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July 27, 2010. Driving an expensive green car. According to CNN Money the car manufacturer, General Motors has published price tags for the coming [predominantly] electrically powered Chevrolet Volt, starting at US$ 41,000. The car will hit the market somewhere at the end of 2010. 41,000 bucks is a lot of money. Perhaps the lease option sounds more interesting: down payment of US$ 2,500 and a monthly fee of US$ 350 for a 36 months lease period. Every US citizen who buys a Volt is eligible for a US$ 7,500 government handout. GM plans to build 10,000 Volts in the first production year to probe the market. We, here in Europe, will see from 2011 onwards the Opel-variety hitting the showrooms and the roads, the Ampera. That car won't be cheap either. The marketing boys are very smart in confiscating government money to bolster their own pockets and profits. However, in Europe the competition from Nissan-Renault with their full-electric Leaf may be considerable. An interesting development.

July 24, 2010. After Norway now the UK connected to Holland. An undersea high voltage DC cable connects Norway and Holland. This interconnector makes it possible to exchange hundreds of megawatts of hydroelectricity form Norway and coal- or gas generated power from the Netherlands, depending on where the demand for electricity is. Operating this cable has been so successful that a second cable is in the planning. In the mean time the UK power grid and the European mainland power grid will be connected soon via a similar cable running between Kent, UK and the Maasvlakte, The Netherlands. By this high-voltage (450 kV DC) cable, large quantities of UK and European will be exchanged. This very important since in the short run the UK faces a shortage of electricity because of aging and phasing out of coal-fired and nuclear power plants while in the long run the giant buildup of wind farms along the British coasts will lead to excess peak electricity that needs to be transported to customers on the European mainland. The last 22 km of the cable-in-progress has now reached the Dutch shores. The interconnector is scheduled to become operational in the fourth quarter of 2010. Here is a press communication (in English).

This is an impressive cable: voltage: ± 450 kV DC, capacity: 1,000 MW, mass: 44 kg / metre (each of the twin cables), used copper wire: 1,430 mm2; length: at sea 250 km, on land 9 km.

July 19, 2010. A fridge can be cool in energy use. The graph on the left shows the daily power consumption over the last four months (April 1 through yesterday, July 18) of my refrigerator. This fridge is a bottom-mount Liebherr type (230 litres fresh food and 91 litres 4-star freezer) with an A++ energy label (I don't like to waste energy, can you imagine?). The factory rates this fridge at 208 kWh/year. That's what the manufactuirer says. Let's measure. I am logging the electrcity consumption with my Plugwise logger. In the period between April 1 and now the total power consumption was 48 kWh. In the cool months of April and May daily use was 0.4 kWh. The weather improved in June and currently we enjoy hot muggy weather typical for the season. Power consumption is up 50%. The energy use equals the power production of three of my original Sunpower 95 Wp solar panels. This is an incredibly energy-efficient fridge. It keeps all the food and my beer perfectly cool (I think I am going to have one!).

July 6, 2010. British Gas to donate solar panels to British schools. British Gas will provide solar panels worth £15 million to 750 schools in the UK. Each school will be able to generate its own free, green electricity, cutting as much as 20% off its annual electricity bill. Source: : SolarBuzz

July 3, 2010. Japan donates 10 million dollars for Galapagos solar energy. AFP reported yesterday that Japan has donated 10 million dollars to Ecuador to help fund a solar energy project in the Galapagos Islands, a UN-designated World Heritage site, Ecuador's Electricity Ministry said Friday.

An agreement between Quito and the Japan International Cooperation System Company will help start a plan to introduce "clean energy with solar generation systems to be located on Baltra Island," one of 13 islands that form the archipelago, the ministry said in a statement. The project, part of a larger push for cooperation between the governments of Japan and Ecuador, aims to "mitigate the effects of global warming, reducing the emission of greenhouse gases," the statement added. According to the ministry, the money will be use to buy equipment, facilities and "a photovoltaic system."

