Climate change and human development have greatly impacted large varieties of plants and animals. From big to small, no species has been entirely safe from the consequences of our actions.
Pollinators, in particular, have seen a large decline over the past twenty years. As habitat loss has accelerated, climate change has affected historical ranges, and pesticides have become more common.
While most pollinators are quite small, they greatly impact all of us as they help disperse pollen, allowing plants to reproduce.
As land use has contributed to habitat loss for these pollinators, there has been considerable opposition to introducing solar panels and arrays to areas with considerable numbers of these small creatures.
This brings agriculture proponents into an uneasy alliance with ecological activists, as agriculture proponents also don’t want their profits to decline as land is used for a different purpose.
However, a solution to both of these issues can be found in agrivoltaics, which is a promising alternative to single-use solar arrays.
Minnesota is showing an alternative.
Pollinators living alongside solar systems have found significant promise in Minnesota, USA. A 2016 law set up the Habitat Friendly Solar program, which incentives property developers and solar companies to build arrays with benefits for songbirds and pollinators.
This is in stark contrast to solar development in the 2000s. As a result of the high price at the time of solar panels, solar companies sought to cut costs anywhere they could. As a result, in their solar installations, they put in gravel instead of flowers or field grass due to the price being lower.
However, due to new research, solar developers have found that vegetation creates a cooling microclimate that benefits energy efficiency. They have since been putting in clover and other field grasses under and alongside their panels, but even now, they are putting in higher-rising flowers.
Connexus is a solar cooperative that has been operating in Minnesota, and have said that “It started with our headquarters solar array — initially designed to utilize class 5 gravel under and around the panels, we worked with Connexus member Prairie Restorations to design a low-growing, flowering meadow under and around the panels.”
These changes also have other ecological benefits, as some environmental advocates are promoting the planting of the native northern tallgrass prairie, which has declined to represent 1% of the land in the US since European settlement.
This could change the solar industry as a whole.
These changes to how solar arrays are installed represent a significant alliance between solar developers, natural conservation groups, and agriculture advocates.
These changes are a branch of agrivoltaics that advocates combining solar arrays and agriculture. These developments show that agriculture, pollinator habitat restoration, and solar energy are not mutually exclusive.
It is possible to have the best of these worlds combined, and it is, in fact, beneficial to all parties involved. The solar panels provide shade for specific species of plants and animals that are better suited to being out of the sun for part of the time, and the plants enhance solar panel efficiency.
In the transition to solar energy, it’s incredibly important that the development isn’t harmful to existing food production and ecology goals.
Recycling old solar panels is challenging, but scientists from Singapore have found a way to upcycle the silicon inside and turn them into materials that can convert heat into electricity.
The team comprising researchers from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) turned old solar panels into thermoelectric materials.
Such materials convert heat into electricity, and work in a similar way to how hydropower generation plants use water movement to drive turbines to generate electricity.
The joint study was published in the scientific journal Advanced Materials in March.
Dr Ady Suwardi, the deputy head of the soft materials research department at A*Star’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering said that by moving heat from one side to another, thermoelectric materials generate electricity.
This can then be used for applications like cooling, added Dr Ady, who co-led the study.
The team found that impurities and defects in the silicon used to make solar cells actually enhance the performance of thermoelectric materials.
A solar panel is made up of many solar cells, also known as photovoltaic cells.
Separating the materials used to make solar panels and recycling each of them is a complex and costly process, said Associate Professor Nripan Mathews.
The team comprising researchers from A*Star and NTU turned old solar panels into thermoelectric materials. PHOTO: A*STAR
Prof Mathews, who is the cluster director of renewables and low-carbon generation (solar) at the Energy Research Institute @NTU (ERI@N), added that current recycling methods are able to recover only the glass and metallic support structures from solar panels.
Solar cells contain a complex mix of materials such as aluminium, copper, silver, lead, plastic and silicon.
Silicon, which is extremely pure, makes up 90 per cent of solar cells. However, this normally ends up in landfills.
This is because silicon has to be chemically treated and remelted to be recycled into pure silicon, said Prof Mathews.
He added that it is challenging, energy-intensive and expensive to recover the silicon to create new, functional solar cells.
“While silicon holds very little weight in the entire solar panel, it is the most valuable part of it, which explains why it is important for us to try and upcycle it,” said Prof Mathews.
Upcycling of solar panels (bottom) into valuable heat-harvesting electricity materials such as thermoelectric modules (top). PHOTO: A*STAR
The team is currently looking to pilot the technology for large-scale upcycling of waste silicon to create silicon-based thermoelectrics.
