PG&E Signs Contracts for 800 Megawatts of Solar Photovoltaic Power
California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has signed contracts for two of the most ambitious solar photovoltaic projects in the world: a 550-megawatt (MW) solar farm and a 250-MW "solar ranch," both of which will be located in San Luis Obispo County and will create solar jobs. The Bay Area utility announced the agreements with OptiSolar Inc. and SunPower Corporation last week and expects both of the record-breaking solar power plants to be fully operational by 2013.
OptiSolar’s 550-MW Topaz Solar Farm will begin producing power from its thin-film solar panels in 2011, while SunPower’s 250-MW solar ranch will employ the company’s crystalline solar cells to begin producing power in 2010. Both of the facilities will break all current records for solar photovoltaic systems when they are completed, and the agreement led SunPower to declare on its home page that "utility-scale solar power has officially arrived in the United States." Topaz Solar Farms LLC, a subsidiary of OptiSolar, is already charging ahead on its project, having submitted a Conditional Use Permit application to the San Luis Obispo County Planning and Building Department in July. See the PG&E press release and the SunPower and OptiSolar Web sites.
PG&E’s announcement dwarfs other large-scale solar power plans that would otherwise garner headlines. For instance, San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) announced in July that it will install 70-80 MW of advanced, solar-tracking photovoltaic systems throughout its service area. The utility will own about two-thirds of the systems, with the remainder being privately owned, and the systems will be located at SDG&E facilities as well as retail and commercial parking lots, county landfills, and other locations. The utility plans to invest up to $250 million in solar installations over the next 5 years.
Meanwhile, another subsidiary of SDG&E’s parent company, Sempra Energy, plans to develop a 10-MW solar photovoltaic facility near Boulder City, Nevada, about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. The facility will employ thin-film solar panels from First Solar, Inc. But not all large solar plants are being built in the West, as Kovatch Enterprises and Green Energy Capital Partners (GECP) have announced plans to build a 10.6-MW solar plant in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania. See the Sempra Energy press releases on SDG&E’s solar plans and the Nevada solar facility and see the Pennsylvania announcement on the GECP Web site.
NREL Solar Cell Sets World-Record Conversion Efficiency of 40.8%
Researchers at DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed a solar cell that can convert a record 40.8% of the sunlight that hits it into electricity. The new NREL solar cell is a triple-junction device, which means it uses three layers of photovoltaic material stacked atop one another to catch different parts of the solar spectrum. Sunlight that isn’t converting into electricity by the top layer passes into the lower layers of the solar cell, which convert more of the sunlight into electricity, boosting the cell’s conversion efficiency.
The cell is unique in that it is grown in an inverted order, from the top down, and is then removed from the substrate it is grown on to produce a lightweight, flexible film. The inverted approach also allows the use of a bottom layer material with a different crystalline lattice spacing than the other materials in the cell, which makes it a "mismatched lattice" or "metamorphic" solar cell. NREL’s inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell also won an R&D 100 Award this year. It achieved its record efficiency while exposed to sunlight concentrated by a factor of 326-in industry parlance, "326 suns." See the NREL press releases on the record efficiency and the R&D 100 Award.
In recent weeks, researchers around the world have unveiled innovative approaches to capturing sunlight. DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), for instance, has developed a method of producing plastic sheets that contain billions of "nanoantennas"- antennas on the scale of a billionth of a meter-to convert the sun’s infrared rays into electricity. The nanoantennas consist of tiny gold squares or spirals set in a specially treated layer of polyethylene, a common plastic. While the device is not yet practical, it has the potential to run off either sunlight or waste heat. Engineers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have employed similar "nanowires" to boost the efficiency of organic solar cells, which are made of plastic. See the press releases from INL and UCSD.
Meanwhile, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a way to convert windows into devices that concentrate sunlight for conversion into electricity. MIT developed a mixture of dyes that can be painted onto a pane of glass or plastic. The dyes absorb sunlight and then re-emit it within the glass in a different wavelength of light, which then tends to reflect off the interior surfaces of the glass. As the light reflects within the glass pane, it tends to get channeled along the length of the glass to its edges, where it is emitted. The MIT researchers estimate that sunlight is concentrated by a factor of 40, allowing solar cells that are optimized for such concentrated sunlight to be mounted along the edges of the window. The unique optics of the approach yields a cheap solar concentrator that does not need to be pointed toward the sun, as is needed for lens-based concentrators. MIT estimates that the process will be commercialized by Covalent Solar within the next 3 years. See the MIT press release and fact sheet.
Massachusetts Acts Address Biofuels, Green Jobs, and Greenhouse Gases
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has recently signed into law three energy-related bills that will promote advanced biofuels, support the growth of the clean energy technology industry, and cut the emissions of greenhouse gases within the state.
The Clean Energy Biofuels Act, signed in late July, exempts cellulosic ethanol from the state’s gasoline tax, but only if the ethanol achieves a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to gasoline. The act also requires all diesel motor fuels and all No. 2 fuel oil sold for heating to include at least 2% "substitute fuel" by July 2010, where substitute fuel is defined as a fuel derived from renewable non-food biomass that achieves at least a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
The requirement for both motor diesel fuel and heating oil increases by a percentage point per year until 2013, after which it holds steady 5%. The act also allows the state to expand the requirement to other forms of fuel oil, and it requires the state to work to establish a low-carbon fuel standard under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. See the full text of the biofuels act and the governor’s press release.