The Galapagos were declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO some three decades ago in acknowledgement of the area's rich flora and fauna both on land and in the surrounding sea

July 3, 2010. Italy surpasses Spain. According to a report in Renewable Energy World.com installation of solar photovoltaic power in Italy amounted to 720 MWp in 2009. In 2008, 350 MWp was installed, and in the current year a record amount of 1,500 MWp is expected. This is quite some solar power, e.g., the equivalent of the single Dutch nucear power station (Borssele, 540 MW). Keeping into mind load differences ( a solar power station does not produce much at night), 1,500 MWp produces in Italy on a yearly basis as much power as a medium-sized Borssele-type nuclear power station. Without all the disadvantages of a nuclear power station lower up-front and better manageable investments, no harmful radioactive waste, no security hazards. Italy is currently number two in the wordl market of installed solar panels, after Germany and before California, Spain, Czechia and Belgium.

June 21, 2010. Ten year solar panels on the roof. My original six Sunpower Shell 95Wp polycrystalline silicon were installed on the oof of my home on June 21, 2000. These panels have together produced 4.041 kWh ( a single Dutch standard family consumes 3,500 kWh/yr). At a net cost of euro 3.071, each kilowatt hour has cost me about 76 eurocents. Payback period is therefore equal to 40 years. That's what it was in 2000. Today, things are slightly different. There is feed-in (nonexistent in 2000) and if you are extremely lucky you may even get some money from the government. Module prices have gone down. Do lawn mowers, coffee machines and sofas pay back? No, one purchases these goods just for necessity, comfort or fun. I bought my panels to save the environment. The payback was a secondary consideration. In the period 2000-2009 my solar system has grown from the original 575 Wp to 2,900 Wp today. My electricity bill is 10 euros per month. On a sunny day like today, supergreen electricity is produced by the kilowatt, noiseless, odorless, silent and happy. Solar power is a beautiful thing.

June 19, 2010. The European Solar Decathlon opened yesterday in Madrid, Spain. Visitors are welcome in the Solar Village with 17 dwellings constructed in the big park between the Royal Palace and the Manzanares river (the Campo del Moro). Participating teams are from all over the world. The European Solar decathlon is organized according to the US Solar Decathlon, held in Washington DC in 2002, 2005, 2007, and 2009. The designs are judged on 10 features (hence the name 'decathlon, like the Olympic event). Experience the solar home yourself on the official web site SD Europe, because some very exciting dwellings are on dsiplay in Madrid (click on Nueva Galeria de Fotos).

June 18, 2010. Solar power in Abu Dhabi. Under the umbrella of the Masdar project a 100 MW CSP power station is going to be constructed by Abengoa Solar and Total. Groundbreaking will be around mid-2010 and the power station will become operational in 2012. This project is the first of its kind in the Middle-East where oil is abundant and cheaper than water. A sign on the wall? Source: SolarBuzz

June 6, 2010. Maintenance.
2001: new
201: maintenance

People often ask me whether a PV panel needs maintenance. Not really. There may be buildup of algae or green smudgy stuff at the lower edge of the panels, but that's it. Wat may happen is that the roof needs maintenance. Two of my veteran PV panels (installed in 2001) are positioned on the roof of the dormer facing my garden. Last winter the roofing of that dormer started to leak and needs to be replaced. To do that, the PV panels must be taken off and reinstalled afterwards. So today I went up the roof and de-installed the PV panels. I took special care to label the DC-wiring to prevent trouble during the reinstallation. The disconnection will last one week. In their lifespan the two panels involved have produced together 1.450 kWh of super green electrity. Imagine!

May 23, 2010. All time high? Last week was a perfect week for solar energy aficionados: plenty of sunshine combined with crisp northerly breezes that provide perfect cooling of the panels. I had to dive deep into my production spreadsheets to find a week with even better production data. First, because I am addicted to installing additional solar panels every now and then, the combined production of all my solar panels is not a good measure. Instead, I base all comparative stuff on my six 95 Wp faithful SunPower panels which I bought in 2000 and kept under monitoring all the time. In the spreadsheets two weeks appear in which production has been higher than last week's 16.6 kWh. The oldest was week 22 of the memorable year, 2003. That week ticked 17.8 kWh. The best week ever was week 17 in 2006 (19.9 kWh). In my experience, the end of May, beginning of June is the most exciting time for solar panel owners, in terms of overall production.

