“We are excited to work with Inypsa and Omniwatt in bringing Sopogy’s MicroCSP system to the Spanish market,” said Darren Kimura, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sopogy. “Sopogy’s MicroCSP technologies have been designed for these unique markets by bringing advantages over traditional concentrating solar thermal including fast deployment, pre-engineered kits in the 1MW, 5MW and 10MW increments and use and support of local labor for on-site installation.”

The decision follows a 20-year power purchase agreement that was signed between SCE and eSolar for the output from the facility, known as the Gaskell Sun Tower. The agreement was signed in June 2008. Gaskell is the first solar thermal project that SCE has executed a contract for since the start of the state's Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) program.

Regulatory approval from the CPUC allows SCE to recover the costs of the deal from its customers. The plant is set to be built in Kern County. Financing for the plant is set to come from Google.org, Idealab and Oak Investment Partners.

“To achieve a desirable human development index growth, the present power consumers will have to cut their usage by 20%, by which growth may come down by a percentage point or two”. Speaking at the panel discussion on sustainable electricity in India, at Pan IIT, an IIT alumni conference, at the Indian institute of technology Madras on Saturday, he said the situation was potentially explosive unless we invest talent, technology and innovation in equitable allocation of basic resources like energy, water and land.To achieve 20% energy conservation we need to increase the energy efficiency of our appli-ances by 20%, he said.

“Theft happens 90% in urban industrial lines, and not in rural areas, as many of us have misconceived,” Mr Sethi said. “As electricity is stolen only to be consumed, the basic problem is a supply-demand mismatch.” According to AES corporation director Sanjeev Agarwal, the three main issues hindering the advancement of power projects in India are land acquisition, environmental clearance and evacuation infrastructure. The government, by taxing the infrastructure compa-nies, has created a special purpose vehicle to get all clearances in a quicker manner.

“Even then, supply systems may not be the ultimate solution as our present rate of consumption demands a commissioning of 25000 mw of power every year, which is not realistic,” Mr Sethi said. Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board member Sudha Mahalingam quoted green buildings as the most effective way of saving power in cities.

“With growing temperature and congestion, air conditioning has become a necessity in our cities now. But, that usage can be reduced by constructing buildings with plenty of access to natural air and lighting,” she said. She also asked for a regulation on the usage of captive generation as the fuels used for those purposes were also likely to run out in the long term. Despite the buzz about renewable energy, the panel unanimously agreed that coal is something that the country cannot do without.

The panel estimated that if solar power gets a breakthrough such that it becomes seven to eight times less expensive and solar power being seasonal and time specific, if power storage technologies were developed, then India could become energy secure through the renewable route. “Today, we are hesitant to subsidise solar power to the con-sumer as that is likely to slow down efforts to achieve higher efficiency and cost effectiveness in solar technology,” Mr Sethi said.

Inypsa, a publically traded Spanish project development firm has decades of experience in large infrastructure projects and is well positioned to take advantage of the growing solar thermal power plant market in the Spanish region. “We are convinced that micro solar thermal generation will be the next revolution in the low-carbon technologies that will define the 21st century. We feel privileged to team up with Sopogy and Omniwatt to deliver Sopogy MicroCSP technology for this project,” said Jairo González Monje, Director General of Inypsa, S.A.

Omniwatt AG, a Germany-based company, specializes in the renewable energy power production, project development and financing of decentralized power plants throughout Europe. “We look forward to working with Inypsa and Sopogy and are committed to promoting clean, renewable energy solutions throughout the world,” said Paul Vesel, Partner at Omniwatt AG.

About Sopogy

Founded in 2002, Sopogy specializes in MicroCSP solar technologies that bring the economics of large solar energy systems to the industrial, commercial and utility sectors in a smaller, robust and more cost effective package. Please visit www.sopogy.com for more information.

About Inypsa

Founded in 1970 under the parent utilities company FECSA, today, INYPSA Informes y Proyectos S.A. is one of the leading companies in the engineering sector in Spain. Thanks to the company’s continued growth, international expansion, financial strength and the ability to combine sound management with technology, INYPSA has managed to situate itself in one of the top spots nationally. This has also led it to be listed on the Madrid and Barcelona stock exchanges since 1989. After more than thirty-five years in the industry, the company has developed extensive experience in national and international markets, with work accredited in more than sixty countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa.

About Omniwatt

Omniwatt is an emission-less, international, and decentralized power producer, applying technologies that produce energy from fuel-less resources. The company develops and finances new installations, structures existing projects, and acquires established stations.

The technology is on a trajectory to grow from less than 10 megawatts of generating capacity world-wide this year to as many as six gigawatts by 2020, according to a report issued earlier this year by Greentech Media and the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development, research groups both in the Boston area. That would pale in comparison to the projected 300 gigawatts in overall solar production by then, but would still double the current overall capacity of nearly three gigawatts -- most of which is supplied by silicon-based solar panels.

SolFocus is expected to announce a transaction Monday with Samaras Group, a renewable-energy developer in Greece. Including the latest deal, SolFocus officials say they will have contracts to install up to 20 megawatts of capacity.

The start-up, based in Mountain View, Calif., has raised $96 million in venture capital since its inception in 2006, and expects to close another $60 million to $80 million in venture financing by the end of January, said Chief Executive Mark Crowley. He said that money is being used to help increase the company's manufacturing capacity.

In all, investors have poured almost $400 million in venture capital into the concentrated photovoltaic sector over the past three years, Greentech Media estimates.

One big limitation for the technology, analysts say, is that it is best suited for locations with ample direct sunlight, like southern Europe and the American Southwest.