This can be used for high-temperature energy harvesting applications such as converting heat generated from industrial waste processes into electricity.
There are a number of research efforts ongoing in Singapore to see how solar panels can be recycled.
The NTU project, for example, is one of two currently supported by the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) Closing the Waste Loop funding initiative.
The $45 million initiative was launched in 2017 to boost research and development in areas such as the recovery of materials from waste streams.
The other project, a recycling programme led by Singapore Polytechnic (SP), aims to recycle solar panels on a commercial scale and recover more than 90 per cent by weight of the materials from the solar panels, said NEA.
In 2019, The Straits Times reported that Sembcorp and SP will also work together to develop a pilot recycling plant for solar panels.
However, the institutions declined to comment when asked for updates on the effort.
Another research effort by NTU spin-off EtaVolt, a solar tech firm, is working with the university on various other solar recycling projects, said its co-founder and chief executive Stanley Wang.
The project is not funded by NEA’s Closing the Waste Loop initiative.
Dr Wang said that the upcoming projects aim to recover materials from decommissioned solar panels so they can be recycled and reutilised as raw materials for battery, solar panel manufacturing and other industrial applications.
“This would allow us to recover the end-of-life value of these raw materials, which can potentially be given back to companies in the form of rebates to incentivise them to recycle their solar panels sustainably,” he added.
India’s G20 presidency next year offers a “golden opportunity” to accelerate the deployment of renewable energies, environment minister Bhupender Yadav told reporters on April 26 in a meeting with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). This year is a litmus test for progress, representing a deadline for India’s renewable energy target of 175 gigawatts.
While floating solar photovoltaic (FSPV) was not originally envisaged as part of the mix, which only included terrestrial and rooftop solar, it has emerged as a small but not insignificant catalyst for the figures.
Despite later including large hydropower in the renewable category to help meet the target of 175 GW, which originally included only small hydropower, India is still set to miss the goal, with 156.6 GW of utility-scale renewables as of March 2022, plus an estimated 11 GW of rooftop solar.
The shortfall, due mostly to the slow development of rooftop solar, highlights the need to further diversify India’s portfolio of green energy sources.
Solar cookers designed by engineers of Barefoot College in Tilonia, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India tower over a woman. Image: Knut-Erik Helle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Flickr.
An alternative to terrestrial solar
India’s journey with floating solar began in 2014 when it was approved by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), in Kolkata. S P Gon Chaudhuri, a veteran of the country’s renewable energy sector, told The Third Pole: “The organisation tasked with implementing this project was NBIRT [the NB Institute for Rural Technology], of which I was chairman at the time.”
When we start looking for a piece of land, it isn’t easy. In places with a lot of land, there are too many projects and hence, transmission is a challenge. Floating solar addresses so many problems
Manu Srivastava, commissioner for new and renewable energy, Madhya Pradesh
Once the project was completed, “officials from organisations such as the World Bank visited the site and examined how a floating solar plant is set up, how it works”, Chaudhuri recalls. “Basically, it was a study centre.”
Plants in Punjab, Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu followed, among others. India’s reservoirs cover 18,000 square kilometres with the potential to support 280 GW of floating solar, according to a report by think tank The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
High costs and design challenges are still holding back the deployment of the new technology, which as of November 2021 had an estimated cumulative installed capacity of just 2.7 megawatts, making it little more than a pilot project.
However, according to the think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), India now has about 170 MW of operational floating solar capacity and another 1.8 GW under different stages of development. The steep increase, a CEEW spokesperson explained, is due to the fact that the first plants deployed were small, and India has only started implementing large-scale floating solar in recent years.
Terrestrial solar PV is land-intensive, and the TERI report recommends exploring alternatives such as floating solar to keep pace with India’s national target of 100 GW of additional solar capacity by the end of 2030. The state of Maharashtra, the authors say, has the most potential and could generate 57.9 GW on 3,173 sq km of its reservoirs’ surfaces.
“The FSPV addition is small in relation to the entire market for solar energy, but it could be a viable alternative for speeding up solar power deployment in India,” a 2021 study by researchers at Effat University in Saudi Arabia stated.
Floating solar milestones
Recent developments in the floating solar space hint at the sector’s promise. In August last year, government-owned NTPC, India’s largest integrated energy company, commissioned a 25 MW project on the reservoir of its Simhadri thermal power station, in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
The plant has the potential to generate electricity from over 100,000 solar PV modules, which could light around 7,000 households and avoid the emission of at least 46,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year over its lifespan.
In January 2022, the state-owned hydropower corporation NHPC signed a deal with a developer in the eastern state of Odisha to build a 500 MW floating solar plant. It will initially invest over INR 20 billion (USD 261 million) in 300 MW-worth of floating solar projects. The project will help the state to meet its renewable energy generation targets, besides creating investment and employment opportunities.
