Scientists from Michigan Technological University in the United States and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden published an article "Decarbonization of Rural Residential Buildings in Cold Climates: Technical and Economic Analysis of Heating and Electrification" in "Energy and Building" magazine to quantitatively evaluate isolated areas without natural gas supply in cold climates The technical and economic characteristics of solar heat pump solutions for residential buildings found that by adopting electrified solutions, owners can reduce heating costs by up to 20%. The researchers explained: "In North America, most studies compare heat pumps with natural gas because of the dominance of natural gas for heating in urban areas. However, remote rural households who rely on more expensive fuel oil or propane are a better option for heat pumps. chance". Their work particularly considered the remote areas of the Upper Midwest and Northeast of the United States, modeling and analysis in four scenarios. The four scenarios are: propane meets all heating requirements (benchmarks for comparison); use of solar photovoltaic heat pumps for heating; full electrification of the building heating system; full electrification of building heating, plus summer cooling. Through total life cycle cost (TLCC) to evaluate the economic performance of the four scenarios, scholars found that in remote areas of the northern climate of the United States, regardless of whether photovoltaic systems are installed, heat pumps are economically competitive with propane. The most cost-effective solution is the second scenario, solar photovoltaic heat pump heating. According to calculations by scholars, even if the initial investment cost is 50% higher than the average market price, the lower operating cost of the heat pump can compensate. They pointed out that heating and electrification solutions such as solar heat pumps can reduce heating costs by up to 20% and carbon emissions by 30%. However, the researchers also pointed out that the conclusion strictly depends on the electricity price in the area. Lower electricity prices are good for heat pumps, but not good for photovoltaics; while higher electricity prices help support photovoltaics.

Last week, the finance ministers of EU countries reached an agreement. Since then, solar modules sold in the EU may be subject to a lower VAT rate. In order to align tax rules with EU priorities, such as tackling the climate crisis, the European Council agreed to update the VAT rate rules. At the same time, doing so will also provide governments with more flexible applicable tax rates. After consultations, EU member states decided to expand the scope of the current list of goods and services to include solar cell modules installed in private homes and public buildings. These goods and services can benefit from the reduced value-added tax rate. Solar modules installed in private houses and public buildings can reduce the value-added tax rate Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of the trade association SolarPower Europe (SPE), said in a statement to the media, "This is an early Christmas gift from the council." "Recently, the price of natural gas has pushed up the price of electricity, and many Europeans have been affected. But soon, the decline in the solar energy value-added tax rate will make it easier for European households and businesses to afford solar energy investment and obtain clean and cheap electricity." In addition to solar modules, items such as green heating systems and bicycles will also benefit from lower value-added tax rates. The updated list also includes digital commodity services such as Internet integration and public health protection. According to the new regulations, EU member states will continue to implement standard VAT rates higher than 15%. At present, member states can also apply two reduced tax rates as low as 5% for up to 24 categories of goods and services. The council also agreed to phase out the value-added tax cuts on fossil fuels and other commodities that have similar effects on greenhouse gas emissions, or adopt tax exemptions before January 2030. According to the European Commission, the current EU VAT rules are nearly 30 years old and urgently need to be updated. The updated rules will be sent to the European Parliament so that the Parliament can negotiate the final text before March 2022. Earlier this year, the European Union announced a new target of 40% of the final consumption of renewable energy in 2030, which is higher than the previous target of 32%. SPE predicts that achieving this goal requires the development of a total of 660 GW of solar photovoltaics throughout Europe.

