Tucson Electric Power is partnering with Areva Solar to build a 5 megawatt concentrating solar project to produce power. This will be an addition to TEP’s H. Wilson Sundt generating station in Tucson.

Concentrated solar power systems utilize lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a small area. Power is produced when the concentrated sunlight is converted to heat that creates steam which drives a turbine to power an electrical power generator.

This project will use a solar compact linear fresnel reflector to power steam generators to produce energy during peak demand periods. Construction is slated to begin this spring with operation beginning in early 2013.

From the news source: http://thesolarnews.com/2012/01/tep-selects-areva-solar-as-technology-partner-for-innovative-csp-booster-project/

Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ office will hold the first Solar 101 Workshop of 2012 this Thursday for homeowners and business owners to learn about solar leases. This is a popular way to finance a rooftop solar power system and these systems now make up 90 percent of the rooftop arrays being installed in the Tucson area.

Recent changes in regulations will encourage even more people to choose the leasing option. This workshop is an opportunity to learn about the potential benefits and risks of solar leasing.

Thursday’s event will be held at the Martha Cooper Branch Library in midtown Tucson. The workshop is free and open to the public. Anyone interested in attending is asked to RSVP by contacting 520-881-3588 or RSVPsolar@mail.hous.gov.

Speakers at the Solar 101 Workshop include:

• Thomas Alston, solar outreach and policy coordinator for Giffords’ office, who will give an overview of solar basics;

• Marc Romitio, renewable energy supervisor for Tucson Electric Power Co., who will discuss the do’s and don’ts of solar leases;

• Ryan Hurley, vice president of the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association and an attorney and partner with Rose Law Group focusing on solar issues, who will give an overview of lease options for commercial and residential solar.

Click here for the news release.

Photo by Kate Kaemerle

University of Arizona professor of Engineering and Optical Sciences Raymond Kostuk is a principal contributor to a research team exploring a new way to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panels that generate electricity directly from sunlight.

Collaborating with researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Denver with a grant from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), their project has the uber-geeky title of “Holographic Spectrum Splitting for Multijunction Organic Photovoltaics.”

The explanation of this work is actually quite simple, according to Kostuk.

“Photovoltaic cells that produce electricity from sunlight only convert a small percentage of incident sunlight into electricity,” he said. One way to make them more efficient is to use multiple junction. Most multijuntion cells today are designed with one junction grown on top of the next forming a tandem cell.

“Junctions are sensitive to specific colors in the spectrum of visible light,” he noted. Some junctions are sensitive to red light; some are sensitive to blue; others are sensitive to the other colors that make up sunlight.

“Some solar devices with stacked junctions already exist, but they are very expensive, which means they are used mostly on high concentration systems and orbiting satellites. Another problem is that it is difficult to match the interfaces on different multi junction devices which limits the range of materials that can be used,” Kostuk said.

OK, maybe not quite that simple, but there is the big bonus that could be the outcome of this research. The team’s hope is that the developed solar devices can be manufactured using carbon-based “organic” materials, which would be generally cheaper and easier to obtain.

The University of Arizona recently deployed the latest in solar-thermal heating and cooling system technology on campus. The new installation is expected to reap enough solar energy each year to power more than 180 households.

One large rooftop installation powering that many homes? More of those please!

From the UA News story:

An innovative solar-thermal heating and cooling system installed on top of the UA’s Student Recreation Center is expected to harvest almost 200 million kilowatt hours of solar energy per year – enough to power more than 180 households.

In a nationwide first, an innovative system recently installed on the University of Arizona campus uses the sun’s energy not only for heating but also for cooling.

At the heart of the solar thermal cooling and pool heating system is an array of 346 argon-filled vacuum tube solar thermal collectors installed on the roof of the UA’s Student Recreation Center.

The collectors utilize heat from the sun as a free energy source to drive an absorption chilling system to help keep buildings on campus cool while also heating the recreation center’s main swimming pool.

An absorption chiller works similarly to a refrigerator or an air conditioner, except it uses a process relying on heat, rather than electric power.

Read the rest of the story with photo here.

