Facebook site is more active, please 'Like'

1 July 2014: Not as much is posted here as used to be, but perhaps that is because the Facebook site is more active.
Check out: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rushcliffe-Solar/114568761926017
Items get posted almost every day on this page, usually stories about the use of PV on buildings or houses.

World's largest solar farm in Arizona!

13 May 2014: World's largest solar farm in Arizona!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-s-largest-solar-array-set-to-crank-out-290-megawatts-of-sunshine-power/

290 Megawatts capacity, twice the size of Central Park, NYC.
To quote the article:
"Global climate change is here, and it’s only going to get worse, according to a White House report released on Tuesday. To combat rising sea levels and blistering summers, the Obama administration has been pushing for clean, renewable energy sources that cut down on carbon emissions. Now one of its projects is poised to pan out: Agua Caliente, the largest photovoltaic solar power facility in the world, was completed last week in Arizona.
The plant comprises more than five million solar panels that span the equivalent of two Central Parks in the desert between Yuma and Phoenix. It generates 290 megawatts of power—enough electricity to fuel 230,000 homes in neighboring California at peak capacity."

See the link to find out more. 

Storing electrical energy: GE blog posting

28 Jan 2014: There's an interesting posting about electrical storage on the Good Energy blog.  It's going to be one of the next big things because the primary criticisms of renewable energy is intermittency. There are methods which require large civil engineering works (such as pumping to mountain lakes), but how does the domestic householder do this?
  Juliet Davenport's article discusses this and mentions research at Harvard that points a way to the future. Read more at: http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/blog/articles/2014/01/28/the-truth-about-renewable-energy-storage
  GE have partnered with a British firm Moixa, using funding from the Dept of Energy and Climate Change, to develop better storage solutions for domestic users. The ideal is to charge up the storage during the peak generating hours of your PV roof, and then have backup power for lightly powered night use, e.g. lighting - works best if it is 12v.

Geekbeat guide to PV installation

27 Jan 2014: Here is a good geekbeat.tv guide to installing Photovoltaic PV panels - many good discussion points covered in just 20 minutes of lecture!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8N5iN_aRXs
See John's accompanying blog post at http://geekbeat.tv/solarpanels

Bosch video on how Photovoltaic panels are manufactured

Bosch video on how Photovoltaic panels are manufactured:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihEIaYsB4yg

Large solar farms in Japan

Picture from Gizmodo website

27 Jan 2014: After the terrible experience of the Japanese Tsunami a couple of years ago, and the consequent damage to the nuclear reactor at Fukushima, Japan is finding a new way forward. They are applying their ability to think Big by applying it to solar farms. The amount of flat land in Japan is limited, so this Kyocera sea based one, facing in a westerly direction is saving land, generating energy and is safe against Tsunami (which comes from the east).

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/11/after-two-years-of-nuclear-crises-japan-opens-its-biggest-solar-park/
This one is the "Mega Solar Power Plant Kagoshima Nanatsujima". Whatever the transient cost modelling between nuclear and solar, the one largest factor which is beyond costings is long life safety - this farm can be renewed panel by panel if parts go wrong, workers will not suffer radiation, nothing will melt or blow up, and nearby communities will be safe to live in.
More from Kyocera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uTdsNsJ_D0

Half a million installations!

14 Jan 2014: The Guardian reports: "The solar power industry appears to have installed its 500,000th set of panels in the UK in recent days, in a move that marks a major milestone for the burgeoning sector.
    According to figures by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, 499,687 solar schemes had been installed by 5 January under the feed-in tariff scheme that supports solar arrays with a capacity smaller than 50kW."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/14/solar-panels-on-half-a-million-uk-buildings-figures-suggest