SOLAR TODAY - May 2010

advances

solar technology | analysis | lifestyle

The Window Glass Problem 16 A Feed-In Frenzy? 20 EPA Improves Nox standard 24

Rapid Market Growth Seen for PV

Worldwide solar photovoltaic (PV) installations reached a record high of 6. 43 gigawatts (GW) in 2009, a 6 percent growth over 2008, according to a report by Solarbuzz ( solarbuzz.com), an international solar energy market research and consulting company. The report found that the PV industry generated $38 billion in global revenues in 2009, while raising more than $13.5 billion in equity and debt, up 8 percent over the prior year.

European countries accounted for 4. 75
GW, or 74 percent of world demand in
2009. The top three countries in Europe
were Germany, Italy and the Czech Repub-
lic, which collectively accounted for 4.07
GW. All three countries experienced
soaring demand, with Italy becoming the
second-largest market in the world. In con-
trast, Spanish demand in 2009 collapsed
to just 4 percent of its prior year level. The
third-largest market in the world was the
United States, which grew 36 percent to
485 megawatts. Following closely behind
was a rejuvenated Japan, ranked fourth and
growing 109 percent.

Alcoa has installed an all- aluminum concentrating solar parabolic trough at the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory’s (NREL’s) test facility in Golden, Colo. The lab will measure the collector’s thermal efficiency and evaluate its structural performance. This round of validation at NREL follows successful tests at the Alcoa Technical Center outside of Pittsburgh.

ALCoA

Instead of glass mirrors, the new 20-foot by 46-foot (6-meter by 14-meter) trough uses polished aluminum surfaces. The design is said to enable high-volume manufacturing and simple “drop-in-place” installation. The thin, rigid structure is said to mimic the spar-and-rib structure of an airplane wing.

The project is being partially funded by a $2.1 million Department of Energy grant. Test results are expected by the second quarter of 2010, after which the system will enter its next level of large-scale testing.

14 May 2010 SOLAR TODA Y solartoday.org
Alcoa, NREL Test
All-Aluminum
Parabolic Trough

CoURTESy oF SIERRA NEVADA BREWING Co

Most of the energy used to make Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.’s beer comes from the company’s 1.9-megawatt solar array.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Partners with SunPower for Installation rebates

The Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., in Chico, Calif., wants its customers to go solar. It’s partnered with SunPower, which offers a 30-cent-per-watt rebate on residential photovoltaic (PV) installations contracted through participating SunPower dealers. The deal is capped at $1,500. For details, see us.sunpowercorp.com/landing-pages/asp/unplug/ step1.

Beer is a purely natural product but brewing it requires a lot of hot water. Sierra Nevada draws more than 80 percent of its energy from a 1.9-mega- watt (MW) PV array backed up by a 1.2-MW fuel cell installation. The system has been in full operation now for about two years. And the company recently announced a $10,000 grant to the American Solar Energy Society.