ted Kulongoski signed key solar power policies that will continue to encourage solar manufacturing and solar energy systems in the state.

For starters, the tax credit for solar power projects jumped from 35 percent of project costs to 50 percent. A tax exemption passed for solar net metered systems, and a provision requiring public buildings to set aside 1.5 percent of their construction budget to fund onsite solar power technologies also made it through.

Jon Miller, executive director of the Oregon Solar Energy Industries Association, explained why solar power is good for Oregon:

It's another example of how we're growing manufacturing in the northwest. We're now a powerhouse in the United States in solar manufacturing. Oregon's established and educated semiconductor workforce makes it a natural fit for the solar PV industry.

Solar business is booming in Oregon. Indeed, two manufacturers (Germany-based SolarWorld AG and California-based Solaicx) have already committed to the state, and overall the solar industry is growing more than 30 percent annually. Oregon ranks 5th in the U.S. for solar hot water systems and in the top 10 for photovoltaic (PV) systems. By 2009, Oregon is expected to be the largest producer of PV cells in the U.S.

Renewable Energy Access

The U.S. Air Force is building the largest solar plant on the continent for the Nellis Air Force base in the Nevada desert. The massive photovoltaic array with silicon wafer panels covers 140 acres and will produce 15 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 30 percent of the base’s needs. The panels will even rotate to follow the sun across the sky.

The Air Force expects to save around $1 million each year from lower electric bills. The $100 million projected capital cost is being funded by private investors, with the Air Force paying none of the construction costs. The investors project a steady flow of revenue from the Air Force’s purchase of the electricity and substantial federal tax subsidies.

Despite the high costs of solar, Nellis Air Force Base sees a real value of relying on clean, renewable energy. Major Don Ohlemacher, operations flight chief and acting commander of the 99th civil engineer squadron at Nellis:

“It allows the Air Force to show its leadership in applying renewable energy and new technology to reduce our needs to use traditional forms of electric power.”

Others are also positive about solar power, but point out that there are other renewable energy technologies as well. Paula Mints, associate director and photovoltaic specialist with Navigant Consulting:

“The industry has some problems to solve. A lot of people are focusing on these large fields as a way to bring down the price of solar…They certainly have their place in the energy portfolio, but there are a lot of other technologies out there."

The plant will not have a battery to store the energy and will serve as a supplemental rather than a primary generating source.

Air Force Times
USA Today

Cross section of nanotube tower: Photo credit: Georgia Tech Research InstituteThe Georgia Tech Research Institute has come up with a solar panel design that could revolutionize the solar industry.

The new design features many nano-towers - think of microscopic blades of grass - that capture more sunlight because they have a larger surface area than the traditional flat design of photovoltaic (PV) cells. These three-dimensional panels produce about 60 times more current that regular solar cells. Because of this leap in efficiency, the coatings on the PV cells can be made thinner, and the overall size, weight, and mechanical complexity of the systems are reduced. From the news release:

“The GTRI photovoltaic cells trap light between their tower structures, which are about 100 microns tall, 40 microns by 40 microns square, 10 microns apart — and built from arrays containing millions of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes. Conventional flat solar cells reflect a significant portion of the light that strikes them, reducing the amount of energy they absorb.

Because the tower structures can trap and absorb light received from many different angles, the new cells remain efficient even when the sun is not directly overhead.”

But although the new design can produce a current much more efficiently, photovoltaic cells have to generate a voltage too. So far there’s too much resistance within the solar cell to produce the type of electricity that’s needed. Researchers say that hurdle will be the next phase of development.

The United States Air Force funded part of the research, seeking a smaller, more efficient solar panel that could eventually be used to power satellites and spacecraft. Researchers at Georgia Tech believe solar power would see a large jump in residential and commercial use as well if this lightweight and more efficient design is proven effective.

Georgia Tech Research News
International Business Times via the Green Report

As I discussed in Solar Power Part 1, humans have been tinkering with solar energy for some time. So what makes the 21st century different, if at all?

To get a professional perspective, I spoke with Ron Rich, President of Atmosphere Recovery, Inc. His company owns a process that makes industrial furnaces run more efficiently, even recycling their CO2 emissions. In past lives, he’s been the head of the Minnesota Energy Agency and was the first solar systems engineer for Honeywell. He's quite the energy number cruncher and provided me with a good bird's eye view of the solar photovoltaic market. He believes that the 21^st century will be different from the 1940s, when there was a big solar push after WWII, and different from the 1970s, when there was a big solar push during the oil crisis.

He points out that although gas prices have come down from an average last year of $2.58, the interest in solar remains high because people are starting to see the impacts of global warming. Their concerns, as well as our over-reliance on fossil fuels and the wars that that dependence gets us in, are overriding the fact that gas prices have come down a few dimes and are predicted to average out to $2.51 per gallon in 2007. Rich is confident that this time, the U.S. is poised to launch itself into a clean energy economy with solar energy an important part of it.

For one thing, the cost of solar is coming down and will come down even further with mass production urged on by policies like the Million Solar Roofs plan in California. Check out the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency for a state-by-state guide to incentives and rebates, and this article in Mother Earth News for a good intro to calculating the payback time of a solar power system.

Rich also predicts that creative financing for could become more widespread and easier for homeowners. Options include building the cost of the PV system into the home’s mortgage, increased incentives, or solar easements. Solar systems could get more attractive too, like solar shingles or more subtle PV panels.

Solar is made from widely available materials, with more and more high tech improvements being made. In December 2006, solar power was in the news when a project reached an efficiency rate of 40.7 percent, the highest ever for sunlight-to-electricity performance. In a recent Green Options post, Philip Proefrock reported on a new model of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels that can produce more watts per square foot that the traditional model and uses 88% less PV material. And one company has even patented a technology using nanosilicon PV cells that can be sprayed onto windows in a thin film, allowing the windows themselves to produce electricity.

All signs seem to be pointing to a brighter path for solar; more financing options, better technology, and more supportive policies and incentives could make the early 21^st century the dawn of the solar age.

Welcome to Green Options! To help you begin greening your good life, my blog will feature a 3-part series on the basics of solar power. I’ll start today with a simple background and history of solar energy, then on Friday I’ll cover why we may be at the dawning of the Solar Age, and then finally on Saturday I’ll plug this all into Green Options and how we can help you take advantage of this limitless resource.

Believe it or not, humans have been trying to harness the sun’s incredible power to make electricity for years. Some visionaries, at the height of the industrial revolution, questioned what the world would do after using up all the fossil fuel supplies and began exploring solar power. Frank Shuman, a solar engineer in the early 20th century, declared that the sun is “the most rational source of power.”

Today, the most common type of solar power you probably see – whether on roofs or yard lights – use photovoltaic cells or “PVs” to convert sunlight into energy. PV cells are small, square semiconductors made in thin film layers, mostly from silicon. When the sun shines on the cell, a chemical reaction releases electrons, generating direct current (DC) electricity. The current is then fed through an inverter to make alternating current (AC). For a more detailed description, click here to see a short video from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Currently there are 475 megawatts of solar power installed in the United States, enough to power about 240,000 homes. The U.S. used to be the global leader in PV manufacturing, but has been surpassed by Japan and is barely ahead of China. However, no country has even begun to tap the sun’s potential: The amount of energy from sunlight that hits the earth every hour is more energy than humans can use in an entire year. But with the right government incentives like we're seeing in California, combined with entrepreneurs and a good business climate, many are predicting a sunny outlook for solar technologies.

Boston Museum of Science
DuPont
History of Solar Energy
Investors Business Daily
The Solar Depot
U.S. Department of Energy