Building Integrated
At a time when virtually all of the construction and solar cell industry is experiencing a significant slowing of activity and short term demand and profitability declines are the norm, the Corus/Dyesol partnership has announced that the project to bring dye solar cells (DSC) onto metal roofing is being accelerated. The decision to accelerate the project was made on the basis of anticipated demand growing dramatically from 2010 and the success of the program to date, wherein the achievement of product milestones is well ahead of schedule.
Dyesol and Corus will commit more technical and production engineering staff to the project, and initiate real life product testing by mid 2009. The commercialization path will be shortened to eliminate one stage of the manufacturing assurance phase. This will mean that product will become available from the first production line in 2010 for selected customers.
The acceleration of the current phase is being financed predominantly by bringing forward planned commitments. Details of plans for the earlier commitment of production facilities from 2010 will be released over the coming months.
The dye solar cell integrated into steel roofing promises to be the first solar cell technology that can be grid competitive in the normal light conditions experienced in most cities around the world. The advantages of dye solar cells derive from the similarity with photosynthesis. Consequently, dye solar cells exhibit operating voltage stability across the normal daily solar conditions, including cloudy and hazy conditions. DSC is also less susceptible to hot conditions than other solar technologies – and it comes in a variety of natural colours. The technology has been demonstrated by Dyesol through accelerated testing to have an operating lifetime well in excess of the 25 years needed for BIPV applications. Combined with the low energy required for manufacture and relatively cheap materials of construction, DSC has tremendous potential for application wherever steel roofing is used.
For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0) 411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Monday, 15 December 2008
Dyesol and Corus Accelerate Building Integrated Solar Cell Commercialisation
At a time when virtually all of the construction and solar cell industry is experiencing a significant slowing of activity and short term demand and profitability declines are the norm, the Corus/Dyesol partnership has announced that the project to bring dye solar cells (DSC) onto metal roofing is being accelerated. The decision to accelerate the project was made on the basis of anticipated demand growing dramatically from 2010 and the success of the program to date, wherein the achievement of product milestones is well ahead of schedule.
Dyesol and Corus will commit more technical and production engineering staff to the project, and initiate real life product testing by mid 2009. The commercialization path will be shortened to eliminate one stage of the manufacturing assurance phase. This will mean that product will become available from the first production line in 2010 for selected customers.
The acceleration of the current phase is being financed predominantly by bringing forward planned commitments. Details of plans for the earlier commitment of production facilities from 2010 will be released over the coming months.
The dye solar cell integrated into steel roofing promises to be the first solar cell technology that can be grid competitive in the normal light conditions experienced in most cities around the world. The advantages of dye solar cells derive from the similarity with photosynthesis. Consequently, dye solar cells exhibit operating voltage stability across the normal daily solar conditions, including cloudy and hazy conditions. DSC is also less susceptible to hot conditions than other solar technologies – and it comes in a variety of natural colours. The technology has been demonstrated by Dyesol through accelerated testing to have an operating lifetime well in excess of the 25 years needed for BIPV applications. Combined with the low energy required for manufacture and relatively cheap materials of construction, DSC has tremendous potential for application wherever steel roofing is used.
For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0) 411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804
Dyesol and Corus will commit more technical and production engineering staff to the project, and initiate real life product testing by mid 2009. The commercialization path will be shortened to eliminate one stage of the manufacturing assurance phase. This will mean that product will become available from the first production line in 2010 for selected customers.
The acceleration of the current phase is being financed predominantly by bringing forward planned commitments. Details of plans for the earlier commitment of production facilities from 2010 will be released over the coming months.
The dye solar cell integrated into steel roofing promises to be the first solar cell technology that can be grid competitive in the normal light conditions experienced in most cities around the world. The advantages of dye solar cells derive from the similarity with photosynthesis. Consequently, dye solar cells exhibit operating voltage stability across the normal daily solar conditions, including cloudy and hazy conditions. DSC is also less susceptible to hot conditions than other solar technologies – and it comes in a variety of natural colours. The technology has been demonstrated by Dyesol through accelerated testing to have an operating lifetime well in excess of the 25 years needed for BIPV applications. Combined with the low energy required for manufacture and relatively cheap materials of construction, DSC has tremendous potential for application wherever steel roofing is used.
For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0) 411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804
Monday, 8 December 2008
GreenSmith launches backup battery for grid
Washington D.C.-based GreenSmith Energy Management Systems unveiled technology it says can solve the peak demand problems of U.S. utilities.
CEO Rodney Smith said the company has designed a battery control and management system that, when paired with lithium ion battery GreenSmith acquired from a manufacturer overseas, can store 20 kilowatt-hours at a time and provide between 3,000 and 4,000 full-discharge cycles.
The idea is that utilities could charge the battery when it's cheaper to produce energy, such as in the middle of the night, and could discharge that energy onto the grid when it's most expensive to produce power.
