Home › Archive for Solar Panel Technology › Page 4

Solar Panel Technology

Floating Solar Power in Lithuania

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Floating Solar Power in Lithuania is the next big thing as a grant has been given for a floating solar photovoltaic power plant to be built alongside the 900MW Kruonis hydroelectric plant. 

Floating Solar Power in Lithuania

Floating Solar Power in Lithuania – this will be the first floating solar power plant in the Baltics and is an exciting step in the right direction for the small country. The Lithuanian Business Support Agency (LSBA) granted €235,000 (~$370k AUD) for construction of an experimental floating solar photovoltaic power plant at the 900-megawatt (MW) Kruonis hydroelectric plant in Lithuania. 

“The floating solar power plant at Kruonis is one of the ideas that could help Lithuania to become an international leader in renewable energy solutions,” said Darius Maikstenas, chairman and CEO of LEG.

Floating Solar Power in Lithuania
Floating Solar Power in Lithuania (source: Worldbank.org)

Renewable Energy in Lithuania represented 27.9% of the country’s overall electricity in 2016. With wind capacity of 178 MW installed in 2016 and average power usage of 1.1 GW, Lithuania was the EU member state with the highest level of new wind capacity installed in 2016 (relative to its power consumption).

According to an article on DW.com, over 65% of the current existing floating solar in the EU is located within the UK, with the Netherlands in second place. 

A world bank report entitled “Where Sun Meets Water” from November last year shows that our current floating solar capacity is 1.1GW – which could grow to up to 400GW if things go in the right direction. 

“Floating solar technology has huge advantages for countries where land is at a premium or where electricity grids are weak,” said Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director for Energy and Extractives at the World Bank. “Governments and investors are waking up to these advantages, and we are starting to see interest from a wide range of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”

If you want to read the report please click here to download: Where Sun Meets Water: Floating Solar Market Report (PDF)

If you’re interested in the technology, we have written plenty more about floating solar power here! 

Read More Solar News:

Bifacial solar panels for commercial solar.

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Vicinity Centres, who will provide 31MW of clean energy to 22 shopping centres and their retailers by the end of the year, is trialling bifacial solar panels to see how that will affect their choices for stage 3 of Vicinity’s solar program.

Bifacial solar panels for commercial solar.

According to an article in PV Magazine, the first bifacial panels were installed at Kurralta Central Shopping Centre to get a better yield from their available roof space. Initial tests showed 6-8% to 16-18% increased output (they tried a bunch of different locations and coatings on the roof to maximise output). 

 “It’s early days,” said Renae Sambrooks, General Manager of Energy and Commercial Management for Vicinity, “but results from Kurralta made us feel confident enough to install bifacials in three more centres.

“Over the next few months results of those trials will help us make decisions around our Stage 3 solar program,” she said in comments quoted in PV Magazine.

We’ve reported fairly comprehensively about Vicinity Centres and solar investment in the past – we’re also taken a look at the Stockland shopping centres and their commercial solar investment.

“As of today,” Sambrooks said, “we’ve produced 2.5MWh of clean energy from 13MW of installed capacity and we’re in the process of constructing the next 18 MW, which will be completed by the end of 2019.”

There are a few other bifacial solar panels available:

An article in Green Tech Media notes that the bifacial PERC modules can boost performance by a staggering 27%. 

The Bifacial Solar Panels at Kurralta are one of the first steps Vicinity Centres are making to end up with their 31MW of renewable energy output – Sambrooks discussed the long term goal:

“Our vision was to create intelligent energy destinations. We’re not just whacking solar panels on roofs. It’s a long-term investment and we’re always thinking how we can sweat the solar installations and all our other energy initiatives to make a return.”

Still very early days, so we’ll keep you updated how they go with the testing and what Vicinity decide to do with regards to commercial solar panels.

Read More Solar News:

Solar glass shopping centre – Vicinity Centres/ClearVue.

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Australia’s largest retail landlord, Vicinity Centres, has partnered with innovative solar glass company ClearVue Technology to install transparent solar panels (solar glass) to help their shopping centre’s environmental footprint and potentially save money on energy.

Solar Glass – Vicinity Centres partner with ClearVue 

We’ve written about ClearVue Technology quite a few times on this website, from their solar bus shelters to commercial solar windows, the company have been working hard bringing their integrated clear glass solar panel to market in Australia and overseas.

The company have now partnered with Vicinity Centres to install solar glass in its Warwick Grove shopping centre atrium entry. The solar glass atrium has 26 solar cells inbuilt, which generate up to 1MW. It also works as insulation – with materials inside the window deflecting energy to small PV cells at the edge of the screen. This solar window tech is something we’ve been very excited about for a long time so it it’s amazing to watch it enjoying some real world application! 

According to ClearVue, this is the first commercial installation of fully transparent solar cell glass in the entire world. The solar atrium will power lighting, outside signage, a digital display screen within the centre, and it’ll send any excess energy to battery storage at night. So it’s a pretty far cry from actually powering the shopping centre, but that’s not really the point right now. 