The latest government statistics show that France has added approximately 2.76 GW of solar and wind turbine capacity in the first three quarters of 2021, reaching 13.23 GW of solar and 18.54 GW of cumulative wind power installed capacity. From January to September, the domestic solar photovoltaic (PV) industry put into production 2,034 MW, a year-on-year increase of 167%. During the same period last year, only 761 megawatts of solar power generation capacity was put into production. According to data from the French Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Statistics, the increase in deployment is attributable to the increase in the number of grid connections and energization systems in large factories. The largest part of the new grid-connected solar farms are registered in the New Aquitaine and Occitanie regions, accounting for 448 MW and 339 MW of total installed capacity, respectively. Solar power generation in the first nine months of 2021 was 12.5 TWh, which was higher than 11.4 TWh a year ago. During the reporting period, photovoltaics provided 3.7% of the country's electricity demand. At the same time, from January to September, 70 wind farms with a total of 726 MW began to supply power to the grid, a decrease of 3% from a year ago. About 60% of the capacity put into operation in the first three quarters of this year came from the installed capacity of 8-12 MW. Hauts-de-France and New Aquitaine were the regions with the highest installed capacity during the same period, contributing 213 MW and 129 MW respectively. French wind farms generated 26.2 TWh of electricity during January-September, accounting for 7.7% of national electricity consumption. Due to unfavorable weather conditions, power output dropped by 6% from a year ago.

According to foreign media sources, the Dutch company Photon Energy is cooperating with Australian technology provider/project developer RayGen Resources to plan to build a 300MW/3.6GWh "solar hydro power plant" on an unspecified 1,200 hectares of land in Australia. plant) project. The project is currently undergoing licensing and grid connection processes, and preparations are expected to be completed before the end of 2023. The "solar hydropower station" technology developed by RayGen Resources is a new method of solar energy utilization, using the company's proprietary PV Ultra (super photovoltaic) system and a low-cost, large-scale, long-term long-term energy storage system-thermal water power (Thermal Hydro) system realizes cogeneration. Its operating principle is: the heliostat used in the traditional tower solar thermal power station focuses the sunlight on the super photovoltaic receiver on the tower, and directly converts the light energy into electric energy; at the same time, water is used to cool the battery, which indirectly generates heat energy. . The heat storage technology is based on the temperature difference between two pools --- "hot pool" and "cold pool". The heat generated by the photovoltaic cell on the top of the tower is injected into the "hot pool", and the electricity generated by the photovoltaic cell is cooled by an electric refrigerator to cool another "cold pool"; it is stored by the 90°C temperature difference between the two water-based pit-type heat storage tanks energy. When needed, heat is used to drive an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) engine to generate stable electricity. According to reports, it can reach 70% charge-discharge efficiency, deep discharge, and zero degradation of the heat storage medium (water) during recycling. Self-powered heliostat by a small solar panel, the heliostat tracking is controlled wirelessly and there is no field wiring Ultra Photovoltaic Receiver "Our ultra-photovoltaic module uses a small multi-junction gallium arsenide (GaAs) solar cell with a size of only 10cmx10cm; there is a water heat sink on the back of the battery. The ultra-photovoltaic module is 4,000 times more powerful than a typical solar panel. A typical solar panel is 0.15kW/m², while the ultra-photovoltaic module has higher concentration ratio, efficiency and cooling, providing 750kWh/m². The peak optical efficiency of the ultra-photovoltaic module installed on the solar tower reaches 85%. The current receiver has more than 400 Each module can generate more than 1MW of electricity and 3MW of heat.” Photon Energy said that electricity is directly generated, and heat is collected as a by-product of cooling panels. These towers are 45 meters high and are similar in scale to cell phone communication towers. For the energy storage unit, PhotonEnergy said that the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) turbines will be provided by Swedishconglomerate Atlas Copco. (Swedish conglomerate Atlas Copco). A spokesperson for the company sa...