May 8, 2010 Solar Open Days. Countrywide, about 60 private owners of PV systems and solar thermal units had opened the doors of their homes welcoming anybody interested in solar energy. I went today to a hamlet named Hem (province of North-Holland, close to the city of Hoorn). Ruud Vriend owns a small company (ZonZo) that installs solar panels. He has recently installed very special "panels" on the roof of his own home: 18 Solyndra units. Each unit (173 Wp) consists of a rack with 40 glass tubes with inside a thin-film PV cylinder. These racks are very easy to install and there is no need of additional weights to prevent the panels from being blown away (the north of Holland is a perfect place for windmills). One does not have to aim the units towards the sun, and this kind of system is quite useful in a climate like ours with often a cloudy or partially covered sky. A white foil underneath the construction reflects sunlight towards the underside of the cylinders. This enhances the yield. The 3kWp system was producing over 1,000 Watts at 2.00 pm which is suprisingly good given the cloudy and somewhat rainy day. Ruud's Solyndras are connected to one 3 kW Fronius inverter (six parallel strings of 3 racks each). On this great Open Day Ruud had a home full of interested people and he took great effort to answer all questions about installation, life expectancy, yield, grants and so forth. Well done, Ruud !

The PV installatie at Hem: 18 Solyndra units of each 173 Wp
Connections between Solyndra units. green=earth, black=power
Ruud Vriend (yellow shirt) with a visitor on the roof

April 19, 2010. Nukes or no nukes? Like in the UK, for some time a big media blitz is raging in the Low Countries with respect to nuclear power stations. Big Industry and Big Politics push nuclear power. Common sense tells us that nuclear power is economical suicide and a drag for the tax payers. The State will have to guarantee bank loans to finance the gadgets, while they must bail out the nuclear power companies when something goes wrong, and the State and their descendants will be responsible for 150,000 years for the nuclear waste. Because of the lengthy licensing and construction period any nuclear power station will take 15 years to build. In the mean time, solar power will have reached grid parity in 2015 or 2018. This means that nuclear power will never be economically feasible, except when a dictator comes to power, or when solar panels and enerfgy saving would be outlawed.

April 18, 2010. Bonanza-week. The continued spread of volcanic ash from Iceland across northestern Europe indicates a stable weather pattern. In the case of my solar panels this is my favorite weather type: cool, dry and clear skies, lots of sunshine. The cool weather keeps the temperature of the solar panels down which is favorable for a high photon-to-electricity conversion efficiency. The sunshine brings the masses of energetic photons that keep the voltage up in the solar cells and inverters humming. I have to go back in my logfiles as far as the last week of April, 2006 to see record power generated on the original six SunPower solar panels (the panels pictured on the home page). There are more panels now on the roof of my dwelling than in 2006, so the SunPower subsystem acts as a stable reference. Last week the original 6 panels produced 16.2 kWh. The record of 2006 stands at a whopping 19.9 kWh. All PV panels together produced last week 61 kWh, in other words plenty of electricity and a lot more than consumption .The excess production is sold back at retail prices to the electric utility company.

April 13, 2010. British smoke, Dutch pollution. I read a curious report today of research by TNO where air pollution in the Netherlands has its origins. As it turns out, a considerable contribution to air pollution in the Low Countries is generated by British coal fired power stations: Drax (3870 MW) at Selby, Aberthaw (1455 MW) in Wales, and Kingsnorth (1940 MW) in Kent. Together these power generators contribute more to pollution in Holland than all power stations in Holland combined! (press report by TNO)

April 4, 2010. Media blitz to generate support among the Dutch population in favor of nuclear energy. In the aftermath of the astounding 180 degrees policy change of the (demissionary) minister for Economic Affairs, away from renewable energy, some Dutch tv channels have run items in their newschannels in an effort to open a new discussion about nuclear energy. It is a public secret that, similar to the situation in the UK, big industry and electricity companies in association with rightist politicians try to push through nuclear energy in the Low Countries. Their arguments are well known: reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, energy security, economics of scale, profits. A new argument is the possibility currently being investigated at nuclear physics departments of several universities to reduce the amount radioactive waste by co-'burning' it in nuclear power stations or through breeding technology. One tv message was jubilant about the prospect of reducing the decay period from 150,000 yearts to, say, 1,000 years. Indeed, if the promise would work, 10 centuries would be 99% shorter than 1.500 centuries and on the geophysical time scale indeed much more favorable for 'temporarily' storing all the nasty waste anywhere underground. However 1,000 years is way too much in terms of the human time scale. How many wars have been fought the last 1,000 years, and how many are to follow in the 1,000 years ahead of us?