In early August, Governor Patrick signed two additional bills: the Green Jobs Act and the Global Warming Solutions Act. The Green Jobs Act will support the growth of a clean energy technology industry within the state, backed by $68 million in funding over 5 years. The Global Warming Solutions Act requires a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the state to 10%-25% below 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Under the act, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection will carry the burdens of determining the baseline level of emissions in 1990 and creating a plan to meet the future emissions limits, including the establishment of interim limits for 2030 and 2040. See governor’s press release and the full text of the acts for green jobs and greenhouse gas reductions.
LEDs Help to Bring Color and Light to the Beijing Olympics
U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps displayed amazing athleticism over the past week at the Water Cube, 
but outside the building, U.S. technology is providing an amazing display of an entirely different sort. Colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) from Cree, Inc. allow the building to change color, display words, and generate moving images to create a unique architectural presence on the Olympic Green in Beijing.
Nearly a half million red, green, and blue LEDs allow the 3,000 "bubbles" on the exterior of the building to display millions of different colors. Officially known as the National Aquatic Center, the building displays a different computer-controlled pattern each evening. See the Cree Web page on its Olympic contribution, and check out the photos and videos of the Water Cube on the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Web site and on YouTube.
Cree XLamp LEDs also provide lighting effects for the exterior of the National Stadium, nicknamed the Bird’s Nest. About 258,000 Cree LEDs provide white, amber, and red accent lighting for the unique structure, which is adjacent to the Water Cube. Cree LEDs are also used inside the Bird’s Nest for a video screen behind the main stage, and they were also incorporated into one the most amazing technological feats of the opening ceremony, a luminous scroll that formed one of the largest LED screens in the world, measuring 230 feet by 70 feet, according to the broadcast on NBC.
See the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Web site for exterior night photos of the Bird’s Nest, and note that the scroll is featured prominently on the main page of the site’s overview of the opening ceremony. For those who missed the opening ceremony, a video is also available on the NBC Olympics Web site (the scroll first appears at about 19:20).
While the Olympic Village is currently jam-packed with gold medal winners, the village also won gold on its own. On Monday, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that the village has won a gold-level certification under a pilot program that recognizes the use of green building principles in neighborhood development. The Olympic Village won the LEED Gold certification for integrating the principles of smart growth, New Urbanism, and green building into a comprehensive system for neighborhood design. It is the first Olympic Village to receive LEED certification and is the first international project to be certified under the LEED for Neighborhood Development pilot program.
Among the technologies used in the village is the SolarWall, a device from Conserval Engineering, that preheats ventilation air by sucking it through holes in a solar-heated plenum mounted on an exterior wall. The village also features a combination of the SolarWall with solar photovoltaic panels, called SolarWall PV/T, to produce both solar preheated air and electricity at the same time. See the USGBC press release (PDF 26 KB), the Conversal Engineering press release, and the Converval Web pages on the SolarWall and SolarWall PV/T systems.
Volkswagen Launches Clean Diesel Jetta Sedans and Wagons
Volkswagen of America, Inc. announced on Monday that the clean diesel Jetta TDI sedan and SportWagen are now available for delivery in the United States. The new clean diesel vehicles run only on ultra-low sulfur diesel and meet emission standards in all 50 states. The Jetta TDI sedan achieves 29 miles per gallon (mpg) in the city and 40 mpg on the highway, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but Volkswagen claims the vehicle achieves higher mileage in real-world driving conditions. According to EPA estimates, the Jetta wagon achieves a fuel economy of 21 mpg in the city and 29 mpg on the highway.
Both vehicles also earn a $1,300 federal tax credit, as they qualify as Advanced Lean Burn Technology Motor Vehicles under a tax law that was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Under that tax law, only the first 60,000 qualified vehicles sold by each manufacturer will earn the full credit, after which the credit will be first reduced and then eliminated. Note, however, that the tax credit may be effectively reduced for buyers that are subject to the alternative minimum tax. See the Volkswagen press release and Web pages for the Jetta TDI sedan and SportWagen.
U.S. Residents Driving Less and Consuming Less Oil
Prospects for a weak economy and continued high prices for crude oil and petroleum products are expected to cut U.S. petroleum demand by nearly 500,000 barrels per day on average for 2008, according to DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The EIA’s "Short-Term Energy Outlook," released last week, notes that the decline in U.S. oil consumption for the first half of the year was the largest in the past 26 years. Petroleum consumption dipped strongly for the first 5 months of 2008, falling 900,000 barrels per day below the consumption levels during the same period in 2007, but the consumption drop narrowed to 400,000 barrels per day in June and July. The EIA expects U.S. oil consumption to continue falling in 2009, dropping 120,000 barrels per day below the 2008 average.
The EIA’s "This Week in Petroleum" notes that the average monthly U.S. petroleum consumption has been lower than the year before for 12 consecutive months, a trend not seen since August 1991, when a weak economy dampened petroleum demand. See the August edition of the EIA’s "Short-Term Energy Outlook" and the August 13 edition of "This Week in Petroleum."
The latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows one reason why petroleum demand is dropping: for the past 8 months, U.S. residents have been driving less than they did the year before. In fact, the FHWA’s June report on traffic volume trends found that the vehicle miles traveled in the United States dropped by 42.1 billion miles for the first half of the year, a 2.8% decrease. Of those 6 months, the largest drop was recorded in June, with a 4.7% decrease.
The statistics show the greatest drop (5.4%) in the South Atlantic region, while the Northeast experienced the smallest drop (3.9%). While U.S. drivers may be taking a number of actions to reduce their driving miles, such as limiting their driving for vacations, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) also notes that first-quarter use of public transportation use increased by about 3.5%, or about 88 million trips. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Indices for energy use have increased sharply for the past 3 months, including a 4% increase in July. See the press release and report (PDF 154 KB) from the FHWA, as well as the press releases from the APTA and the BLS.
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Kevin Eber is the Editor of EREE Network News, a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
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