According to foreign media reports, researchers have developed a composite panel that can be used as a photovoltaic cell to use solar energy (000591, shares) to generate electricity, and at the same time as a structural supercapacitor to store energy. In electric vehicles with ion-exchange rechargeable batteries, these panels can be used for body structures and form a hybrid energy storage system (HESS). Compared with traditional electric vehicles, under solar irradiance of 1000W/m 2, this type of composite board prototype can provide an additional 4.56% of power generation and cruising range per hour. Use solar supercapacitors as electric car body panels In electric vehicles, with the help of cost-effective hybrid energy storage systems, several types of renewable energy sources can be integrated to improve efficiency. Among them, compared with fuel cells and electrochemical cells, supercapacitors have many advantages, such as higher power density, shorter charging time and longer cycle life. It is common to use photovoltaic cells on the roof to collect solar energy. However, using the same equipment to store this type of energy may change the rules of the game in the field of hybrid electric vehicles. Solar Super Capacitors (SSC) are capacitors used to collect and store solar energy. Carbon materials are the most commonly used electrode materials in supercapacitors, and carbon fiber (CF) has proven to be the best candidate material for electric double layer capacitors (EDLC). Benefiting from one-dimensionality, CF has superior charge transport performance. Because of the large number of pores on the fiber surface, CF has a high adsorption capacity for ions. Conductive polymers such as CF and epoxy resin (ER), together with metal oxides such as ZnO/CuO, can be used as high-performance SSC electrodes. This research The researchers sandwiched a thin paper film between the ZnO-ER and CuO-ER layers to prepare several prototypes of SSC-based composite boards with different compositions. The paper membrane is soaked in Na2SO4 electrolyte, which can be used as the medium between CF electrodes. In addition, both the ZnO-ER layer and the CuO-ER layer are covered with two layers of CF sheets. In the presence of solar photons, the CF embedded n-type electrode (ZnO-CF) donates electrons, and the CF embedded p-type electrode (CuO-CF) accepts electrons. The two electrodes-ZnO-CF and CuO-CF-, and the electrolyte Na2SO4 form an electric double layer supercapacitor. CuO can promote electron transfer on the surface of ZnO nanostructures because of its large surface area and high catalytic activity, and it also promotes the reaction process. Therefore, the synthesis of ZnO/CuO-based composite electrode materials helps to shorten the charging time. The conductive polymer ER makes the nanostructure of ZnO/CuO more compact, so the charge storage time is longer, and will not discharge too fast like traditional capacitors. With the help of conductive polymers, such pan...

In November of this year, the Chilean Solar Energy Association ACESOL cited a statement made by Chilean President Sebastián Piñera at the National Conference of Entrepreneurs (ENADE), stating that the Chilean government is planning to build a submarine cable and the other end of the cable It's China, coming to export photovoltaic power generation to China. The project, called Antípodas, aims to use the huge solar energy potential of the Atacama Desert, the area with the highest solar radiation in the world, to achieve more economic benefits. President Pinera explained that through this submarine cable, Chile, located in the southern and western hemispheres, can provide 200 to 600 GW of photovoltaic power during the night and winter in East Asia, thereby ensuring stable power supply in East Asia. He said: “Chile has the desert with the highest solar radiation in the world and has great potential in producing clean, renewable and economical solar power. Therefore, we can export it to Asian countries during the day when the sun is strong.” 01 Chile's solar advantage 1. The desert with the highest solar radiation in the world The Atacama Desert (desierto de Atacama) is a desert area on the central west coast of South America. It stretches about 600 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometers) from north to south between the Andes Mountains and the South Pacific coast, with a total area of approximately 70,000 square miles (181,300 square meters). Km), the main body is located in northern Chile, and some parts are located in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. The Andes in the eastern part of the Atacama Desert block the humid water vapor from the Atlantic Ocean. Although Atacama is located on the seashore, the waters of the zone are controlled by subtropical high pressure all the year round, and sinking offshore winds prevail. As the Peruvian cool current passes, the lower layer of water is easy to condense into clouds or fog, but it is difficult to form rain. The combination of these factors has made the Atacama Desert the driest place in the world, with an average annual rainfall of less than 0.1 mm. There are statistics. It means that from 1570 to 1998, there was almost no rain for more than 400 years, so there were no thunderstorms and floods. Especially in the area around Yonggai, an abandoned town in the Antofagasta region of northern Chile. The Atacama Desert, formed 15 million years earlier than Death Valley, has an average annual rainfall of only 15 mm. Compared to the 66 mm annual rainfall in Death Valley, California, it is only 1% of its annual rainfall. In some places with lower annual rainfall, such as Arica and Iquique, the annual rainfall is only 1 to 3 mm. In addition, some weather stations in the Atacama Desert have not even measured rainfall. Due to the dry climate and tropical conditions, the Atacama Desert is known as the desert with the highest solar radiation in the world. In 2013, the 110 MW solar thermal power plant (the first in Latin America) a...

