Energy & Green Tech

Iraq inches toward solar-powered future

In a small village in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, solar panels adorn most homes, part of a small but growing effort to harness the sun's energy in Iraq, where electricity is scarce.

Engineering

What is a virtual power plant? An energy expert explains

After nearly two decades of stagnation, U.S. electricity demand is surging, driven by growing numbers of electric cars, data centers and air conditioners in a warming climate. But traditional power plants that generate electricity ...

Energy & Green Tech

Technical potential of renewables in Indonesia

Indonesia is a country with huge renewable energy potential, essentially to enable the Net Zero 2060 ambition. The figure summarizes three years of research by Ph.D. candidate Jannis Langer on renewable resource mapping in ...

Energy & Green Tech

Exploring the potential of solar cars

A new study, modeling the potential of solar-powered vehicles in the urban context in 100 cities across the world, shows that solar energy provides a range between 11 and 29 km per day, reducing charging needs by half.

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Photovoltaics

Photovoltaics (PV) is a method of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity using semiconductors that exhibit the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic power generation employs solar panels composed of a number of solar cells containing a photovoltaic material. Materials presently used for photovoltaics include monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon, amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, and copper indium gallium selenide/sulfide. Due to the growing demand for renewable energy sources, the manufacturing of solar cells and photovoltaic arrays has advanced considerably in recent years.

Solar photovoltaics is growing rapidly, albeit from a small base, to a total global capacity of 40,000 MW at the end of 2010. More than 100 countries use solar PV. Some 24 GW of solar is projected in November 2011 to be installed in that year, pushing up worldwide capacity to roughly 64 GW. Installations may be ground-mounted (and sometimes integrated with farming and grazing) or built into the roof or walls of a building (building-integrated photovoltaics).

Driven by advances in technology and increases in manufacturing scale and sophistication, the cost of photovoltaics has declined steadily since the first solar cells were manufactured. Net metering and financial incentives, such as preferential feed-in tariffs for solar-generated electricity, have supported solar PV installations in many countries.

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