On March 10, 2022, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister MK Stalin inaugurated India’s largest floating solar power plant, which was constructed at a cost of INR 1.5 billion (USD 19.6 million).
Scarce land, more water
Most Indian states lack land, but have enough water for FSPV. Installing solar on water can increase the panels’ efficiency due to lower temperatures that prevent overheating, Chaudhuri explained.
Manu Srivastava, commissioner for new and renewable energy with the government of Madhya Pradesh, said: “When we start looking for a piece of land, it isn’t easy. In places with a lot of land, there are too many projects and hence, transmission is a challenge… Floating solar addresses so many problems.”
Avnish Shukla is executive engineer at Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Ltd, a joint venture that has commissioned solar projects in Madhya Pradesh. Shukla told The Third Pole that a 600 MW floating solar plant in the state of Madhya Pradesh will be commissioned by August 2023, likely to be one of the largest in the world.
Shukla said that solar projects often occupy barren land, not used by agriculture, industry or people. “Since there is scarcity of such a type of land, we face trouble… In such a scenario, water bodies are perfect. Moreover, water will evaporate if we do not use it to install solar panels [to reflect the sun’s rays].”
Vinay Rustagi, the managing director of Bridge to India, a renewable energy consultancy, pointed out that some floating solar sites that are located near hydropower projects or in thermal plant reservoirs already have ready access to their transmission infrastructure.
Falling costs
Ground-based installations still form 93.1 per cent of India’s grid-connected solar PV, according to a 2020 report by TERI. Utility-scale solar costs fell 84 per cent between 2010 and 2018, making large-scale solar cheaper in India than anywhere else.
According to Chaudhuri, the cost of setting up a floating solar plant is currently INR 50-60 million (USD650,000-780,000) per MW, while conventional land-based solar projects cost the equivalent of USD 520,000 per MW, a difference that explains the slow take-off of the technology. However, he said, floaters and maintenance are becoming more cost-effective.
“India needs to meet certain targets it has committed to by 2030, which means states need to adopt more such [floating solar] plants, as they do not have so much land to spare,” he said.
According to Srivastava, transporting the lightweight but big floaters the panels sit on can be a challenge. However, these are low-tech components, so manufacturing plants installed near the development site could bring costs down further.
Floating solar projects do require longer due to the need for more detailed assessments of sites’ hydrography and water-bed topography. Furthermore, both the capital and operating costs are slightly higher due to the more complex design and risks of working in water, Srivastava added.
Rustagi, however, said the local governments and municipal agencies in charge of most inland water bodies must push for them.
Binit Das, deputy renewable energy programme manager at New Delhi think tank the Centre for Science and Environment, agreed but said there are other, more technical hurdles to overcome: “The solar floating system needs to hold solar panels on the water for over 25 years, so the racking system needs to be highly resistant to corrosion, must have a long lifespan and high load capacity.”
He added: “Since this is a relatively new solar power technology, it requires specialised solar power equipment and more niche solar panel installation knowledge.”
This story was published with permission from The Third Pole.
Cost-cutting green home technologies are set to launch in the UK this summer to make it easier and cheaper for homeowners to slash their energy use and carbon footprint.
Demand for green home technologies is surging as households look to invest in new equipment to cut their energy bills and reduce reliance on grid power.
And that has enticed overseas firms to enter the UK market with new products such as high temperature heat pumps and technology that can automatically design solar energy installations online.
Norwegian solar marketplace Otovo plans to launch a UK branch this summer, promising customers savings of up to 10 per cent on the cost of rooftop solar installation.
The online marketplace takes a customer’s address and then automatically calculates the size, shape and specification of suitable rooftop solar products. It then runs an automated, ‘real time’ auction between local solar installers to find the cheapest price for the work.
Co-founder Andreas Thorsheim said customers save time and money by having the survey work and quote calculated remotely. Installers also benefit by not having to “drive around drinking tea with people who end up not buying,” he added.
“In essence we are doing the Googling for you, we’re doing the price comparison for you, we’re doing the quality assurance of these workmen for you, and presenting you with the cheapest available price,” he told i.
Otovo was founded in Oslo, Norway in 2016 and now operates across seven European countries. A UK outpost will open in July or August this year, Mr Thorsheim said.
Demand for solar has rocketed in recent months as consumers across the UK and Europe hunt for ways to reduce their reliance on expensive grid electricity. Calculations suggest rooftop solar can shave hundreds of pounds off the average annual electricity bill.
