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Global demand for solar PV is set to reach 49 GW this year, up from 36 GW in 2013, with almost half coming from the Asia-Pacific region.
The prediction comes from research firm NPD Solarbuzz’ latest quarterly report, which finds that the last quarter of 2013 and first quarter of 2014 will be record breaking periods.
“The solar PV industry has reached a critical tipping point, with end-market demand hitting record levels almost every quarter,” said Finlay Colville, vice-president at NPD Solarbuzz.
“This growth is being driven by leading module suppliers and project developers that returned to profitability during 2013, and which have now established highly-effective global sales and marketing networks.”
From October 2013 to March 2014, almost 22 GW of solar photovoltaics will be installed worldwide. That month period will have more installations than 2005 to 2009 put together, and equivalent to one new 5 MW solar farm completed every hour for six months.
Despite predictions all through 2013 suggesting that Japan would walk away the dominant solar PV market, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that China “outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts” to install a record 12 GW of photovoltaic projects in 2013.
In fact, a massive boom at the end of the year could even have pushed the nation’s market up to 14 GW, a phenomenal feat considering that no country has ever added more than 8 GW in a year.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) had predicted that Japan would come out on top in 2013, ahead of China and then the US, but with a feed-in tariff for large PV projects ending on the first of 2014, the year-end rush will not be wholly understood until March.
“The 2013 figures show the astonishing scale of the Chinese market, now the sleeping dragon has awoken” said Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “PV is becoming ever cheaper and simpler to install, and China’s government has been as surprised as European governments by how quickly it can be deployed in response to incentives.”
India added just over 1 gigawatt of solar energy to its electrical grid last year, a major milestone that nearly doubles the country’s cumulative solar energy capacity to 2.18 gigawatts. After a slow start to the year, solar installation picked up rapidly — a good sign that India will be able to meet its ambitious solar targets going forward. India hopes to install 10 GW of solar by 2017 and 20 GW by 2022.
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, launched in 2010 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, aims to help the country achieve success with solar energy deployment. India is currently in the planning stages of building the world’s largest solar plant, which would generate 4 gigawatts in the northwestern state of Rajasthan.
US New Solar PV Installations Reach Record 4.2 GW
Excellent! I want to fuel my EV this evening...say 6PM. Can ANY of those GW's do that? I only need a few kWh, surely out of all those GW there are some that can give me a little juice when I plug in my car? This evening?
US New Solar PV Installations Reach Record 4.2 GW
Excellent! I want to fuel my EV this evening...say 6PM. Can ANY of those GW's do that? I only need a few kWh, surely out of all those GW there are some that can give me a little juice when I plug in my car? This evening?
Hmmmmmmmmm............. Really? You have never heard of grid parrallel? You put juice in during the day, and draw from the grid at night. Perhaps too complicated to understand?
For four years, researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) have worked toward an ambitious goal: using powerful lasers to ignite fusion in a tiny target of nuclear fuel. If the fusion reaction releases more energy than the lasers provide—corresponding to a “gain” of greater than 1—NIF could have the makings of a new energy source. But so far, NIF hasn’t been able to pass this gain threshold. And because experiments haven’t matched up with the predictions of simulations, it has been difficult to figure out what to change. Now, researchers (Park et al.) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, where NIF is located, report in Physical Review Letters the first laser ignition experiment that appears to be behaving according to the predictions of current models [1]. The researchers used a different laser pulse shape to heat the target, producing the highest yield of neutrons—and therefore the largest energy output—seen to date. Their result is a major achievement because it gives hope NIF will ultimately find a path to achieving gain greater than 1.
By adopting a new strategy toward laser fusion, researchers at the National Ignition Facility have produced the highest energy output to date.
Excellent! I want to fuel my EV this evening...say 6PM. Can ANY of those GW's do that? I only need a few kWh, surely out of all those GW there are some that can give me a little juice when I plug in my car? This evening?
Hmmmmmmmmm............. Really? You have never heard of grid parrallel? You put juice in during the day, and draw from the grid at night. Perhaps too complicated to understand?
I do this all the time. The problem being, during the evening I can only get some wind power. The PV stuff doesn't work so good at night in my neck of the woods.
But it is nice that most renewables can do stuff intermittently .now if we can just get folks to only watch TV or charge their cars when the sun is shining, or the wind blowing. Those near a coast might be luckier, the tides are always doing their thing.
Most advancing comes this way. You republicans are just retarded.
Research takes money
Being number one in science takes money
Investment is the only choice if America wants to lead.
Scientists with the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced today that they have achieved a critical step in fusion research: For the first time, their hydrogen fuel has given off more energy than it took in.
Though an important milestone, the result does not mean that your Delorean is soon going to sport a Mr. Fusion reactor. NIF would need to sustain temperatures and pressures much greater than they are currently capable of before they can harness fusion energy.
Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the stars. Deep in our sun’s belly, hydrogen atoms slam into one another at high speed, getting mashed together to form helium atoms and releasing copious amounts of energy. Creating viable fusion energy here on Earth has been a dream since the dawn of the Atomic Age. With true fusion power, the amount of water you use in a single shower could provide all your energy needs for a year. But for six decades, fusion has remained a far-off dream.
Because of this convoluted process, only 1/200th of the energy that the lasers generate is imparted to the hydrogen fuel, compressing it enough to produce a small amount of fusion. Until now, the energy given off by the fusing hydrogen hasn’t been enough to set off a chain reaction. The hydrogen fuel also always consumed more energy than it put out. But during experiments late last year, NIF researchers were finally able to get the hydrogen to give off as much as 1.7 times more energy than it had taken in, a result that appears today in Nature. In subsequent experiments last month, the team was able to produce as much as 2.6 times more energy than was put into the hydrogen fuel.
“The physics is a breakthrough,” said physicist Riccardo Betti of the University of Rochester, who was not involved in the work. “If fusion will ever become a viable source of energy, we may look back and say that in 2013, for the first time, a plasma produced more energy out than it took in.”