“While other products exist, these are typically optically distorted or coloured, or they are not yet commercially available and are still in the research and pre-commercialisation stages,” a ClearVue spokesman said in quotes to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Solar Glass - Vicinity and ClearVue Technologies (source: clearvuepv.com)
Solar Glass – Vicinity and ClearVue Technologies (source: clearvuepv.com)

The Vicinity Centres general manager for shopping centre management, Justin Mills, was also very excited about the new installation:

“(the solar atrium) reinvents the way we harvest renewable energy, reduces our exposure to the volatile energy market and our carbon footprint – a key focus for Vicinity.

“We’re excited to be trialling such innovative, leading-edge technology and embarking on a global-first in solar energy application.” he continued.

If you’d like to read more about solar power installed at shopping centres, take a look at the Stockland Solar Power Rollout – which will see 12.3MW installed across 10 shopping centres in Australia.

You can also read about Vicinity Centres’ solar project – which is the investment of $28m to install 11.2MW of solar power in five shopping centres.

According to Smallcaps, ClearVue Technologies have also signed a a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Grafsol General Trading for exclusive distribution rights in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. 

“This MoU represents a great opportunity for ClearVue to break into the Middle Eastern region,” said Victor Rosenberg, executive chairman of ClearVue Technologies.

We’ll report more about ClearVue in the middle east next week! 

Have a great weekend.

Read More Solar News:

GAF Energy to sell residential solar.

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Standard Industries has announced it will launch a rooftop solar company named GAF Energy in the US – they are already the world’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer.

GAF Energy Rooftop Solar

GAF Energy Decotech Rooftop Solar
GAF Energy Decotech Rooftop Solar (source: standardindustries.com/solar)

As per a post on the Standard Industries website, the new company, GAF Energy, will work together with GAF to offer their DecoTech® solar roofing solution to “everyday consumers”

It’s an interesting niche to walk into – GAF’s new product offering has some competitors in the PV integrated roof tiling space, such as the Tesla Solar Roof, Tractile Solar Roof Tiles, Monier Solartile, or Sonnen/Bristile’s Solartile  These are all fantastic products but fairly expensive at this point in time – hopefully having more competition in the market leads to more competitive prices and more powerful roofs.

“GAF Energy capitalizes on the historic challenges facing the rooftop solar industry – acquisition and installation costs – and turns them into demonstrable strengths – making it easy for customers to say ‘yes’ to solar rooftops,” said Martin DeBono, President of GAF Energy. “Our product is smart, integrated and economical, and we hope it will mark a fundamental shift in rooftop solar adoption around the world.”

Rooftop solar in America is a lot less developed than in Australia – according to Renew Economy, only 3% of USA homes had solar panels installed in 2017 – in stark comparison to Australia’s 30%. As such there’s plenty of opportunity if the product and price is right, and the governments get on board to help. Will integrated solar roof tiles be the way forwards in the future for domestic solar? We’ll soon find out. In any case, it’s exciting to see 

For more information about GAF, visit www.gaf.energy. If you’d like to read the press release about launch of the company and new DecoTech solar roof, please click here. 

It shouldn’t be long before we have some more information about how these solar roofs are performing, and as the results trickle in we will be creating a solar roof tile comparison document for anyone interested in integrating solar panels into their roof. Please watch this space! Exciting days ahead for rooftop solar.

Read More Solar News:

REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The European based REC Group have announced that they have upgraded their product warranty from 10 to 20 years – and they’ve also reduced the power degradation of the REC TwinPeak and REC N-Peak high performance panels.

REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty

The REC Group was founded in Norway in 1996 – their panels are made in Singapore and the Group is owned by a Chinese corporation, so it truly is a global company.

“REC’s new warranty, which now ranks as one of the best in the industry, is a testament to our consistent excellent product and performance quality,” says Cemil Seber, Vice President Global Marketing & Product Management at REC Group. “The extended warranty terms for REC Solar Professionals further demonstrate our strong commitment to building and maintaining long-term alliances with our partners who install and maintain installations with our panels around the world.”

According to the news release about the new warranty, REC Group has by far the lowest claims rate in the industry, with “well below 100ppm”. 

In addition to these new terms, the company are also offering an extra 5 year product warranty for installations done by REC-certified ‘Solar Professionals’ – which results in an industry-leading 25 year warranty. REC Solar Professionals are trained by the company to “ensure best practice”. 

If this interests you and you want to find an REC certified Solar Professional in Australia please click here to use REC’s ‘find installer’ tool. 

REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty
REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty (source: recgroup.com)

REC Group employ 2,000 people across the globe and are able to produce 1.5GW of solar panels every year – so it’s great to see such a massive company take ownership of their solar panel technology and products and stand by them! 

For further information please contact:
Agnieszka Schulze
Head of Global PR, REC
Tel.: +49 89 54 04 67 225
E-mail: [email protected]

Read More Solar News: