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Schneider Electric Offers
Solar Irradiance Forecasts

Schneider Electric has updated its suite of weather forecasting services to include site-specific solar power forecasts. The company says its Schneider Electric Solar Forecasts cover the needs of both solar photovoltaic as well as concentrated solar power systems on a worldwide basis.

Weather model-based forecasts are updated every six hours and are intended to meet next-day and intra-day requirements, including hourly granularity seven days into the future. Schneider Electric says the service uses radiative transfer modeling and satellite imaging in addition to numerical weather prediction model data to improve accuracy. High-resolution modeling helps account for surrounding terrain and other local characteristics.

In terms of solar irradiance measurement, the service forecasts global horizontal irradiance, direct normal irradiance and diffused global irradiance.

Schneider Electric says its updated features support all types of solar and solar power forecast requirements and employ machine learning techniques that apply historical data. As the system learns more about the unique location and patterns of a solar operation, accuracy is improved.

Schneider Electric: schneider-electric.com

 

Jackson Releases New
Energy Use Databases

Florida-based Jackson Associates has released its 2014 Market Analysis and Information System (MAISY) utility customer energy use and hourly load databases.

The company says that in addition to providing energy use and 8,760 hourly loads for states, provinces and utility service areas, the 2014 MAISY databases include a new user interface with extended analysis capabilities and access to individual utility customer records.

Jackson Associates: maisy.com

 

WattJoule Licenses
PPNL Storage Tech

Massachusetts-based WattJoule Corp. has entered into an intellectual property licensing agreement to enable the commercialization of Battelle’s flow battery electrolyte technology developed over the last several years by the research team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The research was funded by the Department of Energy (DOE).

“The redox flow battery is well-suited for storing intermittent, renewable energy on the electric grid,” says Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager at the DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, which supported the licensed technology’s development and currently funds much of PNNL’s energy storage research.

Gyuk says the technology can help balance supply and demand, prevent disruptions, and meet the grid’s varying load requirements.

H. Frank Gibbard, co-founder and CEO of WattJoule, says the electrolyte technology developed by PNNL, in combination with his company’s high-power stack technology, provides a competitive flow battery platform.

Greg Cipriano, WattJoule co-founder and vice president of business development, says the technology increases operating temperature range by 115%, eliminating the need for system cooling. He says it also improves energy density - storage - in the liquid by 100%.

“These combined changes significantly reduce volume, footprint and most importantly, cost,” Cipriano says.

WattJoule: wattjoule.com

 

Sumitomo Solar Storage
Reuses EV Batteries

Japan-based Sumitomo Corp. has developed and installed a large-scale solar power storage system using batteries collected from electric vehicles (EVs). The commercial storage system, built on Yume-shima Island, Osaka, began operating last month.

Sumitomo says that over the next three years, the system will measure the smoothing effect of energy output fluctuation from the nearby Hikari-no-mori solar farm, and will aim to establish a large-scale power storage technology by safely and effectively incorporating quantities of discarded EV batteries projected to become available in the future. This project has the support of Japan’s environment ministry.

Sumitomo created the 4R Energy Corp. joint venture in collaboration with Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. in September 2010 to address the secondary use of EV lithium-ion batteries. The used EV batteries recycled into the Osaka solar storage system have been recovered and have gone through thorough inspection and maintenance at 4R to confirm safety and performance. The prototype Osaka system consists of 16 used EV batteries and has a capacity 400 kWh.

Sumitomo: sumitomocorp.co.jp

 

Firms Collaborate
On Solar Storage

U.K.-based battery maker OXIS Energy and solar products supplier PROINSO have partnered to develop a new solar energy storage system. The two companies are currently working on a prototype system they say could be ready to show this year.

“In the first stage, our collaboration with OXIS energy will allow us to offer solutions in testing environments where the price of competing energy is particularly high,” says Mark Randall, general manager of PROINSO.

The partners have identified military applications as one focus, and the goal of products for the grid-connected storage market.

OXIS Energy: oxisenergy.com

 

Cogenra Receives Grant
For CPV-CSP Hybrid

Cogenra Solar has been selected by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for an award of $1.996 million under its Full-Spectrum Optimized Conversion and Utilization of Sunlight (FOCUS) program.

Cogenra says it will use the grant to develop its T14 concentrated photovoltaic system into a hybrid technology that incorporates solar power storage.

The proposed research will build on Cogenra’s existing low-temperature storage capability to develop a higher-temperature concentrating solar power (CSP) arrangement. The company says it will be splitting the optical spectrum into visible and infrared (IR) components. The visible wavelengths will be used to generate electricity from high-efficiency PV cells while the IR wavelengths will be separated and directed to heat a storage medium to high temperatures that can be stored and converted to electricity on-demand with a steam turbine.

Cogenra says the hybrid system’s modularity will enable cost-effective solar with integrated storage for utility-scale power plants and distributed commercial and industrial market segments.

Cogenra Solar: cogenra.com

 

Envision Solar Receives
Patent For Tracker

Envision Solar International Inc. has received a U.S. patent for its EnvisionTrak tracking system.

The company says EnvisionTrak is an engineered system of gears, electric motors and computational devices that enable the repositioning of a solar array without swinging or rotation.

EnvisionTrak has been integrated into a variety of Envision Solar’s products, including Solar Tree Standard, Solar Tree Socket, Solar Tree HVBA and EV ARC.

According to the company, the product enables Solar Tree structures to follow the sun as it moves across the sky while maintaining their lineal alignment with the location in which they are installed.

Envision Solar: envisionsolar.com

 

Partnership Establishes
CIGS Fab In South Africa

Photovoltaic Technology Intellectual Property Pty Ltd. (PTiP) has launched its pilot production line for copper indium gallium di-selenide (CIGS) thin-film solar modules in South Africa. Germany-based Singulus Technologies supplied engineering technology and support for the production processes.

PTiP, a spin-off from the University of Johannesburg (UJ), established its demonstration plant in the Techno Park near Stellenbosch, South Africa, to commercialize research and development of work. The facility has received financial support of the South African government.

“The immediate goal is to set up a commercially viable production plant for CIGS thin-film modules in South Africa in order to supply products with high local content to existing and future PV projects in South Africa,” says Vivian Alberts, CEO of PTiP. “The European Investment Bank already announced its support for the establishment of a PTiP production plant and the mass production of PV modules.”

Singulus: singulus.com R