In November 2020, the National Key Laboratory of Wind Energy and Solar Simulation and Testing and Certification Technology, Beijing Jianheng Certification Center (hereinafter referred to as “Jianheng”), and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Huawei”) jointly released the "Inverter With the tracking support intelligent joint control technology SDS (Intelligent Tracking Algorithm) White Paper, SDS continues to improve the efficiency of the photovoltaic power generation system through the synergistic integration of components, inverters, and tracking support. In the era of parity, it provides the industry with an implementation path to further reduce LCOE. This white paper introduces the development background, technical characteristics and application effects of SDS in more detail, so as to facilitate the industry to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the technology. Tracking bracket is a weapon to increase power generation. Using big data and AI technology, the inverter and bracket control linkage to find the optimal angle has become one of the development directions of tracking technology. The SDS technology developed by Huawei, in collaboration with bracket manufacturers and component manufacturers, uses AI technology to further increase the power generation of the tracking system through inverter IV sensing and linkage with the bracket control unit, and closed-loop control. Huawei SDS technology has the following characteristics: (1) The inverter and the tracking support control system are linked and closed-loop controlled to ensure that the system runs under the state of the largest amount of light received by the components and the best power output; (2) No need for additional sensing equipment, get rid of manual and experience dependence, use AI technology to automatically sense occlusion and weather change information, and automatically perform tracking angle optimization and control; (3) Through the inverter integrated tracking support communication and power supply functions, with the help of MBUS technology, reduce the use of tracking support power supply and communication cables. The Jianheng verification team conducted technical review and comprehensive verification in photovoltaic power plants that actually applied SDS technology, and reached the following conclusions: (1) The SDS technology developed by Huawei has been verified for a long time and has entered the stage of large-scale application. This technology gives full play to the central role of the inverter, in accordance with the logic of "all-round monitoring or perception of environmental and operating parameters-optimization of tracking angle-maximum and equalization of received radiation-optimization of output parameters" The framework is designed in a scheme, and through closed-loop control with the bracket control unit, the technical efficiency of the tracking bracket is further improved; (2) The technical scheme adopted by this te...

01 Basic knowledge of solar carport Do you know what a "solar carport" is? First of all, the carport is a simple garage with only columns and roof. Generally speaking, it is characterized by no walls or shutters. The solar carport is a garage with solar panels installed on the roof of the carport. Solar panels are usually installed on the roof of houses, but in fact they can also be installed in carports to generate solar energy. 02 The three main types of solar carports Carport with integrated solar power Carport has a "solar integrated" carport with solar panels installed in its design. The obvious difference from a typical carport is its appearance. Generally, carports have curved R-shaped roofs, but solar carports are designed with integrated solar power generation, because they were originally designed on the premise of installing solar panels, so compared to general carports, its roof flat design feels full. Another feature of the integrated solar power carport is that it is designed to install solar panels without wasting space on the roof. Carport equipped with solar power generation There is also a type in which solar panels and carports are separated. The difference from a carport with integrated solar power generation is that it can be built as a carport without installing solar panels. One of the advantages is that products can be selected according to the installation environment and customer preferences, because there are many types of products. The angle can be adjusted by changing the height of the gantry, but it should be noted that increasing the height will increase the weight and cost. There are also some carports, such as products using translucent materials and polycarbonate, which do not presuppose the installation of solar power. So it may not be suitable for installing solar energy on the carport. Customized There are customized types of solar carports as well as integrated and vehicle-mounted solar power generation types. As the name suggests, the customized model will specifically design a unique carport according to the site where it needs to be installed, and install solar panels on it. The advantage of this type is that a solar carport that fits perfectly with the site can be installed. However, the disadvantage is that the cost is slightly higher. 03 The benefits of installing a solar carport First, use space effectively In addition to protecting the car, the carport can also be used as an effective space for use. Not only can it play a role in shading and protect the car from snow, it can also be used as a family leisure space, for example, it can be used as a place for children to play or barbecue when the car is not in use. If you want to set up a parking space in your home, building a carport is a good choice, but in addition, you can also use the space more efficiently by installing solar panels above the carport. Because the upper part of the carport is a blind spot. Even installing solar panels here will not ...