March 30, 2010. Dutch for minister for Economic Affairs admits secret admiration for nuclear energy. In an interview in a national newspaper, ms Maria van der Hoeven, the Dutch minister for Economic Affairs expresses her personal opinion that renewable energy is too expensive for the Netherlands, that she thinks that the German feed-in system does not work and that nuclear energy is the only viable option for economic growth combined with CO2 reduction. This opinion reflects the general mood in the previous and the current Balkenende administration that renewable energy should be a luxury that the Dutch government simply does not want to afford. On the other hand the minister has promoted moderately generous subsidies for wind energy and an extremely modest subsidy for solar energy. Dutch economic policy has been palgued for over half a century of ever-changing moods, and as a consequence the once promising wind energy industry has completely disappeared, as has solar energy industry. Result of all foot-dragging is that in 2009, 40 times less solar panels has been installed compared with Flanders, and 500 times less compared with Germany. The political air over the Low Countries is full of fossil and nuclear fuel smells.

March 23, 2010. Germans likely to beat the Brits. Germany might add more than 5,000 MWp of photovoltaic capacity this year, or nearly double the previous record of 3,000 MWp that was installed in 2009, a senior German government official said on Thursday. Karin Freier, head of the Environment Ministry's solar energy department, said planned cuts of 16 percent in state subsidies that will take effect in July were fuelling the boom as investors rush to beat the deadline. Germany is the world's photovoltaics leader with about 9,000 megawatts installed at the end of 2009 and some 58,000 jobs created in the last decade. Source: Reuters

March 4, 2010. Sharp expects sharp increase of sales of PV in the UK. Until now, most of the PV panels manufactured by Sharp in the UK were exported to other countries in Europe. When the new ‘feed-in tariff’ (FIT) becomes into effect, Sharp expects sales of PV panels in the UK to go up sharply. Currently, the installed base in the UK is 28 MWp. According to Sharp, this number may increase to an estimated 250 MWp by 2011 (100,000 homes supplied). Source: greenwisebusiness.

Comment: The insolation map for the British islands gives a good idea for the expected yield of solar panels in the UK. For comparison, with an average insolation in Holland of 1350 hr/year, a 200 Wp PV panel will produce there 160 kWh/yr. The same panel installed on a roof in, let's say Devonshire, may yield 20% more power, while in Scotland the yearly production can be 15% less than in Holland.

February 17, 2010. Obama imprisons US taxpayer by guaranteeing US$ 8,5 billion in loans to construct two additional units to the existing nuclear power station Plant Vogtle (GA) run by Georgia Power. Not a single US nuclear power plant has ever been built in time and without exceeding construction costs. The financial risk is phenomenal, and is now safely placed on the shoulders of the US tax payers. A similar scheme has been tinkered by the French government in guaranteeing loans to Areva for the construction of the infamous Finnish nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto. Now the Americans will face a similar situation as the French: new design, cost overruns, safety hazards, construction overruns, uncertain future. Georgia Power and its bankers are financially safe: in case of mounting problems or perhaps bankrupcy the US Treasury will bail them out. Poor Jimmy-the-taxpayer he has to cough up the losses (and suffer the electricity rate hikes). On top of this somebody must come up with a suitable place to dump the radioactive waste that will last a couple of hundred centuries. The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository facility in Nevada has been rejected by ..... Obama (9 billion taxpayer's money down the drain), and so it goes on and on (in Germany the interim radioactive waste repository in a salt mine near Gorleben has to be emptied at a cost of several billion Euros because the repository started leaking). Nuclear power is an extremely expensive hobby for big industrialists and big financiers. Now it seems also an extremely expensive hobby sponsored by the US people. Who's next?

