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A Good Year for Solar by Edmund Brunetti
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A Good Year for Solar |
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Science & Technology,Environment
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This has been one of the biggest years for solar energy in a long time. Google launched an app that allows you to judge the solar capacity of an entire city, or just your home, with only a few clicks, the coal museum in Kentucky is ironically going to use solar panels to power itself, and the first solar station to deliver 48.5 MW of solar power is going to be built in Australia. These are all small moral victories for an industry, but it is also telling of a trend. Solar technology has improved significantly recently, and a corner has been turned in the ratio of cost to output. Individuals and companies are starting to see the long-term benefits of solar and this is a good sign for all of us. In celebration of this good year for solar, I want to take a look at a couple of places setting the trend. Kamuthi, India “The sun is the source of all energy; the world must turn to solar, the power of our future.” -Prime Minister Narendra Modi In Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu, a solar power plant has been built, and, for now, it is the world’s largest plant. This plant can produce 648 megawatts of electricity with over 2 million individual solar modules. Though India has over 300 sunny days a year, it has been slow to adopt solar power and tap into this potential. A few years ago the government changed all that. In October they were able to generate 8727.62 MW with solar while the target for March 2017 was 10,500 MW. At this rate, India may become one of the leaders in utilising solar energy for such a large population. India is considering investing heavily into small decentralised solar stations rather than utilising a centralised grid. Much of the country still lacks a source of reliable energy, and empowering local communities may be the way to solve this issue. Commercial solar systems are likely to be encouraged to help locations that can afford it to beat the government to the punch. The Delhi Metro, the Indian railways, toll plazas, farms, and even a blood bank have all gone solar in India. Australia Not only is the Manildra Solar Farm in New South Wales, Australia now finalised to be built but a new type of electrode has been developed by researchers at RMIT University. The plant is estimated to be able to produce more than 120,000 MWh of electricity in the first year of its operation. As for the solar films, it may boost solar storage capacity by over 3000%! Storage has long been the Achilles heel of many types of solar, but Australia may have very well made this a problem of the past. This new game-changing electrode is designed to work along with supercapacitors and is based on the natural design of some leaves in nature. Increasing storage capacity by more than 30 times may mean a whole new bridge has been gapped in the battle to get the world on renewable energies. Once commercial solar systems start to utilise such devices, expect a new era of empowered individuals to arise.
Related Articles -
commercial solar systems, solar panels,
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