ANU and Trina Solar Panels smash solar efficiency targets.

March 10, 2014 2014-03-10T13:29:22 by 1 Comment
a solar cell

Trina and ANU are making kick-ass solar cells together!

With the start of the NRL (AFL just around the corner), the Spring cycling classics in Europe and as women’s and men’s football and others reach the pointy end of their respective seasons, its a case of too much teamwork is barely enough for your correspondent. However a more important form of teamwork was announced late last month. Chinese solar manufacturers Trina and our very own Australian National University (ANU) have combined to create a new, super conversion efficiency in solar cells. This has the potential to make Trina solar panels even more cost effective.

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Discover How Micro Inverter Solar Panels Cope With Shade

March 7, 2014 2014-03-07T18:28:52 by 2 Comments

As a true solar geek, I can’t think of anything better to do at 7:30 on a Friday evening, than log in to my solar panel monitoring system.  While most folks are settling down to Friday Night Footy, you’ll find me checking out how much power my 6kW of micro inverter solar panels are producing as the last rays of evening sun scatter across my roof.

As I logged in tonight to see a respectable 1.2kW being pumped out, I noticed that the monitoring system was providing a great example of one of the benefits of microinverter technology.

If you have a gander at the live monitoring screenshot below you’ll see that I’ve highlighted the position of my wood burner’s flue and the approximate shadow it casts as the sun goes down.

solar panel monitoring

The red circle is my flue. I’ve drawn on its 7:30pm shadow.

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ACT Feed in Tariff lives again!

March 3, 2014 2014-03-03T14:28:36 by 2 Comments

So you think Canberra is just a source of hot air when it comes to renewable energy initiatives? Believe far reaching projects like viable community solar power just a dream in the nation’s capital? Do you expect little, or nothing, with Greg “The Human Backflip” Hunt in charge of proceedings? Think again readers for Canberra […]

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Chinese Sopray, Risen and ET solar panels come top in German testing.

February 27, 2014 2014-02-28T09:21:39 by 6 Comments
chinese panels and a trophy

Hot off the German Press: industry bible Photon Magazine has announced the winners of its 2013 solar panel test. Basically, a bunch of Germans in white coats mount a gazillion solar panels in a field in Germany and measure their power output over 12 months. At this point I must point out that 3 separate […]

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Sky’s the limit for solar cell innovation as new breakthrough aims for 50 percent conversion rate

February 24, 2014 2014-02-24T15:41:42 by 3 Comments
50 percent efficiency

One of our favourite subjects — solar cells and more specifically solar cell innovation and breakthroughs — is covered in this week’s SQHQ spray readers. I think I’ve mentioned, in a previous rant in these pages, one of the enduring memories I have of seeing the famous environmentalist/author/activist Professor David Suzuki in 2007 was his […]

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Google’s solar power investment proves world’s best brains back renewables

February 17, 2014 2014-02-17T19:35:14 by Leave a Comment
google search for solar

The search engine giant Google — and more specifically Google solar power — is the subject of this week’s rant folks. There comes a time when the most radical science drifts into the mainstream and becomes accepted as fact or a viable alternative to the present way of doing things. Sometimes this happens almost unnoticed, […]

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Where is the world’s largest proposed utility scale solar project?

February 10, 2014 2014-02-10T13:45:10 by 2 Comments
solar panels in a field

If you were thrown a curly question, say in a solar-powered themed pub quiz, about which country was proposing to build the world’s largest utility scale solar project, how would you answer? China may well be your first choice. With the People’s Republic leading the world in driving down the cost of solar through cheaper […]

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Has the start of construction of utility scale solar at Nyngan proved ARENA’s worth?

February 3, 2014 2014-02-03T11:42:28 by 7 Comments
utility scale solar

The start of construction of Australia’s largest utility scale solar project has demonstrated that the country is serious about large-scale solar. However it throws up an uncomfortable truth in the halls of power in Canberra and the cabinet rooms of their state counterparts. News that construction had started on the country’s largest utility scale solar […]

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Solar nark’s worst nightmare: Saudi Arabia solar power project ushers in renewable era

January 27, 2014 2014-01-27T16:21:07 by 17 Comments
oil and solar in the desert

We’ve mentioned before about the huge movement overseas towards a renewable energy future and this includes the home of one-fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves — Saudi Arabia. For many, Saudi Arabia symbolises opulent oil wealth, a desert kingdom so awash in the black stuff that fortunes are measured in billions not millions. All […]

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Hollande’s merger initiative (outside the presidential bedroom)

January 20, 2014 2014-01-20T16:33:55 by 3 Comments
french actress and solar panels

Here at the SQHQ we try to cover solar policy as often as we can in these pages. Let’s face it there’s nothing more enjoyable than covering the sorry policy efforts offered by the chair polishers in state and federal seats of power. With some exceptions (heads up ACT), policy that takes into account the […]

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