Courtesy of EnviroMission

One thing Arizona has in abundance is heat. Lots and lots of heat. There’s a proposal afoot for for a new clean energy project in the desert that harvests hot air to create power. I’ll attempt to refrain from any politician jokes.

The idea is to build a solar updraft tower 2,600 feet tall to capture the hot air as it rises. This would make it the world’s second tallest structure. As we all learned in elementary school, hot air goes up and this would generate 200 MW of electricity daily and last for 80 years. That’s enough energy to power 100,000 homes. For 80 years.

The taller the tower, the stronger the air flow which turns the turbines and creates more energy. The structure would be made of concrete. “Because air is free, operating costs will be minimal,” according to EnviroMission, the company proposing this project.

We certainly have plenty of hot air around here, and not just from the state legislature.

CNN has the story here, complete with a video that demonstrates how the project works.

If you love solar technology (and who doesn’t) then you’ll love the Solar Decathalon. Teams of college students from around the world compete to build solar-powered homes on the National Mall in Washington D.C. It’s a solar geek’s dream come true. Innovative design and the latest technologies combine to create beautiful, energy sipping architecture.

From http://www.solardecathlon.gov/:

This is the fifth Solar Decathlon, a ten day event featuring 20 teams of college students who have designed and built solar-powered homes. It’s an educational and promotional endeavor, designed both to stoke public interest in solar technology (which, despite recent growth, still accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S electricity production) and prepare American kids for their future jobs laboring in the great clean-energy factories. Previous decathlons were held on the National Mall, where crowds could marvel at the “solar village” of gee-whiz houses temporarily installed in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.

The U.S. Department of Energy sponsors the event and has photos and video on their website here.

More photos from National Geographic here.

Jobs in the rapidly growing solar energy field are the subject of a workshop tonight hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrille Giffords‘ office. The Solar 101 workshop is part of a continuing education series on solar energy and will focus on solar training opportunities and the skills that are needed to work in the solar industry.

WHAT: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office hosts Solar 101 workshop on jobs in the solar industry

WHEN: 6:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 26, 2011

WHERE: Pima Community College Downtown Campus, 1255 N. Stone Ave., Amethyst Room

From the news release:

The office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is holding a workshop to discuss jobs in the rapidly growing solar energy field.

“Solar is one of the fastest growing segments of the American job market,” said Pia Carusone, chief of staff to Giffords. “With many people still looking for work, we want to make sure they know about the opportunities in the solar industry.”

On Monday, Giffords’ office will hold its 49th Solar 101, a continuing community education series on solar energy. This workshop will focus on solar training opportunities and the skills that are needed to work in the solar industry.

Speakers will be:

• Tom Alston, solar outreach and policy coordinator for Giffords’ office, who will give an overview of solar technology and incentives.

• Dr. Chien-Wei Han, an instructor at Pima Community College, who will talk about solar training.

• Karen King, training director of the Tucson Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Program, who will discuss electrical training opportunities. King also is a member of the Arizona Apprenticeship Advisory Committee and past president and current treasurer of the Western Apprenticeship Coordinators Association.

• Molly Gilbert, deputy director of the office of University Research Parks at the University of Arizona who will talk about solar-related education and an overview of activities at the UA research park.

Monday’s event is free and open to the public but anyone interested in attending is asked to RSVP by contacting RSVPsolar@mail.house.gov or 520-881-3588.

There now are 100,237 jobs in the American solar industry, according to The Solar Foundation. The foundation found that between August 2010 and August 2011, employment in the solar industry grew by 6.8 percent, far outpacing the 0.7 percent job growth rate of the overall U.S. economy.

According to figures compiled by the solar census researchers from an Economic Modeling Specialists database, jobs in the fossil fuel electricity-generation sector dropped by more than 1,600 over the last year. Meanwhile, the solar industry added more than 6,700 jobs.

Giffords, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, is one of the most passionate supporters of solar energy in Congress. She played a key role in obtaining a $1.45 billion federal loan guarantee that enabled construction of Arizona’s largest solar power-generation plant near Gila Bend. She also had solar panels installed on her home in Tucson.

Instead of subsidizing fossil fuels, what if we switched to funding solar instead? Here’s a handy chart to see what would happen.

Link to blog entry by Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times. Yes, that Roger Ebert.