Meanwhile high temperature heat pumps, which pump very hot water around the house in the same way as a gas boiler does, are set to arrive in the UK this month.
Usually air source pumps heat water up to a maximum of 50C. Homes therefore usually need to be well insulated with large radiators or underfloor heating to stay warm.
But high temperature pumps heat water to between 65C and 90C – similar to temperatures achieved using a gas boiler. The idea is that these pumps will act as green replacements for gas boilers in leaky homes that are too draughty for a standard lower temperature heat pump.
Viessmann Vitocal 151-A air source heat pump indoor and outdoor units (Photo: Viessmann)
This month, heat pump manufacture Viessmann will start selling two high temperature heat pumps in the UK. Both heat radiator water to up to 70C. This means that in most cases they can use existing radiators and do not require under-floor heating, Viessmann said, saving households thousands of pounds in avoided retrofit work.
Meanwhile, rival heat pump manufacturer Vattenfall is also developing a high temperature heat pump, using technology adapted from Japanese hot water systems.
“If you are in two identical houses, and in one is a traditional gas boiler and in the other is our high temperature heat pump, you won’t feel the difference,” said Wouter Wolfswinkel, who is leading the heat pump’s development at Vattenfall.
After successful trials in the Netherlands and Germany, Vattenfall plans to start selling this heat pump in the Netherlands starting this month, and i understands the team is keen to bring it to the UK as soon as possible.
Installation costs are around €14,000 (£11,700), Mr Wolfswinkel told i. This is more expensive than a gas boiler and a traditional heat pump but the new system cuts out the need for expensive insulation work on older properties, he stressed.
Wind and solar generated 10% of global electricity for the first time in 2021, a new analysis shows.
Fifty countries get more than a tenth of their power from wind and solar sources, according to research from Ember, a climate and energy think tank.
As the world’s economies rebounded from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, demand for energy soared.
Demand for electricity grew at a record pace. This saw a surge in coal power, rising at the fastest rate since 1985.
The research shows the growth in the need for electricity last year was the equivalent of adding a new India to the world’s grid.
Wind turbine blades being made ready for export from China
Solar and wind and other clean sources generated 38% of the world’s electricity in 2021. For the first time wind turbines and solar panels generated 10% of the total.
The share coming from wind and sun has doubled since 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was signed.
The fastest switching to wind and solar took place in the Netherlands, Australia, and Vietnam. All three have moved a tenth of their electricity demand from fossil fuels to green sources in the last two years.
“The Netherlands is a great example of a more northern latitude country proving that it’s not just where the Sun shines, it’s also about having the right policy environment that makes the big difference in whether solar takes off,” said Hannah Broadbent from Ember.
Vietnam also saw spectacular growth, particularly in solar which rose by over 300% in just one year.
“In the case of Vietnam, there was a massive step up in solar generation and it was driven by feed-in tariffs – money the government pays you for generating electricity – which made it very attractive for households and for utilities to be deploying large amounts of solar,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s global lead.
“What we saw with that was a massive step up in solar generation last year, which didn’t just meet increased electricity demand, but it also led to a fall in both coal and gas generation.”
Despite the growth and the fact that some countries like Denmark now get more than 50% of their electricity from wind and solar, coal power also saw a remarkable rise in 2021.
Coal saw a resurgence in 2021 as the price of other energy sources rose rapidly
A large majority of the increased demand for electricity in 2021 was met by fossil fuels with coal fired electricity rising by 9%, the fastest rate since 1985.
Much of the rise in coal use was in Asian countries including China and India – but the increase in coal was not matched by gas use which increased globally by only 1%, indicating that rising prices for gas have made coal a more viable source of electricity.
“The last year has seen some really super high gas prices, where coal became cheaper than gas,” said Dave Jones.
“What we’re seeing right now is gas prices across Europe and across much of Asia being 10 times more expensive than they were this time last year, where coal is three times more expensive.
He called the price rises for both gas and coal: “a double reason for electricity systems to demand more clean electricity, because the economics have shifted so fundamentally.”
The researchers say that despite the coal resurgence in 2021, major economies including the US, UK, Germany, and Canada are aiming to shift their grids to 100% carbon free electricity within the next 15 years.
This switch is being driven by concerns over keeping the rise in the world’s temperature under 1.5C this century.
To do that, scientists say that wind and solar need to grow at around 20% every year up to 2030.
The authors of this latest analysis say this is now “eminently possible”.
The war in Ukraine could also give a push to electricity sources that don’t depend on Russian imports of oil and gas.
“Wind and solar have arrived, and they offer a solution out of the multiple crises that the world is facing, whether it’s a climate crisis, or the dependence on fossil fuels, this could be a real turning point,” said Hannah Broadbent.
