President Obama has approved $1.85bn in loan guarantees for two large scale solar projects as part of the economic stimulus package. Combined these projects are thought to be creating 5000 jobs. Abengoa Solar is to receive $1.45bn in loan Guarantees to help support the development of a new solar farm in Arizona which is expected to power 70,000 homes.

 A further $400 Million in Loan Guarantees will be provided to Abound Solar Manufacturing to develop two new solar manufacturing plants. This is expected to create up to 1500 permanent jobs. It is an interesting move away from the Bush era’s pro oil approach. With the BP crisis in the gulf still in full swing Obama will face far less opposition in pushing these loans through. There will also be much stronger public support for renewable energy generally and drop in support for further off shore drilling programmes.

Obama is looking towards renewable energy as not only an investment in the environment but as a new industry to help rebuild America’s fragile economy. By investing in Solar power production Obama is opening a new income steam to the U.S and is also going to be competing directly with China who currently have huge solar panel production capacity.

 As more countries realise the importance of investing in solar energy and solar panel development we are likely to see increases in efficiency and a decrease in technology costs.

Solar Farm Land Required

Are you a land owner in the South of England?

We are looking for land that has the following requirements in order to build Solar Farms in the U.K and to start moving towards a greener Britain.

Basic Site Specification for Solar PV, UK

Size 5 – 40 hectares

Tenure: Freehold or long-term (25years minimum) leasehold

Orientation: Level ground or south facing angled, south of Birmingham

Electrical connection: Close proximity to any line to export the electricity generated is good. A 33kV line, or above would be preferable for larger sites

Shading: Avoid sites surrounded by shading from trees, buildings, terrain

Neighboring properties: No specific requirements, but large energy consumers who would directly purchase electricity generated may help economics.

Planning: No specific requirements, but avoid areas where adverse visual impact will lead to objections

Access: Vehicular access required for construction and O&M

Suggested sites: Brownfield development sites, former airfields, public sector landholdings, private landowners, former mining areas, industrial land, etc

If you believe you have a site we may be interested in please contact elliot@solarfeedintariff.co.uk

Understanding how to design a PV system is not rocket science, but it is more complex than many people consider. Here’s a very quick overview of the important points.

Solar panels produce direct current (DC). This means you need an inverter to turn that electricity into mains frequency alternating current (AC).  Inverters come in a range of power ratings. The more solar panels you have, the more power the inverter has to deal with, so the size and cost increases. It’s very important to match the size of the inverter to the number of solar panels.

If the inverter is too small, you will lose out on some of the energy that your system produces. If it is too large, the inverter may not perform at its optimum efficiency, and you will have paid for more than is necessary. In the UK, the optimum situation is to have an inverter that is rated at 80% of the power rating of your PV system, since it is rare you will be producing at 100% power.

More critically than getting the power right, you need to ensure the voltage and current of your solar panel system remains within the input range of the chosen inverter. To re-cap, solar panels on your roof are generally connected together in series, in a ‘string’. This increases the system voltage, but does not increase the current. Once a certain number of solar panels have been connected in series, the voltage will become too high and the system needs to be arranged in two strings, each of the same number of panels, connected in parallel. This generally occurs after a string exceeds 8 – 11 solar panels. When strings are connected in parallel, the currents add-up, but the voltage remains constant.

By adding more and more strings in parallel, the current and voltage can be controlled to remain in the inverter limits. For large solar installations, inverters can used that that have a very high power capacity, or alternatively it is possible to use many small inverters connected in parallel.

It is important to remember certain constraints. Inverters come in several sizes, but there may be some numbers of solar panels for which no inverter is ideal. For instance, because it is necessary for all stings to be equal in size, you can only use an even number of solar panels when using multiple strings. In addition, all solar panels must receive the same amount of sunlight when connected to the same inverter. It is no good to have some solar panels facing different directions on different parts of the roof. New technologies, soon to become widely avaialable that will make this process much easier. Namely micro-inverters, which convert DC to AC at every solar panel, will mean that solar panels can face different directions, however these are not yet widely available.

If you have a sales visit from a solar company, make sure the salesman understands these points as he’s designing your system.

With the huge oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico still fighting for column inches with the FIFA World Cup in most parts of the world, it still remains a highly emotive subject in the country where it is having the most devastating impact. The Gulf states of the US are reeling under the blow to their economy, environment and way of life with an understandable backlash now both in the media and in Washington towards the oil industry and in particular, BP.

With this public maelstrom directed at the hapless BP, a leading energy attorney, Greg Chaffee has stated that the disaster will inevitably lead to more investments in green energy. Chaffee who practices at Morris Manning & Martin and also acts as the chairman of the MMM Green Industry Practice stated that,

“This is more evidence that the Gulf spill disaster has become a wakeup call for a nation that remains firmly addicted to oil.”

With specific reference to BP, Chaffee added,

“Not only should the federal government hold BP accountable for its errors and misjudgments leading up to the disaster, the federal government is now positioned more than ever to be the catalyst for funding research and development on alternative fuels.”

The Obama administration has already given its commitment to leading the way in green technologies with other leading countries such as China giving backing to funding in renewable energy sources. Chaffee however believes that what is really needed is not government legislation but a root change in the culture of the public.

“If we do not mobilize our resources now to concentrate on our energy future, we will be missing a key opportunity to positively re-shape the economic and environmental future of our nation. Weaning ourselves from our addiction to oil does not begin at the White House. It begins at home.

Each decision we make daily – from the cars we drive, to the containers in which we store our food, to how high we set the thermostat has an impact on our demand for oil. It’s that demand which led us to drill a mile beneath the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico.”