Smith said ideal circumstances would be to use the battery during peak demand instead of firing up a peak power plant, which is more expensive to run. The unit could help reduce the need for additional power plants and prevent utilities from losing excess power generated.
"Utilities are far more receptive to distributed storage technologies than they are to smart grid, and for a reason," Smith told the Cleantech Group. "Grid replacement is like trying to replace the air traffic control system. You have to put a lot of money into it before you see any rewards from it. With our technology, you get the benefit right away."
The technology can be paired with intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, to better align power supply with power demand, Smith said.
That field is also being targeted by companies such as ZBB Energy, which has contracted with the Australian government to accelerate development of the company's zinc-bromine storage systems for renewable energy projects (see ZBB gets Australian contract for renewable energy storage and ZBB, Zest in energy storage deal).
Tyngsboro, Mass.-based Beacon Power (Nasdaq: BCON) is promoting its multiple-flywheel systems to supply or absorb electricity, giving extra stability to a grid that's experiencing demand or supply peaks (see Beacon slows flywheel storage plans).
According to the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, there is a strong economic case for flywheel installations to improve grid stability, as evidenced by the New York Independent System Operator and the PJM Interconnection.
Last year, Windsor, Colo.-based Ice Energy revealed a device to shift up to 95 percent of air-conditioning load to off-peak hours while providing full cooling performance (see Ice Energy cools down power demand).
Other technology is attempting to use molten salt for energy storage (see Concentrated solar gets salty and Cleantech Group picks winners and losers in concentrated solar thermal).
GreenSmith's systems are designed to be managed from a central location, either programmed to optimize cheap energy price or manually controlled. Utilities, regional transmission agencies and co-ops in the U.S. are the current market, but GreenSmith eventually plans to target global markets, especially those with intermittent access to the electric grid.
Consumers aren't the target for GreenSmith, although Smith said the devices could be modified for home use.
GreenSmith is in talks with several utilities and expects a pilot project with a utility to begin operating in about two months. The company plans to produce commercially by mid-2009, with tens of thousands of units sold that year.
After that, GreenSmith expects to sell hundreds of thousands of units to utilities a year. A large utility would probably use about 3,000 units in a pilot test and as many as a million units in full deployment, whereas a small utility might seek between 100 and 1,000 for a pilot, Smith said.
Each unit would cost about $10,000, minus volume discounts, which Smith said produces an energy cost of less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
GreenSmith has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from private investors. The company is currently raising a Series A round led by Blue Lagoon Capital, but Smith declined to reveal the size of the round, saying that reports of a $20 million round were incorrect.
The company, which Smith said has a "handful" of employees, originally pursued smart grid technology when it was founded in 2007 as an offshoot of think-tank Intelligent Power Unit. Smith decided energy storage presented a more lucrative business model because it was faster to market.
"We thought, what if instead of trying to fight peak you could shift peak?" Smith said. "So we decided to focus on storage."
CEO Rodney Smith said the company has designed a battery control and management system that, when paired with lithium ion battery GreenSmith acquired from a manufacturer overseas, can store 20 kilowatt-hours at a time and provide between 3,000 and 4,000 full-discharge cycles.
The idea is that utilities could charge the battery when it's cheaper to produce energy, such as in the middle of the night, and could discharge that energy onto the grid when it's most expensive to produce power.
Smith said ideal circumstances would be to use the battery during peak demand instead of firing up a peak power plant, which is more expensive to run. The unit could help reduce the need for additional power plants and prevent utilities from losing excess power generated.
"Utilities are far more receptive to distributed storage technologies than they are to smart grid, and for a reason," Smith told the Cleantech Group. "Grid replacement is like trying to replace the air traffic control system. You have to put a lot of money into it before you see any rewards from it. With our technology, you get the benefit right away."
The technology can be paired with intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, to better align power supply with power demand, Smith said.
That field is also being targeted by companies such as ZBB Energy, which has contracted with the Australian government to accelerate development of the company's zinc-bromine storage systems for renewable energy projects (see ZBB gets Australian contract for renewable energy storage and ZBB, Zest in energy storage deal).
Tyngsboro, Mass.-based Beacon Power (Nasdaq: BCON) is promoting its multiple-flywheel systems to supply or absorb electricity, giving extra stability to a grid that's experiencing demand or supply peaks (see Beacon slows flywheel storage plans).
According to the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, there is a strong economic case for flywheel installations to improve grid stability, as evidenced by the New York Independent System Operator and the PJM Interconnection.
Last year, Windsor, Colo.-based Ice Energy revealed a device to shift up to 95 percent of air-conditioning load to off-peak hours while providing full cooling performance (see Ice Energy cools down power demand).
Other technology is attempting to use molten salt for energy storage (see Concentrated solar gets salty and Cleantech Group picks winners and losers in concentrated solar thermal).
GreenSmith's systems are designed to be managed from a central location, either programmed to optimize cheap energy price or manually controlled. Utilities, regional transmission agencies and co-ops in the U.S. are the current market, but GreenSmith eventually plans to target global markets, especially those with intermittent access to the electric grid.