February 9, 2010. One single day of sunshine and the collector of the solar thermal unit magaged to collect sufficient heat to push the temperature of the water in the 90-litrer storage vessel from 9 to 39 degrees Celsius. Free hot water in February! Tonight I can shower with 90 litres of 39-degree hot water. If my shower runs out of hot water, the cv installation will supply the additional hot running water. I am showing these pictures for several reasons: 1) Already early in February, the sun is strong enough at 52 degrees Northern latitude to heat water up to this temperature, even at an outside temperature of -4 Celsius, 2) A solar heater is therefore extremely efficient, 3) In my country, the solar thermal unit is the Cinderella of the renewable energy: she is nice, silent, servant, oh, so efficient, and nobody cares about her and chases the sexy PV panels, 3) A solar thermal unit, even in Holland (and the UK for that matter) is a first class investment. 4) No use of fossil fuels. Electricity consumed by the circulation pump is supplied by my solar apnels (1 kWh/week). .

February 3, 2010. Feed-in for PV in the UK, finally. The U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) plans to roll out a feed-in tariff (FIT) for solar energy projects and other forms of renewable energy. The FIT also includes what the DECC says is the world's first incentive for renewable energy heating technologies. PV feed-in tariffs will begin April 1, and the renewable heat incentive will be implemented on April 1, 2011.

Tariff levels vary according to technology and program year. A PV retrofit project under 4 kW, for instance, will receive 41.3 pence (p)/kWh from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011. A PV system between 100 kW and 5 MW, in contrast, will receive 29.3 p/kWh during the same time period. All PV FITs carry a 25-year lifetime. The full table describing FIT levels and timetables is available here.

The FIT for solar thermal projects providing heat varies from 17 p/kWh for installations between 20 kW and 100 kW to 18 p/kWh for installations up to 20 kW - both over a 20-year lifetime.

According to the DECC, a typical 2.5 kW well-sited solar PV installation could offer a homeowner a reward of up to 900 British pounds and save him or her 140 British pounds per year on his or her electricity bill. Source U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change

January 31, 2010. Swinging up, babe. The graph on the left is a 'decorated' output power graph of my PV system, past month. The yellow dots indicate peak output moments. When you connect the peaks the trend is inescapable: up, baby, up! This is exactly what's going on this time of the year, snow and ice or no snow and ice: the sun rises earlier, sets later, arches higher above the horizon, and the solar radiation itself becomes more intense. Add all these factors voilà, it translates into a steady higher amount of kilowatt hours produced by the solar panels.

Owning solar panels, measuring output and creating graphs and blogs is one thing, the same amount of joy arrives when the yearly bill of the electrcity utility company drops onto the doormat. Solar power is literally rewarding!

January 20, 2010. The year we reached grid parity. Under grid parity the situation exists that electricity produced by solar panels is equally priced as electricity bought from the utility company. Last year PV has become a lot more affordable, even without those mysterious government grants that are handed out in my country in a kind of tombola. A turnkey PV system of, let's say 3,995 Wp costs € 14,000 at the moment. Production with such a system at these northern latitudes is 3,200 kWh/yr. The utility company charges 22 eurocents for each kWh, which in turn leads to a return on investment of some 5 % (tax free). In other words, given the current economical situation such an investment is not a bad deal at all. And if you are a lucky guy you may win some cute government handout as well.

Let's assume now a few things:

Amazing! This 22 cents/kWh is the same as what we pay today in this country for household electricity. In other words: grid parity is already here. You pay as if you have a 10-year fixed contract for guaranteed CO2 emission free electricity!

December 31, 2009. Panels produced premium power. Last year my PV panels performed even better than the top year 2008. Lots of sunshine, high yield. The SunPower panels produced in 2009 an astonishing 436.9 kWh of electricity. Imagine the following. In June, 2000, the utility power company installed the six original modest Shell SunPower panels, each rated at 95 Wp. Later, some new panels were added and some old taken off, but the original SunPower panels are still there. The accumulated production 2000-2009 has been 3,838 kWh. No fossil fuels have been burned and carbon dioxide released than that necessary or the production and installation of these panels. 3,838 kWh is more than the average annual electrical power consumption in the Dutch Joe Average household (3,550 kWh). My household takes at least two years to gobble up so much electricity. PV derived electricity thus significantly depresses the utility electricity bill. For ever. A comforting thought!