Ember’s Global Electricity Review can be found here.
Australian not-for-profit Orange Sky, supported by Australian electronics manufacturer, REDARC and global visual communications platform, Canva, launch solar powered laundry van to support people experiencing homelessness in Australian remote communities.
Equipped with a REDARC solar and lithium battery management system, the RV3.0 laundry van has the ability to produce more power than it uses, decreasing electrical consumption by up to 80% per shift.
A total of eight RV3.0 vehicles and three retrofit RV3.0 vehicles will be built at the Orange Sky headquarters and introduced to remote communities including Maningrida, Wadeye, Fitzroy Crossing, Bidyadanga and Palm Island to meet the demand for laundry services.
After launching the Waru Dryer – the world’s first fuel-powered and solar battery-operated clothes dryer just last month, Aussie not-for-profit Orange Sky have today launched another world first – a solar-powered laundry van equipped with three washers and three dryers.
Orange Sky provides access to free laundry services, warm showers and genuine, non-judgmental conversation and connection to community members doing it tough, across Australia and New Zealand via bright orange mobile vans.
With their dedicated ‘Imagination and Innovation’ department, the organisation strives to think outside the box to create smarter and more efficient ways to drive greater impact, with their most recent innovation, the RV3.0 vehicle, doing just that.
The Orange Sky innovation team undertook the preliminary ideation, developing the schematic of the vehicle using Canva, with the global visual communications platform integral to rapidly iterating concepts during early stages of design.
The RV3.0 vehicle is powered by four 180-watt REDARC solar panels, 600-amp hours in lithium batteries and a battery management and charging system to effectively capture, store and use the renewable energy harnessed, giving the vehicle the ability to produce more power than it uses, reducing electrical consumption by up to 80% per shift.
“The fit out of solar powered technology allows us to eliminate our diesel generator entirely. By doing so, we hope to see a significant decrease in vehicle servicing and maintenance downtime,” Orange Sky Lead Engineer, Ben Battaglia said.
“The RV3.0 vehicles are also fitted with our newly created Waru Dryers, which reduces the electrical consumption from that of a regular clothes dryer by 90%.”
Orange Sky Co-Founder, Nic Marchesi says exploring new and better ways to scale their impact and reach communities they never could have before is at the heart of what Orange Sky do.
“The thought of creating a more reliable, environmentally sustainable vehicle that has the ability to complete more loads of washing and drying and reduce maintenance requirements was something myself and the whole team were working towards for our remote community expansion, and thanks to the generous support of Canva and REDARC, our ideas have now come to life,” Mr Marchesi said.
“The demand for washing and drying services in remote Australian communities is very prevalent, however in our efforts to support the remote communities, we found that due to the geographic remoteness, terrain and demand for laundry services, we needed to create a reliable vehicle that was built for the climate and greater usage, so that’s where the RV3.0 came in,” Mr Marchesi said.
Orange Sky undertook a three-month remote venture from March to June this year travelling to a total of 29 remote Indigenous communities from South Australia, the Northern Territory, and the northern ends of Western Australia and Queensland to connect with communities and identify where the most need is for the next Orange Sky service.
Leading the remote expedition, Orange Sky Remote Program Manager, Judith Meiklejohn says they have been inundated with people engaging with their services in every remote location they have visited.
“Many people and families in remote communities don’t have access to basic facilities like washing machines and if they do, they are often overused and don’t last long – with new washing machines being extremely expensive and the geographical location making it challenging to find a technician to repair items,” Judith said.
“Since introducing the RV3.0 vehicle to Wadeye alongside our local partner TDC, during our testing phase, we have been overwhelmed with the response from the community. The laundry van not only meets the strong demand for laundry facilities, but it brings together so many different families and clan groups, which is a really beautiful outcome.”
Signing on to support Orange Sky as a National Power Partner for the next three years, REDARC Electronics Managing Director, Anthony Kittel says they believe in the Orange Sky mission to ‘positively connect communities’, a mission that strongly resonates with REDARC’s values.
“We are delighted to partner with Orange Sky to support their remote community expansion plans. REDARC’s mobile power tech provides a more reliable and sustainable mechanism for Orange Sky to deliver their critical mission,” Mr Kittel said.
Similarly, Canva Co-Founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht says “it’s fantastic to see Canva being used to help raise awareness for important causes and initiatives such as Orange Sky. Their team is doing an incredible job in remote communities across Australia, and we’re glad to be a part of their journey.”