Consumers aren't the target for GreenSmith, although Smith said the devices could be modified for home use.
GreenSmith is in talks with several utilities and expects a pilot project with a utility to begin operating in about two months. The company plans to produce commercially by mid-2009, with tens of thousands of units sold that year.
After that, GreenSmith expects to sell hundreds of thousands of units to utilities a year. A large utility would probably use about 3,000 units in a pilot test and as many as a million units in full deployment, whereas a small utility might seek between 100 and 1,000 for a pilot, Smith said.
Each unit would cost about $10,000, minus volume discounts, which Smith said produces an energy cost of less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
GreenSmith has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from private investors. The company is currently raising a Series A round led by Blue Lagoon Capital, but Smith declined to reveal the size of the round, saying that reports of a $20 million round were incorrect.
The company, which Smith said has a "handful" of employees, originally pursued smart grid technology when it was founded in 2007 as an offshoot of think-tank Intelligent Power Unit. Smith decided energy storage presented a more lucrative business model because it was faster to market.
"We thought, what if instead of trying to fight peak you could shift peak?" Smith said. "So we decided to focus on storage."
Sunday, 7 December 2008
One of the next big things...biochar
POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) – An ancient technique of plowing charred plants into the ground to revive soil may also trap greenhouse gases for thousands of years and forestall global warming, scientists said on Friday.
Heating plants such as farm waste or wood in airtight conditions produces a high-carbon substance called biochar, which can store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and enhance nutrients in the soil.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. Subsequently storing that carbon in the soil removes the gas from the atmosphere.
"I feel confident that the (carbon storage) time of stable biochar is from high hundreds to a few thousand years," said Cornell University's Johannes Lehmann, at an event on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in the Polish city of Poznan.
Lehmann estimated that under ambitious scenarios biochar could store 1 billion tons of carbon annually -- equivalent to more than 10 percent of global carbon emissions, which amounted to 8.5 billion tons in 2007.
Under a conservative scenario the technique could store 0.2 billion tons of carbon annually, he said. That would still require heating without oxygen -- called pyrolysis -- some 27 percent of global crop waste and plowing this into the soil.
Lehmann cited experiments on 10 farm crops suggesting biochar can also increase yields by up to three times, because the organic matter holds on to nutrients.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in November that global greenhouse gas emissions were so out of control that avoiding more dangerous levels of climate change depended on creating negative emissions later this century.
The energy adviser to 28 industrialized countries cited biochar as one way of achieving that.
The technique rings alarm bells among some environmentalists worried it could spur deforestation, but its chief problem may be that it is barely proven on a commercial scale.
"It will remain theoretical without making demonstration plants on the ground," Lehmann said.
Soils containing biochar made by Amazon people thousands of years ago still contain up to 70 times more black carbon than surrounding soils and are still higher in nutrients, said Debbie Reed, director of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
The IBI was in Poznan to lobby for research funding for biochar. In Poznan, 187 countries are meeting in ongoing talks to agree a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. They hope to finalize a deal next year.
Lehmann emphasized that the technique was not a substitute for fighting climate change by curbing man-made greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
Heating plants such as farm waste or wood in airtight conditions produces a high-carbon substance called biochar, which can store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and enhance nutrients in the soil.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. Subsequently storing that carbon in the soil removes the gas from the atmosphere.
"I feel confident that the (carbon storage) time of stable biochar is from high hundreds to a few thousand years," said Cornell University's Johannes Lehmann, at an event on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in the Polish city of Poznan.
Lehmann estimated that under ambitious scenarios biochar could store 1 billion tons of carbon annually -- equivalent to more than 10 percent of global carbon emissions, which amounted to 8.5 billion tons in 2007.
Under a conservative scenario the technique could store 0.2 billion tons of carbon annually, he said. That would still require heating without oxygen -- called pyrolysis -- some 27 percent of global crop waste and plowing this into the soil.
Lehmann cited experiments on 10 farm crops suggesting biochar can also increase yields by up to three times, because the organic matter holds on to nutrients.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in November that global greenhouse gas emissions were so out of control that avoiding more dangerous levels of climate change depended on creating negative emissions later this century.
The energy adviser to 28 industrialized countries cited biochar as one way of achieving that.
The technique rings alarm bells among some environmentalists worried it could spur deforestation, but its chief problem may be that it is barely proven on a commercial scale.
"It will remain theoretical without making demonstration plants on the ground," Lehmann said.
Soils containing biochar made by Amazon people thousands of years ago still contain up to 70 times more black carbon than surrounding soils and are still higher in nutrients, said Debbie Reed, director of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
The IBI was in Poznan to lobby for research funding for biochar. In Poznan, 187 countries are meeting in ongoing talks to agree a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. They hope to finalize a deal next year.
Lehmann emphasized that the technique was not a substitute for fighting climate change by curbing man-made greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
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