News
Solar panel costs 'set to fall'
The cost of installing and owning solar panels will fall even faster than expected according to new research.
Tests show that 90% of existing solar panels last for 30 years, instead of the predicted 20 years.
A key goal for solar is what is known as grid parity. That is the point when it is as cheap for someone to generate power on their homes as it is to buy it from the grid. This point is set to be reached in the UK in 2030. However, with further help from the government, in a move to offset central energy generation costs, this point could be reached much sooner.
Click here to find out more on the BBC website.
2010 watershed for solar power
TOP-LEVEL scientists and entrepreneurs gathered in the North-East yesterday and predicted legislation coming into force next year will be a watershed for solar power use in the UK.
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The Government is introducing its Feed-in Tariff in April next year, which will offer financial incentives to individuals and businesses that embrace solar energy.
Speaking at Solar Flair 09, a national photovoltaics (PV) conference, yesterday experts said the move is likely to open the floodgates for renewable energy because it would reward trailblazers.
Read more in the Northern Echo .
Wind turbines and solar panels could be put up without planning permission
Wind turbines up to 15 metres high could be put up in industrial estates or farmland without planning permission under
plans published by the government today
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======STOP SUMMARY===== Changes to the planning system would also make it easier for new solar roofs to go up on stadiums, schools and railway stations or for offices to be re-clad in solar panels, the Department for Communities and Local Government said.
But the new rules, which would also allow councils and electric car drivers to install charging points on streets and in car parks without a planning application, would come with strict caveats about size, noise levels and visual impacts on an area, the government said.
Read more in the Guardian
Renewable energy depends on successful smart grid rollout
A group of experts at this week’s Smartgrid Roundtable event said that smart grids are “critically important” to allow a higher percentage of renewables within the UK’s energy supply.
The UK government announced in 2008 that all British homes must have a smart meter installed by the year 2020.
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Homeowners who install solar panels or wind turbines on their property would be able to measure how much energy they are feeding back into the power g rid. This requires the system to account for the masses of people who would take advantage of these feed-in tariffs.
Read more at www.smartmeters.com
Every year, the Earth absorbs a staggering 3.85 x 1024 joules of energy. Put another way, it means that in one hour the sun gives us more energy than humanity used in the whole of 2002. Clearly, the sun can provide more energy than we need - if only we could harvest it at a competitive cost.
One way to reduce the cost of solar power is to focus the light onto a collector. But this can be expensive. The solution? Fresnel lenses. These consist of patterns of saw-tooth ridges or prisms on a transparent sheet, with each ridge bending the light towards a focal point or line. They are cheap because they can be printed on a flat sheet.
Read more in the New Scientist