As part of its mission to support the nation’s most vulnerable communities, Orange Sky, in partnership with REDARC and Canva, will be introducing a total of eight RV3.0 laundry vehicles to their fleet, and fitting out three of their current laundry vehicles with the REDARC gear, with all 11 RV3.0 vehicles set to service remote communities.
Australia, one of the world-leaders in household rooftop solar panel uptake, has once again broken its own record for the number of solar panels installed in a year. In 2020, installations were up nearly 30 percent from the year before, according to an analysis from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.
The data, compiled by energy efficiency experts and reported in a CSIRO statement, come from Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator, a national body tasked with reducing the country’s carbon emissions and accelerating its use of clean energy.
It shows that while their federal government leaders are lagging behind on climate action, everyday Australians are doubling down on renewable energy, installing more rooftop solar panels than ever before and beefing up the size of their rooftop arrays.
“Sustained low technology costs, increased work from home arrangements and a shift in household spending to home improvements during COVID-19 played a key role in the increase of rooftop solar PV systems under the SRES,” said Clean Energy Regulator senior executive Mark Williamson, referring to a national scheme in Australia that allows homeowners and small businesses to recoup some of the costs of putting the panels on their roofs.
The record-breaking year is really just another one for the books for the sun-soaked country, which has seen installations rise year on year as the cost of renewables has fallen. In 2018, rooftop solar installations jumped almost 60 percent from 2017.
“We lead the world in PV capacity on a per capita basis at 591 watts per person which is almost eight times the worldwide average,” he said.
Photovoltaics, or PV, is what scientists often call solar panels, which are made of solar cells stacked together to capture the Sun’s energy and turn it into electricity. Capacity is the amount of electricity a solar system can produce at its peak.
“The [latest] solar PV installation data shows how quickly PV systems have been taken up across Australia and the increasing size of the PV arrays,” Ambrose said.
Data used in the CSIRO analysis from Australia’s federal Clean Energy Regulator showed that in 2020, a record-high 362,000 solar panels were installed and certified under the scheme for small-scale renewables.
At the year’s end, Australia had a total of over 2.68 million rooftop solar systems on homes – which means one in four households are now soaking up sunlight and converting it to electricity.
And the country’s rooftop solar capacity is only expected to grow, with installations already trending higher in 2021 based on early data.
But amidst the fanfare, there are bigger questions that need tackling: can Australia’s aging electricity network cope with the huge influx of solar energy – it’s old and really needs to be upgraded – and could solar panels coupled with household batteries in fact keep the grid stable and bolster electricity supplies in the event of extreme weather, such as lightning strikes.
“How these systems behave when sitting on our rooftops can have material impacts on the broader electricity grid,” renewable energy researcher Naomi Stringer from UNSW told Renew Economy.
“Impacts of rooftop solar can be particularly acute during disturbance events when the grid is already strained, posing new risks to power system security,” she said.
“However, there are also important opportunities to harness rooftop solar capabilities to help restore power system security.”
When we take a step back though, some researchers say that Australia is playing catch-up to other renewable leaders such as Germany.
Australia might be building new renewable energy infrastructure, including large solar arrays and wind farms, at a per capita rate ten times faster than the global average, in recent years. But it still trails behind other countries in the total amount of energy it generates from renewables.
“Denmark is generating about two-thirds of its electricity from renewables – non-hydro renewables – and it has a population a fifth of Australia, so their per capita annual generation is many times that of Australia, and similarly for Scotland,” renewable energy expert Mark Diesendorf from UNSW Sydney told the Australian Associated Press in early 2021.
All the while, solar cell scientists have been testing new-fangled configurations with materials other than silicon that can capture more parts of the light spectrum and could be used to build more efficient solar cells – and they’re smashing record after record, too.
Until recently, rooftop solar panels were a clean energy technology that only wealthy Americans could afford. But prices have dropped, thanks mostly to falling costs for hardware, as well as price declines for installation and other “soft” costs.
Today hundreds of thousands of middle-class households across the U.S. are turning to solar power. But households with incomes below the median for their areas remain less likely to go solar. These low- and moderate-income households face several roadblocks to solar adoption, including cash constraints, low rates of home ownership and language barriers.
We found that three scenarios did: offering financial incentives to low- and moderate-income households; leasing solar panels to homeowners; and lending money to buy panels, with the loan repaid on property tax bills. All of these approaches resulted in people at a wider range of income levels trying solar energy.
Solar Power for Everyone
For over a decade our team at the Berkeley lab’s Electricity Markets and Policy group has kept tabs on trends in the rooftop solar market through our annual report, “Tracking the Sun.” It documents how prices have fallen, and the number of installations has risen in U.S. solar markets.
