Photovoltaic

One of the holy grails of solar cell technology may have been found, with researchers at UCLA announcing they have created a new organic polymer that produces electricity, is nearly transparent and is more durable and malleable than silicon. The applications are mind-boggling. Windows that produce electricity. Buildings wrapped in transparent solar cells. Laptops and phones - or even cars or planes - whose outer coverings act as chargers. It might even be sprayed on as a liquid. The promise of cheap and easy-to-apply site-generated solar electricity might now be a lot closer to reality.

Solar stocks were burning up Thursday, led by a 41% share price boom for SunPower, which this week said it sold a pair of massive Southern California solar power plants to a Warren Buffett company. San Jose-based SunPower said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it sold two Antelope Valley photovoltaic projects to MidAmerican Solar, a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings, itself owned by Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway. The 579-megawatt pair is still under development.

The Viewpoints page of April 30 had two well-written attempts to put the recent cold fusion excitement into perspective. However, when Michael Schrage ("It's a Big Leap From Lab to the Payoff") implied that photovoltaic technology (direct sunlight-to-electricity conversion) has failed to live up to its promise, he exposes a need for publishing the following facts: 1) Tens of thousands of photovoltaic systems are providing clean, safe and reliable electricity worldwide for a wide range of applications.

The Department of Interior on Thursday moved a step closer to approving what could be the world's largest solar power plant,  releasing the final environmental impact statement for the  McCoy Solar facility, a proposed 750-megawatt photovoltaic plant in Riverside County. Secretary Ken Salazar announced the preferred alternative, which calls for scaling back the project's 4,400 - acre footprint to accommodate the federally threatened Mojave Desert tortoise. The McCoy plant is projected to produce 750 megawatts of power, making it the second-largest solar plant in the world.

Solar stocks were burning up Thursday, led by a 41% share price boom for SunPower, which this week said it sold a pair of massive Southern California solar power plants to a Warren Buffett company. San Jose-based SunPower said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it sold two Antelope Valley photovoltaic projects to MidAmerican Solar, a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings, itself owned by Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway. The 579-megawatt pair is still under development.

Southern California Edison has signed contracts with two companies for the construction and operation of seven solar power plants in the state, including one that the utility said would be among the largest single solar photovoltaic installations in the U.S. The facilities, when completed by 2016, would add a total of 831 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity, enough to power 540,000 homes, the Rosemead utility said Monday. That represents a significant increase in Edison's ability to deliver power from the sun and other renewable sources.

A new discovery from a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin may allow photovoltaic solar cells to double their efficiency, thus providing loads more electrical power from regular sunlight. Not only that, but it's way cheap. Chemistry professor Xiaoyang Zhu and his team discovered that an organic plastic semiconductor could double the number of electrons harvested out of one photon of sunlight. Yep, plastic. For the Record, 12:15 p.m. Dec. 19.: An earlier version of this online article incorrectly said Queen's University is in Toronto.

Iron pyrite ? also known as fool's gold ? may be worthless to treasure hunters, but it could become a bonanza to the solar industry. The mineral, among the most abundant in the earth's crust, is usually discarded by coal miners or sold as nuggets in novelty stores. But researchers at UC Irvine said they could soon turn fool's gold into a cheaper alternative to the rare and expensive materials now used in making solar panels. "With alternative energy and climate-change issues, we're always in a race against time," said lead researcher Matt Law. "With some insight and a little bit of luck, we could find a good solution with something that's now disposed of as useless garbage.

Green building claims: In an article in Business on Sunday about "greenwashing" -- exaggerated or false green building claims -- consultant Jennifer Languell said it takes more energy to manufacture and transport a photovoltaic panel "than it is ever going to produce over its useful life." Photovoltaic panels have been the subject of detailed analysis for decades, and the consensus has long been that over their expected lifetime they produce far more energy than they consume in manufacture.

Intel Corp. plans to spin off its solar technology business, creating a company called SpectraWatt Inc. and contributing to a $50-million investment in the venture. SpectraWatt will open a plant in Oregon in the second half of the year that will make photovoltaic cells and develop ways to cut the cost of solar technology, Intel said. Shipments will probably start in the middle of 2009, Intel said.

