Pages with tag Solar Energy
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Building the SOLN1-2000 Watt Capacitor Solar Generator:
Supercapacitors are like batteries because they store electricity, but they're different from batteries because the electricity is not stored as a chemical reaction. Supercapacitors are capacitors, but super, meaning they hold far more energy than regular capacitors. Capacitors store energy between metal plates that are separated by an insulator, and are used in pretty much every electrical gizmo to smooth out electricity, store bits of electricity here and there in a circuit and so forth. In some cases capacitors are used as primary energy storage -- for example some photography flashguns have a large capacitor that's charged up from a battery to emit a huge flash of light.
This video shows a Supercapacitor system built with easy-to-assemble modules with built-in balancers, that is charged from regular solar panels, and can drive regular 120 volt equipment from an inverter. The system is small and lightweight, but provides great energy storage capability.
With the system shown here, he went to a remote site and ran a cement mixer and various power tools all day long straight off sunlight and a small solar array.
- Department of Energy Announces $46 Million to Improve Resiliency of Solar Generation
- Department of Energy Announces $53 Million in New Projects to Advance Solar Technologies
- Department of Energy Selects $36 Million to Advance Solar Energy Integration
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The Breakthrough in Solar Energy
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Renewable electricity with Wind and Solar is quickly becoming financially viable as the cheapest form of electricity production. The cost curve is falling rapidly thanks to production efficiencies as the manufacturing volume rises, and as the manufacturers grow more and more comfortable with producing the technology. The cost is low enough, that in some places, it is cheaper than natural gas electricity without subsidies.
Case in point, Dubai, in the middle of the Oil-Rich Persian Gulf, is building out a massive solar farm that's slated to expend to 800 megaWatts within a few years. In the middle of the Persian Gulf region, they're able to build solar at a cost cheaper than natural gas. Let that sink in.
In the USA we did elect a government full of climate change denying fossil fuel loving leaders. But the economics dictates a different solution. The economics says that the future is renewable electricity.
One of the voices in this documentary points out that the price-cost-curve for renewable electricity is dictated by manufacturing efficiency, while the price-cost-curve for fossil fuel electricity is based on the price for the resource. With renewable electricity the resource is as endless as the Sun. With fossil fuel electricity the resource is limited, and the price for that resource goes higher the more you extract, simply because as fossil fuel resources reach depletion extraction is more expensive.
Another case story is an island in the Canary Islands. They have a high cost of energy because there is no local energy resources. Their goal is moving 100% to renewable electricity, with local energy storage, organic produce, and electric vehicles. Once accomplished more of their money will stay on the island, as opposed to the current situation where money is shipped off the island to buy fossil fuels. In other words, locally produced renewable electricity can produce great economic goodness.
The more renewable energy is deployed the less need there is for wars -- since in many cases wars (especially in the current time period) are often to do with resources. The whole mess in the Middle East is, after all, a war where the West seeks to protect access to the fossil fuels in the Middle East.
