Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

India's first PV conference taking place in November

November 8th, 2009 | Posted in Solar | No Comments

Intersolar India

Intersolar India is to take place for the first time from November 9-11, 2009 in Hyderabad, India, as a part of the collaboration of PFORZHEIM, Germany and FREIBURG, Germany along with India's SOLARCON. This is the first photovoltaics conference to take place in the country. Current trends and new markets in the international PV industry are to be presented by 50 renowned experts over the span of 12 sessions. Panel discussions and workshops will allow for additional information to be exchanged. The main focus of the event will be the development of the PV solar market in India.

India is a country that gets a lot of sunshine, and the solar market is seeing enormous expansion. India's Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has put together the "National Solar Mission," which is to be published this month. The Indian government has great ambitions to expand the now 2.1 megawatt power resource to 20 gigawatts by 2020. Both photovoltaic installations and solar thermal power plants will be developed to support this goal.

Over the next 30 years a total of $20 billion are expected to be spent on this solar mission, with gasoline and diesel fuels receiving additional taxation to fund the endeavor…


CBI shares some interesting facts as it announces the China Waste to Energy Outlook 2010 conference

November 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Biomass | No Comments

China Waste to Energy Outlook 2010

CBI China is organizing China Waste to Energy Outlook 2010 conference in an effort to gather WTE industry practitioners and leading experts to discuss related policies, latest technologies, management models, investment risks, and CDM Project Opportunities in Waste to Energy. A dedicated website is set for the conference where you'll certainly find all the details you may care about, or not.

But it's not the reason why we picked up this release. CBI had some interesting numbers to share about waste and WTE activities in China:

  • The overall China municipal solid waste output is expected to reach 250 million tons in 2010 with daily capacity of 684 thousand tons. That's 71% more than in 2005.
  • By the end of "National Eleventh Five-Year Plan", the nationwide biosafety treatment of urban refuse will be increased by 60%, up from 27% in 2005, indicating 200 billion of huge output value.
  • More than 90% of local provinces are engaged in building and improving the refuse transportation system.
  • Chinese government plans to invest total amount of 862.9 billion RMB to promote the construction of urban refuse treatment and transportation facilities.
  • China is expected to have additional 3,300,000 kW of installed capacity of waste power generation by 2020.
  • Annual profits from waste disposal would exceed RMB 300 billion in several years.

I like covering China. Numbers are super huge and they impress, BIG time! ;)

Large area solar cell with 18.4% conversion efficiency presented by IMEC

October 10th, 2009 | Posted in Solar | No Comments

IMECIMEC presented a large-area solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 18.4% at the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference in Hamburg, Germany. The process created by IMEC proved to be industrially viable in comparison to the standard i-Perc — the solar cell from IMEC features a shallow emitter and advanced front metallization using copper plating, allowing for positive results that were achieved on large-area cells.

Enhanced blue response is a result of the shallow emitter, and offers higher conversion efficiency than a standard emitter. A novel metallization stack added to local openings in the anti-reflective coating is a special feature of the front contacts.

"Using copper instead of silver adds to the sustainability of solar cell production. IMEC was able to do this because it has extensive experience with copper plating in silicon. A similar efficiency result was obtained with screen printed contacts, but the long-term sustainability and low-cost potential Cu-based contacting solutions and the fact that this was a first result obtained without dedicated fine-tuning makes this result particularly encouraging," said Dr. Joachim John, team manager at IMEC.

Mobile geothermal power system demoed at the 2009 Geothermal Energy Expo

October 8th, 2009 | Posted in Geothermal | No Comments

Pratt & Whitney Power Systems

Pratt & Whitney Power Systems, Chena Power and the U.S. Department of Energy demonstrated a mobile geothermal power generation unit at the 2009 Geothermal Energy Expo in Reno, Nevada. It's actually the mobile version of Pratt & Whitney's PureCycle technology, which will allow customers to relocate energy generating capability from one geothermal or waste heat resource to another as circumstances dictate, said John Fox, director at Pratt & Whitney Power Systems.

Originally designed for the oil and gas industry, the PureCycle system can generate electricity from various heat sources with temperatures between 190 and 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a mobile unit at existing oil and gas sites can expedite return on investment for geothermal power, as the majority of development cost is in exploration, drilling and infrastructure.

The updated-for-geothermal-energy version has the self-contained cooling system that uses resource water to replenish the cooling tower water, thus eliminating the need for a separate fresh water source. In addition, it demonstrates how low temperature geothermal technology can diversify the nation's energy supply with base load renewable energy. Creation of new jobs was also mentioned in the press release, of course! :)

One-day solar event coming to Orlando, Florida on Septembar 29th

September 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Solar | No Comments

One-day solar event coming to Orlando, Florida on Septembar 29th

The German American Chamber of Commerce of the Southern United States (GACC South) is teaming up with the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association (FlaSEIA) and Enterprise Florida to hold a solar energy-focused one-day conference at the Embassy Suites Orlando Downtown in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday, September 29, 2009.

The conference, which is clearly organized in response to recent regulation changes, will see keynote speakers presenting the newest cutting-edge technologies from Germany and the U.S. as well as discuss how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the new local feed-in-tariff (FIT) in Gainesville are affecting the solar industry market in Florida.

The GACC South invites all potentially interested parties to register for the event. The pitch is that potential relationships with the German solar energy companies will "enable Florida's industry to more effectively cater to the state's increasing solar industry demands."

And for the record, this conference is being sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.