Is solar really ready for prime time?

Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images

Solar panels on the roof of a building at the Marina Barrage in Singapore

Predictions that solar energy will disrupt and replace the current electricity grid system may be premature, with analysts noting urban settings are likely to remain dependent on traditional delivery methods for a while yet.

“The problem is solar or wind or some of the other main intermittent renewables only work when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing or when the tide is moving,” said Lord Ronald Oxburgh, chairman of the Science & Technology committee in the U.K.’s House of Lords as well as a former non-executive chairman of the U.K. arm of Royal Dutch Shell.

Read More Has solar power’s day in the sun arrived?

“None of these things will work unless you have some means of storing energy,” he said on the sidelines of CNBC’s EnergyFuture brainstorming event Tuesday. “You’ve got to have some backup and your backup at the moment looks like fossil fuels.”

That’s been the experience of import-dependent Singapore, which is keenly interested in cutting energy use.

“By using solar energy, we are not going to be able to be self-sufficient,” said Dr. Liu Thai-Ker, chairman for the Centre for Liveable Cities and a former head of Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority and its Housing Development Board. “But we’ll try to use solar energy to supplement the energy supply as much as possible,” Lui said on the sidelines of the EnergyFuture event.

He noted the island nation has few other renewable energy options besides solar as it doesn’t have strong winds or currents or large rivers, while due to the country’s small size, nuclear power is too dangerous.

The declining price of installing and using solar power has led many analysts to expect it could effectively compete with and displace fossil fuels, as well as weighing on the finances of traditional electricity distributors.

Read More Solar power’s ‘a decade-long story’: Pro

Solar could reshape the market within 10 years, Bernstein Research said in an April note. Many companies are also stepping up solar installations. Wal-Mart, for example, has said it wants to switch to 100 percent renewable power by 2020.

“Great ideas, but they’re incomplete without another technology,” Oxburgh said. “You’re really talking about fancy batteries. And they exist, but they’re really too expensive for general application.”

To be sure, analysts expect the batteries, and lower prices, are coming. In the April report, Bernstein said it expected moves by distribution utilities to protect their revenue from solar’s incursions would make battery storage more cost effective compared with the grid.

Read More Why Asia’s utilities may welcome solar disruption

“A failed battery technology in the auto sector (too hot, too heavy, too rigid a form factor) might well be perfect for the home energy storage market,” Bernstein said then.

Others also expect the batteries will become cheaper.

“Historically, EV (electric vehicle) battery prices were high because they were customized to large formats, with limited production runs, making each battery much more expensive (per kWh) than the smaller models used to power consumer devices,” Barclays said in a note last month. But with electric carmaker Tesla bundling cheaper laptop cells into batteries large enough to power vehicles, it reaped production efficiencies and brought prices down, it noted.

“The power required to operate an electric vehicle can power the average home for 2-3 days,” Barclays said.

Within an urban setting, there are also expectations that the solar panels themselves can reduce overall energy use.

“If you put it at a suitable distance above the flat roof, it not only generates energy itself, it also reduces the heat transmission through the top floor,” Liu said. “It is really kind of a joint effort.”

He noted the city-state is taking other steps to cut energy use, including orienting buildings in a north-south direction, rather than east-west, to minimize sun penetration and cut the use of air-conditioning.

Read More Solar gadgets that could save the planet

In addition, Liu noted it’s possible to put greenery on the buildings, especially facades with high sun exposure, to reduce reflected heat on the ground.

It’s a plan recently put into practice by the ParkRoyal Hotel in the city-state’s central business district, which, in addition to using solar power for landscape lighting, also has four flours of “sky gardens,” as well as using natural light whenever possible.

—By CNBC.Com’s Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1

Is solar really ready for prime time?

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NYC Targets Coal Oven Pizzerias In Air Quality Legislation

The coal oven at Juliana’s in Brooklyn (via Facebook)

It was previously reported that Mayor de Blasio is coming for New Yorkers’ precious fireplaces, but now it’s also become apparent that the City Council, with the full support of the mayor, is setting their sights on the scourge known as coal fired ovens and, by extension, the delicious pizzas made within them. The Brooklyn Paper took a look at the buried lede from the Earth Day legislation regarding air pollution, pulling out language that would require the city’s coal oven operators to install air filters to cut down the emissions from oven exhaust.

The legislation, proposed by Queens Councilman Donovan Richards and the Committee on Environmental Protection, would compel coal oven establishments to purchase costly air filtration systems for their restaurants. An executive for one oven manufacturer told Brooklyn Paper that $10,000 was the minimum to install the filtration gear that would meet the city’s requirements.

Grimaldi’s manager Gina Peluso claims the city’s “big numbers game” is behind the move, explaining that coal ovens like the one in use at the pizzeria don’t even emit much pollution. “There’s worse pollution if you just stand under the Brooklyn Bridge,” she quipped. New York Hospitality Alliance counsel Rob Bookman agrees; “These are minor polluters,” he told the Paper. “Why not do it over time and phase out the old stuff?” The legislation doesn’t provide any grandfather clause for longtime operators, meaning spots like Hurricane Sandy-ravaged Totonno’s on Coney Island would be forced to foot the bill. “We’ve been here 90 years,” said co-owner Louise Ciminieri. “We didn’t kill anybody yet.”