Recently, Amazon announced that it is adding 18 new utility-scale wind and solar projects to its renewable energy portfolio. The company said these locations will be in the United States, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, and will add 2 gigawatts of additional energy capacity. Earlier this year, the company announced new projects that will generate 3.6 GW of renewable energy, so this week’s new projects bring the total new capacity to 5.6 GW. Amazon said that it is now expected to achieve 100% of its business powered by renewable energy by 2025, rather than 2030 - this was its original goal. So far, Amazon has announced 274 global renewable energy projects, 105 of which are wind and solar projects, and 169 are solar roofs for facilities and stores. The company also stated that last year, its promised projects will generate 4 GW, so this year, its promises represent a 40% increase. Commenting on the news, the CEO of the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) Miranda Ballentine said: “For the second year in a row, Amazon has set a new record because it is committed to fully using renewable energy by 2025, which is ahead of schedule. Five years. Large-scale clean energy investments like this are beneficial to all of us and should become the new normal in industries of all forms and sizes. They bring high-paying green jobs to local communities and support our communities to realize the American power system The goal of 90% carbon-free."

On November 30th, the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Shanghai Summit was held as scheduled. More than 60 speakers from many countries around the world and more than a thousand audiences from Asia Pacific and the world participated. Trina Solar Chairman Gao Jifan was invited to attend the high-end dialogue with PV leaders Talk about "Next Generation Photovoltaic Technology and Business Model". Q1: What role does photovoltaic play in China's road to achieving carbon neutrality? Gao Jifan: Currently, solar energy is the cheapest energy source among renewable energy sources. By 2025, China's total installed solar capacity will increase to 450 GW. According to data from the National Energy Administration of China, as of the end of October, China's solar installed capacity has reached 282 GW. Solar energy is becoming a powerful new force to achieve carbon neutrality. Photovoltaic power generation, energy storage, UHV, and energy digitization are the four key aspects of achieving carbon neutrality. Trina Solar is one of the second largest solar equipment manufacturers in China. It has established a 1+3+N multi-layer business ecosystem, providing products, systems, and smart energy three-dimensional solutions to help carbon neutrality and global clean energy construction . Q2: What photovoltaic technologies will promote cost reduction and efficiency enhancement in the next 3-5 years, which are worth looking forward to? Gao Jifan: Larger silicon wafers, more efficient batteries, and long-term reliable components are the technological direction of all photovoltaic products in the future. After the rapid development of large silicon cell technology in the past two years, it has become an obvious development trend at present. The next step is to develop in the direction of higher-efficiency N-type batteries, and achieving a conversion efficiency of 25.5% is the future direction. There are many technical routes for N-type batteries. Whether a certain technology will become the mainstream or whether multiple technologies will develop in parallel depends on the cost reduction factor. Regardless of investment cost, material cost or process cost, which technology has more comprehensive cost advantages, then it will become the mainstream and direction. Q3: The outlook for the energy consumption of the photovoltaic industry and the zero-carbon industry system? Gao Jifan: In terms of energy consumption, after being installed as a photovoltaic power station, according to the latest energy consumption data, in North China, the clean energy generated within 6 months can offset the energy consumed by the construction of the power station. The power generation of the power station can last for 30 years, which means that it can generate 60 times the electricity energy. In addition, the new capacity construction in the western region basically uses clean, carbon-free energy to build solar energy. The era of building a zero-carbon industrial system in the photovoltaic industr...