IBM Wants Your PC For Solar Power Research

 

In an effort to discover materials for cheap but efficient solar cells, IBM and researchers From Harvard University have launched a distributed computing initiative called the Clean Energy Project and are asking for people to participate in the program. 

Using idle computer power from volunteers to crunch data, the project will complete in 2 years what would have taken 22 years using internal computing resources. The project will be run via World Community Grid - a community of over 413,000 members with collectively more than one million computers; the largest public computing grid undertaking projects to benefit humanity.

The Clean Energy project will search for the best selection of materials from thousands of possibilities in order to provide inexpensive polymer solar cells.

Polymer solar cells are made of plastics rather than silicon. They are flexible, lightweight and  much less costly to produce. The major challenge stopping polymer solar cells from becoming mass produced and available on the general market is efficiency. 

Silicon based cells such as those used in polycrystalline and monocrystalline solar panels can convert 12% - 18% of available sunlight to electricity. Polymer solar cells are still only around the 5% conversion mark. It's hoped that through the Clean Energy Project, a combination of materials will be discovered that can achieve a 10% conversion rate, while still remaining very cheap to produce.

To participate in the project, individuals can register on www.worldcommunitygrid.org and download a free, secure software application to install. Once installed, when a computer is idle, data is automatically requested from World Community Grid's server. The computer runs the calculations then uploads the results back to the server.

Israel's Largest Solar Farm Inaugurated

 

A 50 kilowatt grid connected rooftop solar farm has been brought online in the town of Qazrin in Northern Israel, the largest solar power plant in Israel today.

Installed by Israeli renewable energy company, Solar IT and comprising of Suntech solar panels, the farm will produce approximately 85,000 kilowatt hours of clean, renewable electricity annually. A larger solar farm, also powered by Suntech solar panels, is already in the works in Southern Israel.

Israeli National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer recently announced plans to produce 20 percent of Israel's electricity via renewable energy resources by 2020 and in the last twelve months, Israel has tripled the budgets allocated to alternative energy initiatives and assigned greater resources for support of renewable energy sources.

The Israeli government earlier this year also announced tenders for two solar thermal power plants, each with an approximate installed capacity of between  80 megawatts and 125 megawatts, plus a solar farm with an approximate installed capacity of 15 megawatts; with option to increase by an additional 15 megawatts.

Interest in solar power in Israel has been additionally spurred along through the introduction of feed in tariffs, which pay home and industrial customers the current equivalent of AUD 76c per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. Household grid connected solar power systems covered under the initiative are limited in size to 15 kW and business plants are limited to 50 kW.


Related:

Learn more about solar farm opportunities in Australia

News for Monday 08 December, 2008

 

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