Over the past decade rooftop solar power has grown significantly in the U.S., spreading beyond initial hot spots in California and Hawaii to states such as North Carolina, Florida and New Jersey. The industry projects that rapid growth will continue for the foreseeable future.
Chart: The Conversation, CC BY-ND. Source: Barbose et al., 2020. Get the data
More recently our researchers have combined this tracking report with data on household-level demographics and income of solar adopters, covering more than 70% of the U.S. residential solar market. Among the research products we’ve created is an online interactive tool that shows the demographic characteristics of solar adoption down to the county level.
Thanks to these price and growth trends, an increasing number of state and local governments, utilities and businesses want to help lower-income customers go solar. They believe solar will cut energy bills, reduce money spent on bill payment programs, avoid pollution and create green jobs.
So far, 20 states are offering 38 programs to help lower-income customers go solar. California, the largest, has budgeted over US$1 billion for such programs. A number of utilities and solar developers, like Posigen and GRID Alternatives, are also developing business models that work for all customers. These initiatives leverage state and federal incentives to deliver free or very low-cost solar to eligible households.
Donnel Baird's company makes energy-saving updates to buildings almost exclusively in low-income areas. Cutting the carbon footprint saves money — and fights climate change.
"Solar panels aren't just for rich people," he says. "They're for everybody." https://t.co/5pswwuMSTc
In our study we evaluated five policies and business models to see which ones helped low- and moderate-income households go solar:
Financial incentives targeted at low- and moderate-income households, usually rebates or other incentives to reduce upfront costs.
Leasing rooftop solar systems, which reduces upfront costs.
Property Assessed Clean Energy financing, or PACE, which allows customers to finance energy improvements through their property tax payments. Currently, residential PACE is available only in California, Florida and Missouri.
Financial incentives such as rebates offered to customers of any income level.
“Solarize” campaigns, in which customers band together in a group purchase to get a good price.
The study includes data on more than 1 million residential rooftop photovoltaic systems installed on single-family homes in 18 states from 2010 to 2018. We compared modeled household-level income estimates for solar adopters with area median household incomes from U.S. Census data.
We found that three of the interventions – targeted incentives, leasing and PACE – effectively increased adoption equity. These approaches are boosting sales to low-income customers in existing markets and helping solar companies move into new markets, such as low-income areas where solar sales have been weak or absent.
Policies that don’t address the needs and constraints of low-income households, like the federal income tax credit, have not had much effect on equity. And solarize campaigns are rarely pitched to low-income buyers.
An Untapped Customer Base
When solar expands into new markets and neighborhoods, it can have a spillover impact. If a system is installed in a neighborhood that had no solar before, neighbors who see it will be more likely to adopt it themselves. Moving into new markets may have greater potential effects on low-income adoption rates than reaching lower-income households in existing markets.
Expanding sales to low- and moderate-income households can also tap a larger base of potential customers. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) found in a study that 42% of rooftops where solar power could work are on low- and moderate-income housing.
A 2018 study estimates that installing rooftop solar systems on low- and moderate-income housing could provide up to 42% of all rooftop technical potential in the residential sector and improve energy affordability in low-income communities. NREL
As the solar market grows, decisions to install solar systems are increasingly driven by the prospect of saving money, rather than strictly by green values or buyers’ interest in new technologies. A survey led by NREL found that roughly half of people who decided to install solar in California, New Jersey, New York and Arizona in 2014 to 2016 identified cost savings as a primary factor in their decision to adopt solar.
For low- and moderate-income households, the financial benefits of solar power can make a big difference. Many lower-income households carry a large energy burden, meaning that energy and utility costs consume a large share of their income. Across the U.S., low-income households spend about three times more of their income on energy costs than other households. Solar power can reduce those energy burdens by providing on-site power at a lower cost than grid electricity.
Making homes more energy efficient is an established strategy for cutting energy bills, but there’s growing interest in having solar play a role. Deploying solar power for low- and moderate-income households can be a way to fulfill policy and social goals like creating jobs and improving the environment.
The study described in this article was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.
Galen Barbose is a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Eric O’Shaughnessy is a research consultant at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Ryan Wiser is a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Disclosure statements: Eric O’Shaughnessy is a renewable energy research analyst at Clean Kilowatts, LLC. Ryan Wiser is a board member of the Clean Energy States Alliance. Galen Barbose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A new technique for cooling solar panels has been under development in Egypt. A mixture of water, aluminum oxide, and calcium chloride hexahydrate cools the PV modules from underneath.
