Brooklyn Green Team’s “One Year of Action” Celebration at Bar Reis!
Monday, January 26th, 2009| January 31, 2009 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
Posted in Solar One Events | Permalink
Green Renter: The ‘Other Solar’: Understanding the Technology and Economics of Solar Thermal Heating and Cooling in the Five Borough Context with Chester Birchwood, Bernie Klinger and Susan Sommers, New York Solar Systems LLC.
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009| February 2, 2009 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Solar thermal technology (pictured above) absorbs the sun’s energy to heat hot water and interior spaces for buildings. While this “other solar” may not be as well known as photovlatics – the fast growing technology that converts light into electricity – its ultimate potential to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is no less promising. And as a distributed rooftop technology with a very attractive return on investment, solar thermal can dramatically slash energy budgets for property owners of all categories right here in the New York City area, where heating prices are among the highest in the country.
Join Chester Birchwood (CEO) Bernie Klinger and Susan Sommers of New York Solar Systems LLC for this comprehensive presentation on solar thermal technology’s potential, diverse applications and economic and environmental benefits. The speakers will provide a complete overview of how the technology works and what it means to be a solar thermal owner in New York.
(New York Solar Systems is a leading provider of solar thermal and high efficiency heating systems based in Canarsie, Brooklyn.)
Posted in Solar One Events | Permalink
Green Renter: Offshore Wind Power and New York City: Technology, Proposals and Potential with KC Sahl, Bluewater Wind
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009| February 9, 2009 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
The potential of wind turbine technology to provide for our growing electricity needs on a utility scale increases every year as technology improves and its costs decline versus rising fossil fuel prices. However, wind power is limited by two key factors: time and location. Put simply, the wind doesn’t always blow and the areas with the highest wind resource are often located far away from population centers or in areas where development is controversial.
Developing turbines miles off shore along coastal shelves, where wind is more constant, speeds are higher and the imposing 30-story scale of today’s turbines are minimized to the size of thimble from land, may help mitigate both of these obstacles going forward. In spite of these advantages, recent large scale project proposals to develop offshore wind in the the Northeast have either succumbed to local opposition or escalating project costs. However, new proposals, including a few in the New York City harbor area, are again on the table, and important allies – including Mayor Bloomberg – have come to advocate for its development in the region.
KC Sahl, the New York Project Director for Bluewater Wind, one of the nation’s leading developers of offshore wind projects, will speak about offshore wind turbine technology and potential in the local context.
Posted in Solar One Events | Permalink
Gov. Patrick Backs Major Wind Initiative
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
Political proclamations and big gusts of wind often go together.
This paradigm of civic symbiosis was never more true than last Tuesday, when Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced plans to markedly boost his commonwealth’s wind power capacity by 2020. While Massachusetts currently produces just 7 MW of wind-generated energy annually, Patrick hopes to ramp up production to 2000 MW – enough to power 800,000 homes and 10% of overall anticipated need – by the end of the next decade. The ambitious policy will supplement his administration’s recent commitment of 250 MW of solar power by 2017.
The announcement also comes on the heels of the DOE’s 2007 decision to locate one of two planned Wind Technology Testing Centers there, spurring speculation that Massachusetts could join California as a leader in forging a green economy. In a statement issued by Governor Patrick’s office, the new center will provide a framework for the “economic rewards of technological development, entrepreneurship and jobs.” Assuming an even greater commitment to clean energy policy at the federal level by the incoming Obama administration and new DOE honcho Steven Chu, this is a trend that should continue.
Though some hurdles remain in getting locals on board (one proposed Cape Cod offshore wind farm comes to mind), Massachusetts Secretary for Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles noted that last year’s incentive-laden Mass. Green Communities Act has “municipalities around the Commonwealth… lining up to bring wind power to their communities.” In part to alleviate concerns about the blight of turbines on the seascape, the state is also formulating a comprehensive ocean-management plan to identify other suitable locations for “appropriate-scale renewable energy facilities.”
The initiative is part of a broader attempt to reduce the commonwealth’s greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 and 25% by 2020, as mandated by the 2007 Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act.
Sources: “Patrick sets 2000-MW wind-power goal”, Providence Business News; “Deval Patrick unveils big push for wind power”, Your Industry News; “Residents upset over Cape Cod wind-farm plan”, www.sfgate.com; “Massachusetts Moves Closer to Having Nation’s First Offshore Wind Farm and More Secure Energy Future” (press release; Jan. 16, 2009), www.capewind.org; “”Summary of S. 2768, The Green Communities Act”, Conservation Law Foundation; “Senate Bill, No. 534″, “Governor Patrick Sets New Goals for Wind Power” (press release; Jan. 13, 2009), www.mass.gov.
Posted in Energy, Green Collar Jobs, Legislation, Politics, Renewables, Sustainability, Technology | Permalink
Silver Nanoparticles Boost Thin-Film Efficiency
Friday, January 9th, 2009
In 2008, thin-film solar became the latest candidate on the short list for the holy grail of renewables, achieving record efficiency ratings in the laboratory that caught the attention of both the energy industry and the mainstream press. While not quite as effective as traditional silicon-based photovoltaics, which regularly achieve conversion efficiencies of over 20%, the newer thin-film panels offer an obvious advantage in that they use less material and are therefore cheaper to produce. Now new developments promise to increase thin-film’s efficiency enough to lower the costs of generating energy near the range of cheaper-but-oh-so-dirty fossil fuels.
Researchers at the Australian National University and the Center of Nanophotonics at the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam have discovered that “sprinkling” the surface of thin-film panels with nanoparticles of silver (Ag) can significantly increase the amount of light the panels can absorb. Previous thin-film applications proved less effective at handling wavelengths of light from both the longer (redder) and shorter (bluer) ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, limiting their efficiency in experiments. Incorporating minute silver flecks, however, has the effect of “thickening” the cells horizontally, allowing for the conversion of these more elusive wavelengths. The electrons in silver are highly sensitive to visible light and react by emitting their own photons in the form of “surface plasmons”, electromagnetic waves that propagate across the surface of the panel rather than through it. By traveling in this manner, the plasmons come into contact with more of the cell’s silicon, increasing its ability to convert light into electricity.
According to the researchers’ findings recently published in Optics Express (see abstract), this breakthrough could improve the conversion rates of these wavelengths nearly tenfold. And though silver is expensive, the overall cost of thin-film technology should hardly be affected. The metal is used in such small quantities that analysts predict a price increase of no more than a few cents per panel.
Sources: “19.9%: New Thin Film Solar Efficiency Record”, TreeHugger; “Seeing Red”, The Economist; Catchpole, K.R. and A. Polman, “Plasmonic Solar Cells”, Optics Extress (Vol 16, Issue 26); “Enhancing solar cells with nanoparticles”, www.nanitenews.com; Paddon, Paul and Bernhard Michel,“Enabling Solar Cells: Virtual Prototyping of Nanostructures”, www.simuloptics.com; “Surface plasmon resonance”, Wikipedia; www.erbium.nl (Photonic Materials Group website).
Posted in Energy, Energy Efficiency, Photovoltaics, Renewables, Technology | Permalink