Matt Grogan, a partner at coal oven pizzeria Juliana’s in Brooklyn, says he wasn’t surprised by the legislation and tells us that it many ways it was a “long time coming.” Still, he dubs the proposed regulation “onerous,” explaining that it “could be interpreted as a selective tax on a certain kind of restaurant that use this kind of equipment to prepare their food.” The pizzeria uses so-called “clean coal,” an anthracite coal that burns more cleanly than traditional bituminous or “black coal.” “Nevertheless, there’s always something that comes out when it’s used,” explains Grogan. “But it’s much less environmentally detrimental than anything else, including wood, oil or any other fossil diesels.”

The pizzeria will comply with whatever the end result of the bill will be but Grogan hopes that the only outcome of the legislation is financial. “I just hope that it doesn’t affect the taste or the fundamental operation of the coal oven—and until I see what kind of equipment it is and how it’s going to be installed and maintained—it’s going to be really hard for me to know,” he mused. “I’d hate for all the coal oven pizzerias to suddenly have the taste that’s become a favorite over generations and generations to be changed. That would be a shame. “

NYC Targets Coal Oven Pizzerias In Air Quality Legislation

New silent wind turbine could generate half of a homes electric needs, says company The ...

Megan Treacy of Treehugger reports Silent rooftop wind turbines could generate half of a household’s energy needs

A Dutch company cased The Archimedes has developed a small, highly efficient, and silent rooftop wind energy generator called the Liam1, which it claims could generate half the power a typical house would need, and which they say would be ideal for combining with solar rooftop PV panels.

The company states that the Liam F1 turbine could generate 1,500 kWh of energy at wind speeds of 5m/s, enough to cover half of an average household’s energy use. … When used in combination with rooftop solar panels, a house could run off grid. “When there is wind you use the energy produced by the wind turbine; when the sun is shining you use the solar cells to produce the energy,” The Archimedes CEO Richard Ruijtenbeek said.

The Liam’s blades are shaped like a Nautilus shell. The design allows it to point into the wind to capture the most amount of energy, while also producing very little sound. The inventor of the turbine Marinus Mieremet says that the power output is 80 percent of the theoretical maximum energy that could be harnessed from the wind.

“Generally speaking, there is a difference in pressure in front and behind of the rotor blades of a windmill. However, this is not the case with the Liam F1. The difference in pressure is created by the spatial figure in the spiral blade. This results in a much better performance. Even when the wind is blowing at an angle of 60 degrees into the rotor, it will start to spin. We do not require expensive software: because of its conical shape, the wind turbine yaws itself automatically into the optimal wind direction. Just like a wind vane. And because the wind turbine encounters minimal resistance, he is virtually silent,” said Mieremet.

The Archimedes is now working on an even smaller turbine that could fit on top of lamposts, boats, and smaller applications.

With the announcement today of the EPA’s proposed new standards for reducing carbon emissions, we have all the more reason to look to renewable energy options to supply our energy needs.

Here is a link to the embedded video below that the company offers to explain the history of the Liam1 turbine. The Archimedes windmill movie ENG high quality

New silent wind turbine could generate half of a homes electric needs, says company The ...

Heating Water using Solar Power

When you determine to convert your primary power source over to solar power you will have to make some changes to the appliances that carry the source of power. When you make use of solar power to heat your water you might find that you will should purchase a solar energy water heating system in order to do that. You may manage to make modifications to your alreadying existing one however just what ever before pointers you take to transform it into solar power it will be worth it.

There are several different methods to heat your water making use of solar power. You could even make your own solar power source. The water runs through water pipes prior to it enters your residence. Heating water making use of solar power will certainly occur just before the water gets into your home as it passes by the solar source that enticed the light. You could likewise have a tank to save the water in that could heat up the water up. In order to heat your water effectively you will certainly have to have both a solar collector and a tank.

A level plate collector is the most common collector. It is designed to be a slim, level rectangle-shaped box that has a see through cover and it can lug liquid to be heated. This fluid could be the water or it may be a solution, such as antifreeze that will certainly avoid the water from freezing. Next the water moves with boob tubes to an absorber plate. This plate is painted black to attract and absorb the warmth from the sunlight. When the collector obtains hot, it will warm the liquid that travels through boob tubes. As the water passes through boob tubes it goes into the tank. The tank holds the heated water. It is usually well shielded so the water will remain warm longer. Then the water streams into the house on demand.

Solar water furnace are divided into two teams: Active and passive. When the heating unit are energetic, that means that they depend on the pumps or other mechanical device that can relocate the water in between the flat plate collector and the storage tank top. Active is the most common given that it is quicker and more efficient. The passive system relies upon gravity to feed the water from the level plate collector to the storage tank. This may be slow-moving sometimes and could not be sufficient adequate to stay on par with the demand. Both ears methods are rational and may be even more of a selection of inclination for you. One more thought that you need to think about is that if your flat plate enthusiast and your storage tank is not angled right it could be tough for the gravity to supply the fluid via.

Heating water using solar power is quite affordable and can be installed with very little effort. Deciding to warm your water making use of solar power is a sensible selection and a first step in making a choice to help keep our environment. We know exactly how easy it is to use solar power to do a lot of points, consisting of heating our water.

Heating Water using Solar Power

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