Conventional solar panels, by contrast, are being deployed almost everywhere. The concentrated technology isn't seen as practical for many homes and businesses, because it requires more room to set up.

The technology also has a few bugs to work out, some industry officials say. Sharp Corp., for instance, is testing concentrated photovoltaics on three continents. But the Japanese company hasn't marketed anything yet because of issues including a tendency of the machinery to be impacted by dust and getting the concentrating equipment to point directly at the sun for best results.

"It's still a few years out, but there is a spot for this," said Ron Kenedi, vice president of Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group, a Huntington Beach. Calif., unit of Sharp's U.S. subsidiary.

The technology is seen having the highest potential in supplanting conventional power sources in midsize applications, such as supplying power for a water treatment plant. "It will occupy the middle ground of 10 to 50 megawatts over time," said Eric Wesoff, a Greentech Media analyst based in Woodside, Calif.

ESTIF is involved in many issues relevant to the solar thermal industry - from lobbying for favourable legislative framework conditions to work on standards & certification. The following outlines the political programme of ESTIF. It is a slightly updated version of the programme that was agreed unanimously by ESTIF's General Assembly in 2005.

Please do not forget: The work of ESTIF is made possible mainly through the support of its members. If you want to support our work, please join ESTIF today!

4th European Solar Thermal Energy Conference (estec 2009) to take place on 25 and 26 May 2009 in Munich, Germany


Hosted by ESTIF, the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation, in co-operation with the Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft and with Intersolar 2009, the 4th European Solar Thermal Energy Conference will be held on 25 and 26 May 2009 in Munich, Germany.
Throughout the last years, the biennial estec conference has developed into the most important platform on the solar thermal energy market, promising a record attendance also for the coming year.

What: estec2009 informs a sector in transition. The conference provides the latest information on markets and trends, technology and policies in the field of hot water preparation, space heating and solar assisted cooling.

When: 25-26 May 2009 – just before Intersolar

Where: Hotel “Bayerischer Hof”, Munich, Germany

Who should attend:
• Managers, marketing and sales persons of solar thermal companies and suppliers
• Executives of national and regional energy ministries and energy agencies
• Energy market experts from private and public financing
• Marketing managers of energy utilities and energy contractors
• Technical researchers from universities and research institutes
• Market researchers

More than 600 experts will participate in estec2009 to discuss the latest trends in the industry, technological developments as well as policies promoting solar thermal energy usage. The comprehensive programme of the estec2009 conference thus aims to provide updates on policies promoting the use of solar thermal energy and to answer challenging questions such as:

• How do the renewable obligations change the market?
• Which financing options are available for the growth of small and medium-sized manufacturers?
• Where does the solar cooling stand today, and
• Who can participate in this growing market?

Receive estec2009 updates and registration information

European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) Renewable Energy House Rue d'Arlon 63-67 B-1040 Bruxelles BELGIUM Tel: +32-2-54 619 37 Fax: +32-2-54 619 39 Email: info@estif.org Web: www.estif.org

You can see on the left a photo of the researcher, Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. (Credit: Stanford University). Here is a link to the original version of this image.

Before going further, please note that “Jacobson received no funding from any interest group, company or government agency.”

Let’s start with some Jacobson comments. “‘The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful,’ Jacobson said. ‘Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels.’ He added that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies.”

So what are his recommendations? “The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife.”

Now, let’s look at why he decided that wind is the best promising source of energy. “Wind was by far the most promising, Jacobson said, owing to a better-than 99 percent reduction in carbon and air pollution emissions; the consumption of less than 3 square kilometers of land for the turbine footprints to run the entire U.S. vehicle fleet (given the fleet is composed of battery-electric vehicles); the saving of about 15,000 lives per year from premature air-pollution-related deaths from vehicle exhaust in the United States; and virtually no water consumption. By contrast, corn and cellulosic ethanol will continue to cause more than 15,000 air pollution-related deaths in the country per year, Jacobson asserted.”

Even if Jacobson’s research was done a long time before the possible bailout of the U.S. Big Three automakers, his research can give additional arguments to the opponents of this bailout. “Jacobson’s research is particularly timely in light of the growing push to develop biofuels, which he calculated to be the worst of the available alternatives. In their effort to obtain a federal bailout, the Big Three Detroit automakers are increasingly touting their efforts and programs in the biofuels realm, and federal research dollars have been supporting a growing number of biofuel-research efforts. ‘That is exactly the wrong place to be spending our money. Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels,’ Jacobson said.”

Please read the whole Stanford University document for additional details.

But for more information, this research work has been published online on December 1, 2008 as an “advance article” by the scientific journal Energy & Environmental Science under the name “Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.” Here is the beginning of the abstract. “This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85.”

The full paper, which will appear in the printed version of the journal in 2009, is available from the link above or from this direct link. Here is an excerpt from the conclusions. “In summary, the use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, solar, wave, and hydroelectric to provide electricity for BEVs [battery-electric vehicles] and HFCVs [hydrogen fuel cell vehicles] result in the most benefit and least impact among the options considered. Coal-CCS and nuclear provide less benefit with greater negative impacts. The biofuel options provide no certain benefit and result in significant negative impacts. Because sufficient clean natural resources (e.g., wind, sunlight, hot water, ocean energy, gravitational energy) exists to power all energy for the world, the results here suggest that the diversion of attention to the less efficient or non-efficient options represents an opportunity cost that delays solutions to climate and air pollution health problems.”

Sources: Louis Bergeron, Stanford University