In the year 2000 solar panels were more expensive with government subsidy than today without subsidy! How wonderful. Should I have been better off waiting ten years? In that case I should have postponed purchasing a pc, a flatscreen tv or a cellular phone.

In 2009 the SunPower panels produced 436,9 kWh. As each of these panels is rated 95 Wp, performance is 436,9/(6*95) =766 kWh per kWp installed power over 2009. The long term average is 3838.1/6*95/9,5 = 709 kWh per kWp installed power. As it stands, 2009 has been an above-average year. This makes me happy. Champaign! I wish everybody a sunny 2010.

December 30, 2009. Visitors from all over the world. Given the numbers of visitors (100,000 per annum; 85% Dutch, 15% other nations) solar energy for-the-home is in the focus of attention of a lot of folks. Pure curiosity induced me to compile a global map showing all the places where my visitors live (that is, the location of the IP-addresses of their ISPs). The warm attention from all over the globe is for me a big stimulus to continue updating this site in 2010 with news and views on renewable energy, specifically the solar stuff.

December 20, 2009. Climate soldiers take over all power. Today, suddenly all streets, parks and places in The Netherlands were flooded
with armies of thousands of white guards. These guys, dressed in white as a symbol for an overall fresh approach, have been dropped to ensure that the Dutch obey climate rules. These two alert white guards are posting close to my home to guard my solar panels (arrow). Production of the solar panels was nil today, but these guys say they will disappear when good weather has been re-established, I assume soon after the solar solstice, tomorrow.

December 9, 2009. COBRA is coming. rnment policy in 2009. The European Commission has awarded a subsidy to COBRA, the undersea electricity cable to be installed on the seabed between the Netherlands and Denmark. The purpose of the subsidy is to promote economic progress and sustainable development in Europe. TenneT and its Danish counterpart Energinet.dk submitted a joint subsidy application for the development and installation of the new electricity interconnector. The European Commission is allocating approx. EUR 85 million in subsidies to the project. Source: TenneT

November 24, 2009. No change in government policy in 2009. The Dutch minister of Economic Affairs wrote a letter today to the House of Representatives in which she explains official government policy in support of renewable energy in 2009 and the continuation of that policy in 2010. As it appears not all allocated money has been spent in 2009. Reason is that nobody felt stimulated and secure enough to invest on the current conditions in big wind energy projects. Applications by private persons for solar energy were so numerous and simultaneously funds so scarce that a lottery was organized to select the happy few. This is the official policy in The Netherlands with respect to renewable energy: a tombola, a lottery! For 2010 the situation remains simple: continuation of current policy isannounced, and leftover money from 2009 is simply brushed forward into 2010. Copenhagen or no Copenhagen, government policy won't change. The minster wrote proudly that her policy is very solid. It needs to be seen whether this "solid" shoveling forward of money will lead to 20% renewable energy in 2010. Currently renewable energy stands at a paltry 3.5%, and is actually not growing very fast.

November 18, 2009. Shell gets OK to inject CO2 at the Barendrecht location. In spite of opposition by the city council and citizens of the city of Barendrecht, ms Cramer (Minister for the Environment), decided to allow the Shell company to start a CCS project at their favored Brendrecht location. Shell plans to inject carbon dioxide from their Pernis refinery >2,000 meters deep into the subsoil. Opponents of CCS (like me) point out that in the geological time frame there is no such a thing as stable earth layers. CO2 injected in the earth will eventually escape, sooner or later. What we really need to avert a climate disaster is a moratorium on carbon-containing fuels right away. CCS is a costly, dead end (60 million Euro's of taxpayer's money down the pipe). If Shell really believes in CCS they should start funding the entire experiment from their own big pockets.

The 2006-2009 archive for Breaking News can be found here

The 2001-2006 archive for Breaking News can be found here