One of the holy grails of solar cell technology may have been found, with researchers at UCLA announcing they have created a new organic polymer that produces electricity, is nearly transparent and is more durable and malleable than silicon. The applications are mind-boggling. Windows that produce electricity. Buildings wrapped in transparent solar cells. Laptops and phones - or even cars or planes - whose outer coverings act as chargers. It might even be sprayed on as a liquid. The promise of cheap and easy-to-apply site-generated solar electricity might now be a lot closer to reality.

A new discovery from a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin may allow photovoltaic solar cells to double their efficiency, thus providing loads more electrical power from regular sunlight. Not only that, but it's way cheap. Chemistry professor Xiaoyang Zhu and his team discovered that an organic plastic semiconductor could double the number of electrons harvested out of one photon of sunlight. Yep, plastic. For the Record, 12:15 p.m. Dec. 19.: An earlier version of this online article incorrectly said Queen's University is in Toronto.

The agreement by investor Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings to buy a $2-billion photovoltaic farm in San Luis Obispo County could bring a ray of financial sunshine to the battered solar-energy industry. The scale of Buffett's foray into this sector of the renewable energy scene is considerably more modest than his $34-billion purchase of BNSF Railway, but it could provide the same kind of boost to the solar power business that the 2009 acquisition did to the railroad industry, experts said.

Carl Harberger's 6,000-square-foot Chatsworth house is equipped with six refrigerators, five TVs, a smattering of computers and a pool, among other things — enough to draw the wagging finger of the eco-minded if it were not for what Harberger has on his roof. By the end of the month, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power is expected to flip the switch on the home's 24-kilowatt installation of thin-film solar panels, bringing to life what is believed to be the largest residential installation of its kind in the country.

Iron pyrite ? also known as fool's gold ? may be worthless to treasure hunters, but it could become a bonanza to the solar industry. The mineral, among the most abundant in the earth's crust, is usually discarded by coal miners or sold as nuggets in novelty stores. But researchers at UC Irvine said they could soon turn fool's gold into a cheaper alternative to the rare and expensive materials now used in making solar panels. "With alternative energy and climate-change issues, we're always in a race against time," said lead researcher Matt Law. "With some insight and a little bit of luck, we could find a good solution with something that's now disposed of as useless garbage.

Southern California Edison has signed contracts with two companies for the construction and operation of seven solar power plants in the state, including one that the utility said would be among the largest single solar photovoltaic installations in the U.S. The facilities, when completed by 2016, would add a total of 831 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity, enough to power 540,000 homes, the Rosemead utility said Monday. That represents a significant increase in Edison's ability to deliver power from the sun and other renewable sources.

Re "Vote no on B," editorial, Feb. 26 I agree with The Times' recommendation to vote no on Measure B, but for additional reasons. Voters should not be asked to approve ordinances, which are usually too complex for proper consideration. Also, no one should circulate or sign a petition for a proposition or vote for any proposition that contains, as this one does, a requirement for a supermajority to amend or repeal it. Such provisions make government more rigid and less responsive than it should be. Stephanie Nordlinger Los Angeles :: Proponents of Measure B imply there is no alternative to their plan to install 400 megawatts of photovoltaic power.

In a lab in Caltech, Harry Atwater holds up a plastic panel, a fraction of a millimeter thick. Even in the brightly lit room, the surface's panel remains jet-black -- absorbing all the light that hits it. The high-tech material is 10 times more efficient at absorbing light than the regular silicon cells that some homeowners install on their roofs to harvest the energy of the sun. It is one of several projects that Atwater's team at Caltech...

The sprawling solar installations gobbling up California's deserts have a new competitor, one that claims to generate more energy at lower costs while using less open space. Known as concentrator photovoltaics, or CPV, the technology is featured in an installation that will be revealed Tuesday at Victor Valley College. The school's new 1-megawatt plant, on a six-acre dirt plot in Victorville, will provide around 30% of the campus' power. The $4.5-million facility will be the largest of its kind in North America.

Barry Broome slipped into San Francisco on a mission: Lure California-based solar companies to Arizona. "I think there's a lot of compelling technology in Silicon Valley that's going to be able to be put to work in Arizona," the chief executive of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council said recently in a downtown office tower lobby across from the U.S. headquarters of Yingli Solar, a Chinese solar module maker. For decades, border states have raided California, enticing companies to pull up stakes by offering tax breaks, low-cost workforces, affordable housing and business-friendly bureaucrats.