Solar panel

Solar panels can power the world

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Reuters / Jorge Cabrera

An MIT report has found that regular solar panels like the ones used today could supply much of the world with power. They believe terawatts of energy could be produced by 2050 and say that investment, not technology, could be the biggest hurdle.

The world’s population currently consumes 15 terawatts of power from various energy sources, according to the Economist. Despite making up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans use 26 percent of the world’s power.

The publication, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that no revolution in solar energy needs to take place, as scientists already have everything they need to harness the energy of the sun and turn it into electricity, though minor tweaks may help to improve efficiency.

The US, for example, generates less than 1 percent of its energy from solar power. This is something the researchers are looking to change.

 

“Our objective has been to assess solar energy’s current and potential competitive position and to identify changes in US government policies that could more efficiently and effectively support its massive deployment over the long-term, which we view as necessary,” Robert Armstrong, the director of MIT Energy Initiative, said in a statement.

The Topaz solar farm in California went online at the end of 2014. It generates 500 megawatts of energy, which is enough energy to power at least 160,000 homes. A terawatt is 1 million megawatts of energy.

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The company behind the project, First Solar, uses 9 million solar panels to generate electricity. Crucially, it also eliminates over 350,000 tons of CO2 every year, Techspot reports.

“Solar electricity generation is one of very few low-carbon energy technologies with the potential to grow to very large scale. As a consequence, massive expansion of global solar generating capacity to multi-terawatt scale is very likely an essential component of a work-able strategy to mitigate climate change risk,” the MIT report said.

The study has emphasized the need for more research at a federal level, as well as more development support to help to advance low cost and large scale electricity storage technologies.

Battery technology is expected to be a crucial part of the future development of solar power energy, as the batteries can be used to store electricity during peak production and then dispense it at times when there is no sunshine.

The CEO of Tesla industries, Elon Musk, has been a big advocate of trying to develop better batteries that could help to store electricity.

“Our goal here is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy,” Musk said on April 30, Bloomberg reported. “We’re talking at the terawatt scale. The goal is the complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.”

Read moreSolar energy now same price as conventional power in Germany, Italy, Spain – report

The ability to get funding is out there. For example, the International Monetary Fund has calculated that the fossil fuel industries are receiving $5.3 trillion a year in subsidies, which is the equivalent to $10 million every minute. This is a figure that those looking to promote solar power can only dream of.

The authors of the MIT publication believe that the production of solar power will only increase if carbon dioxide emissions become costly. They admit this is unlikely to happen without a drastic rethink in US government policy.

“The main goal of US solar policy should be to build the foundation for a massive scale-up of solar generation over the next few decades,” the report said.

The researchers point to the example of Germany as a standout in pursuing green energy. In 1991, Berlin adopted a Feed-in Tariff scheme which was a rebate scheme to encourage the production of low carbon source energy.

The scheme was so successful that by 2013 Germany was producing 45 percent of solar energy in the EU, and 27 percent of solar energy around the globe, despite the fact that the country is not renowned for having a year-round sunny climate.

New Solar Battery Could Generate Cheaper Clean Energy

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A new kind of solar cell could store electrical energy without any help from traditional batteries, according to a new study.

Researchers at Ohio State University, in Columbus, have developed what they’re calling the world’s first solar battery — a hybrid device that combines the energy-capturing abilities of a solar cell with the energy-storing capabilities of a battery.

The new cell could lower the cost of harvesting renewable energy from the sun by as much as 25 percent, according to the researchers. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]
The key to the device’s success is a mesh solar panel that allows both sunlight and air to enter the cell. This porous material represents a departure from the solid semiconductor materials typically used to make solar cells. Allowing both light and oxygen into the cell enables the chemical reactions that typically occur inside a battery to occur within the solar cell itself.

“The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy,” lead researcher Yiying Wu, a professor of chemistry at Ohio State, said in a statement. “We’ve integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost.”

But this innovative device can do more than just lower the cost of renewable energy, Wu said. It can also help solve a problem that’s been plaguing scientists for years: how to store energy from the sun without losing a lot of that energyin the process.

A loss of electricity naturally occurs within any solar cell when the electrons released by the cell’s semiconductor materials travel outside the cell and into a battery. Only about 80 percent of the electrons produced by solar cells successfully complete this journey. But the new solar cell is designed to ensure that 100 percent of the electrons captured find their way into a battery, the researchers said.

This high efficiency is possible because the conversion of sunlight to electric current isn’t happening inside the solar cell before being transferred to the battery. Since the battery is located inside the cell, electrons are not able to escape, the researchers said.

The hybrid solar cell-battery is made up of three electrodes, or materials that conduct electricity. The first electrode is the mesh solar panel (which is really a collection of solar cells), the second electrode is made of a thin sheet of porous carbon and the third electrode is a sheet of lithium metal. Between these three electrodes is an electrolyte that can shuttle charges back and forth.

When the battery is in use — a phase known as “discharge” — the lithium metal and porous carbon electrodes are connected to an external circuit. Lithium ions can then travel to the carbon electrode and form lithium peroxide. This chemical process drives an external electrical current, Wu told Live Science in an email.

To recharge the solar battery, light hits the mesh panel and generates electron-hole pairs, which can carry an electrical charge. One of the most important features of the device is that it uses added molecules, known as redox shuttle additives, to transfer these charges from the mesh solar panel to the lithium electrode, where they cause the lithium peroxide to decompose into oxygen and lithium ions.

The oxygen is released out of the cell, but the lithium ions, as well as electrical charges, are stored inside the battery in the lithium electrode, Wu said.

“Basically, it’s a breathing battery,” he said. “It breathes in air when it discharges, and breathes out when it charges.”

The researchers are still experimenting with other ways to improve the design of their solar battery, a project that is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Japanese firm to supply solar energy from Moon to Earth.

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A Japanese firm has proposed an out-of-this-world solution to our planet’s power woes – building a solar panel array around the Moon’s equator and sending the electricity it collects back to Earth.

Moon energy

The project called LUNA RING is developed by construction firm Shimizu Corporation. According to the firm, such a system would be capable of sending 13,000 terawatts of power back to Earth and that construction could begin on the project as early as 2035, Phys.org reported.

To ensure continuous generation of power, an array of

solar cells will extend like a belt along the entire 11,000km

lunar equator.

This belt will be built in width from a few kilometres to 400km, the company said on its website.

Robots will play a vital role in construction on the lunar surface. They will be tele-operated 24 hours a day from the Earth.

The concrete would be covered with solar panels, which

would be connected via cables to microwave and laser

transmission stations.

The energy beams sent from the Moon would be directed at receiving stations on Earth, allowing for a round-the-clock source of energy as there are no clouds or other bad weather on the Moon.

The cables will transfer the electric power from the lunar solar cells to the transmission facilities.

High-energy-density laser will be beamed to the receiving facilities using 20km-diameter antennas. A guidance beacon (radio beacon) brought from the Earth will be used to ensure accurate transmission.

Materials needed for the construction and maintenance of the Solar Belt will be transported along this route. Electric power cables will be installed under the transportation route.

The plants will move automatically while producing solar cells from lunar resources and installing them.

Since the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011 – which led to closing the country’s nuclear power plants – scientists have been scrambling to find ways to create electricity for the country in other ways.

However, the project doesn’t address the costs and

considerable hurdles it would have to overcome – important

among them would be building such a massive structure from such a great distance.