A Staff of Robots Can Clean and Install Solar Panels

By DIANE CARDWELL Published: October 14, 2013. RICHMOND, Calif. — In a dusty yard under a blistering August sun, Rover was hard at work, lifting 45-pound solar panels off a stack and installing them, one by one, into a concrete track. A few yards away, Rover’s companion, Spot, moved along a row of panels, washing away months of grit, then squeegeeing them dry. Rover, a robot, placing a solar panel in a track at Alion Energy, which is looking to shave labor costs. But despite the heat and monotony — an alternative-energy version of lather-rinse-repeat — neither Rover nor Spot broke a sweat or uttered a complaint. They could have kept at it all day. That is because they are robots, surprisingly low-tech machines that a start-up company called Alion Energy is betting can automate the installation and maintenance of large-scale solar farms. Working in near secrecy until recently, the company, based in Richmond, Calif., is ready to use its machines in three projects in the next few months in California, Saudi Arabia and China. If all goes well, executives expect that they can help bring the price of solar electricity into line with that of natural gas by cutting the cost of building and maintaining large solar installations.
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Bankrupt solar panel firm took stimulus money, left a toxic mess, says report

Published October 31, 2013 FoxNews.com Solar panels are seen in this file photo. (AP/The Sentinel, Apolinar Fonseca, File) A Colorado-based solar company that got hundreds of millions of dollars in federal loan guarantees before going belly-up didn't just empty taxpayers' wallets - it left behind a toxic mess of carcinogens, broken glass and contaminated water, according to a new report. The Abound Solar plant, which got $400 million in federal loan guarantees in 2010, when the Obama administration sought to use stimulus funds to promote green energy, filed for bankruptcy two years later. Now its Longmont, Colo., facility sits unoccupied, its 37,000 square feet littered with hazardous waste, broken glass and contaminated water. The Northern Colorado Business Report estimates it will cost up to $3.7 million to clean and repair the building so it can again be leased. - Associated Press
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100 Million Solar Heating and Cooling Systems in the US is the Goal

 When we hear about the huge growth of solar installations in the US, the talk is mostly about solar PV, but there's enormous potential in solar thermal - used for heating and cooling. Currently, there's 9 gigawatts (GW) of solar thermal installed in the US, 1 GW less than solar PV. In fact, the national discussion on clean energy revolves around electricity and transportation, leaving out the biggest source of energy consumption - heating and cooling homes and buildings. Almost half (44%) of America's energy consumption comes from heating (hot water and space heating) and cooling, which costs some $270 billion a year. Right now, the US is on track to have 75 GW of solar thermal by 2050, installing 30,000 systems a year. But the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has created a roadmap that would result in 100 MW by 2025 and 300 MW by 2050, when there would be 100 million installations. At that level, solar thermal would supply 8% of US heating and cooling demand. It's already the most efficient renewable energy technology and has the quickest payback - costing as little as 6 cents per kilowatt hour. 100 million systems sounds like a lot to us too, but SEIA and partner BEAM Engineering say it's feasible. It would replace the need for 64 coal plants, save Americans $61 billion in energy costs and create over 50,000 jobs.
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Winter light: Solar mirrors bring sunshine to dark Norwegian town

 

(CBS News) The small industrial town of Rjukan, Norway is tucked away in a valley, so for the past 100 years, they haven't gotten direct sunlight in the winter. However, that all changed on Wednesday when they switched on large solar mirrors. For six months of the year, beginning in October, the sun is so low in the sky it never reaches the valley floor, where the town actually is. Even with Norwegian stoicism, Karin Ro who runs the tourism authority there says it could be a tough place to live. "People need sun, if people get sun they will be more healthy and they will work better," she said. The founder of the town - a foresighted industrialist named Sam Eyde - recognized the problem and put in a cable car to take the residents up the hillside and into the sunlight to keep them from getting a terminal case of cabin fever during the long dark winter. Yet, modern technology may have solved the problem. Instead of bringing the people to the light, they've figured out a way to bring the light to the people. An array of mirrors has been installed on the hillside, programmed to track the sun across the sky and reflect it down into the town below, but it doesn't light the whole town, just the town square.Ro told CBS News' Mark Phillips that even that little bit of sunshine will help. "It makes a difference, and this is the 'center' of the town," she said.
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Wal-Mart Now Draws More Solar Power Than 38 U.S. States

Solar panels on the Wal-Mart in Foothill Ranch, California. Courtesy Wal-Mart. Solar power and keg stands have one thing in common: Wal-Mart wants to profit from them. In the race for commercial solar power, Wal-Mart is killing it. The company now has almost twice as much capacity as second-place Costco. A better comparison: Wal-Mart is converting more sun into energy than 38 U.S. states. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration. In the beer department, Wal-Mart recently decided alcohol was good business and vowed to double sales by 2016. The result: 500 reps from the alcohol industry converged on the Sam’s Club auditorium in Bentonville, Arkansas, for an “adult beverages summit” focused on Wal-Mart. “It’s even selling it in garden centers,” Bloomberg News’s Renee Dudley wrote in August.

With solar, will Wal-Mart have the same industry-focusing presence its had with booze? If small business is the heart of the U.S. economy, Wal-Mart is the gluteus maximus -- the power muscle. The company redefines global supply chains and crunches cost reductions in just about every area it touches. More than 80 publicly traded companies rely on Wal-Mart for 10 percent or more of their annual revenue, according to Bloomberg data. “When we find something that works -- like solar -- we go big with it,” the company’s website proclaims.

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Record Breaking Solar Cell Efficiency From A “Perfect Crystal”

Gallium is already on its way to becoming the workhorse of the solar tech field, and now it looks like the soft metal is is on track to become a thoroughbred. A team of US scientists has hit upon an improved method for growing indium gallium nitride (InGaN) crystals that could lead to record-breaking solar cell efficiency. So far the method has resulted in a film of InGaN that has “almost ideal characteristics.”  To ice the cake, an analysis of the film revealed the precise reason why the results of the new InGaN growing method were so good, which could lead to further improvements in LED technology as well as solar cells.  A Perfect InGaN Crystal -Nitride refers to a compound of nitrogen, in this case in conjunction with indium, a soft silvery-white, zinc-like metal, as well as gallium.
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Solar Wind Energy Tower, Inc. Activates Equity Facility Agreement Commitment of $3,000,000

ANNAPOLIS, MD--(Marketwired - Oct 29, 2013) - Solar Wind Energy Tower, Inc. (OTCQB: SWET), (the "Company"), the inventor of a large Solar Wind Downdraft Tower structure capable of producing abundant, inexpensive electricity, announced today that its Equity Facility to fund up to $3,000,000 from Beaufort Ventures, PLC is now effective and Solar Wind Energy may access the funds under the terms of the agreement. Earlier this summer on July 15(th) , the Company announced it had received the commitment for the Equity Facility from Beaufort. Under the terms of the commitment, the Company was required to file an S-1 Registration Statement with the SEC. The Company was notified by the SEC that there were no further comments and the Registration Statement has now been declared "Effective" which allows the Company to access Equity Facility funding. 
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