This research, conducted in Cairo, builds on earlier research this spring that France’s Sunbooster was exploring. The technology found success and was able to cool down solar modules when their ambient temperature exceeded 25°C. Pipes spread a thin film of water onto the glass surface of the panels. The solution was implemented in rooftop solar PV systems and ground-mounted solar power plants. The technology enables an annual increase in power generation of between 8% and 12%.
Regarding the innovation in Egypt, researchers at Benha University applied various mixtures of their passive coolants to a 50 W polycrystalline PV panel. A cooling unit, DC pump, valves, water flow meter and connecting pipes provided a system with aluminum channels underneath the panels for the water and the Al2O3/PCM mixture. The panels were south adjusted and oriented 30 degrees from horizontal.
How It Works
The PCM mixture was heated to melting point to form a liquid and Al2O3 nanoparticles were added to it in the aluminum channels. “The dispersion of particles in the PCM liquid is done using an agitator bath with four different mass concentrations,” the group stated.
“Applying the cooling system, whether using water and/or [the] Al2O3/PCM mixture provides a noticeable drop in cell temperature compared with the uncooled [panel],” said the Egyptian team.
The researchers said a mixture of water and the Al2O3/PCM liquid outperformed the use of water alone and the best performance recorded used 75% water and 25% Al2O3/PCM.
Whether this is a cost effective solution — allowing for enough extra revenue through greater energy production (thanks to greater efficiency) than the solution costs — is not discussed. Assuming it is cost effective in some regions, those would presumably be places that get quite hot.
Fortunately, growing international pressure over the past decade has led to the development of solutions for tackling our carbon emissions problem. One category of these solutions is known as negative emission technologies (NETs), which focus on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
These carbon-removal solutions may be critical in our fight against climate change, but they need to meet certain conditions to effectively curb carbon emissions.
Ensuring long-term capture and storage of carbon removed
Professor Howard J. Herzog, Senior Research Engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative and leading expert on carbon capture and storage, says: “the best way to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is not putting it there in the first place”. There is truth in this when you consider how difficult it is recapturing and storing carbon dioxide for the long term, when it has already been emitted.
Nature provides the simplest carbon removal solution – planting more trees. This is an effective solution depending on how well the land is managed to protect from deforestation and natural disasters. If not protected, trees may only store carbon for hundreds of years, compared to the thousands of years needed to slow climate change.
Carbon Upcycling Technologies, an innovative startup founded by Apoorv Sinha, is combining carbon dioxide with fine particles such as fly ash, graphite, talc and olivine to produce solid nanoparticles that can be used for a range of material solutions. In 2017, Carbon Upcycling Technologies used its nanoparticles to create a corrosion-resistant coating, locking carbon away and generating revenues in the process.
Reducing carbon removal costs and meeting carbon storage capacities
Similarly to how solar power requires sunshine, carbon removal solutions also require certain conditions to work effectively. If certain conditions are not met, the full carbon capture capacity of these technologies cannot be realized.
A 2017 Michigan study optimistically suggests that carbon removal solutions have the potential to mitigate 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, where annual emissions are roughly 38 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year. However, even if this were the case, reaching this storage potential would require a portfolio of solutions with carbon capture costs lower than traditional storage or emissions. Technological solutions are making progress – but investment and time are still required to reduce carbon removal costs and to scale-up the adoption of these solutions.
A Swiss-company, Climeworks, has constructed a plant which extracts carbon dioxide directly from the air using a filter and chemical process, storing carbon dioxide as a concentrate. Technologies like these are known as Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS). Despite the novelty of this idea, Climeworks’ plant in Italy can only capture up to 150 tons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere, equivalent to taking just 32 cars off the road. Combined with high capital and carbon removal costs, solutions like these alone are not sufficient.
Reducing the market and technology risks of carbon removal solutions
Most carbon removal solutions are still in development, and it may take years for them to commercialize. The pathway to commercialization requires large investments into research and development without guarantees of financial return. This may not fit the risk profiles of many traditional investors or funders, limiting the available funds for the development of new solutions.
Cyclotron Road, an early-stage funder and incubator, provides grant and investment capital to innovative hard-tech social enterprises. Robert Ethier, a former investment director for Cyclotron Road, says this capital is “to help them reduce market and technology risk [and] accelerate them to commercialization [by] leveraging programmes and partners”.
There is a growing portfolio of carbon removal technologies, including those gifted by nature. Although in different stages of development, carbon removal solutions have the potential to serve as a necessary defense against pending climate catastrophe, but cannot serve as an insurance policy for the carbon dioxide we are emitting, and will emit.
Carbon removal technologies must be combined with other solutions and global efforts to reduce global carbon emissions. However, knowing that there are nascent solutions available should motivate the development, cost-reduction and scaling-up of these solutions. The future of the world depends on it.
