U.S. Senator Pushes For 10 Million More Solar Rooftops

 

U.S Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate's green jobs subcommittee, last week introduced a bill to encourage the installation of 10 million new rooftop solar power systems on homes and businesses over the next ten years.
 
The USA currently spends US$350 billion on oil imports and Senator Sanders says a dramatic expansion of solar power is a clean and economical way to help break the nation's dependence on foreign oil, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating more green-collar jobs.
 
If the legislation is introduced, it would provide rebates covering up to half the cost of the 10 million solar power systems and 200,000  solar hot water systems, plus other incentives. Non-profit groups and state and local governments would be included in the initiative and rather than the systems provided encourage continued excessive energy use, the legislation would ensure that participating homeowners and businesses also receive information on incentives to improve energy efficiency.
 
Sanders referred to a recent report showing that solar power could provide 10 percent or more of each state's electricity needs. The Senator says that as solar energy creates more jobs per megawatt than other energy sources, the legislation could create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next ten years in the solar industry.
 
Sanders has based his bill on other successful state programs promoting solar energy in New Jersey and California, where prices have fallen as the uptake of solar power has increased.
 
Bernie Sanders was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 after serving 16 years in the House of Representatives. He is the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history.
 
A copy of the bill can be viewed here (PDF).
 

Nuclear Power Giant Areva Buys Solar Start-up Ausra

 

French nuclear power firm Areva announced earlier today the acquisition of Austra, a provider of concentrated solar power electricity generation infrastructure.
     
Given the market for concentrated solar power farms is expected to experience an average annual growth rate of 20% over the next ten years, reaching  an estimated installed capacity of over 20 GW by 2020, Areva believes the acquisition will allow the company to capture the lead in the burgeoning market.
     
Ausra isn't the nuclear power company's first dabble in alternative energy - the company also makes offshore wind turbines and designs, constructs and commissions turnkey biomass power plants. Areva is also developing hydrogen based integrated energy management modules that include an electrolyzer, a hydrogen storage system and a fuel cell.
     
Ausra's core technology, the Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector solar collector and steam generation system, uses mirrors to focus the sun's heat onto receivers, which consist of a system of tubes through which water flows. The water in the tubes boils, generating high-pressure steam for use in power generation and industrial steam applications.
     
Ausra has its roots in Australia and the company's first customer was Macquarie Generation, the largest power producer in Australia. Ausra's solar steam generators supply steam to provide a boost to Macquarie's coal-fired power station, the world’s first solar/coal-fired power augmentation facility. Ausra claims its solar thermal energy technology is the most land efficient in operation, generating 1.5-to-3 times more power per acre than any other solar technology. Depending upon the size of a project, Ausra can install a solar thermal farm in 6-18 months.
     
The acquisition of Ausra is expected to be finalised in the next few months, subject to usual regulatory approval.
   

News for Monday 08 February, 2010

 

• Australia A Smart Grid World Leader
  


• Indoor Solar Panels For The Office?
  

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