Will Konarka’s solar plastic finally hit the big time with its new $23.8M?
By Camille Ricketts, Green.Venturebeat.com
Konarka, maker of a unique solar plastic, is an old company. In nine years, it has raised more than $150 million from the likes of Chevron, New Enterprise Associates, and the government. But it’s had little to show for it on the market. That could change with a new round of funding (its seventh) that closed today, totaling $23.8 million, according to a filing with the SEC.
Will the company finally have what it needs to step out of the shadows?
Money isn’t Konarka’s only strength. Its technology is actually pretty special too. Its patented photovoltaic material, called Power Plastic, is more efficient than even the best thin-film systems devised by the likes of First Solar and Solyndra. It is lightweight, portable, and perhaps most importantly, flexible — making it suitable for a host of interesting applications ranging from rooftops to apparel.
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New solar energy technology wins accolades
A shingle that generates solar energy was named one of the 50 Best Innovations of 2009 by Time magazine.
Dow Chemical, the Powerhouse Solar Shingle’s inventor, will make the shingles commercially available by the middle of next year. Dow’s technology “will make affordable renewable energy a reality now and for future generations,” said Dow Solar Solutions managing director Jane Palmieri.
The Powerhouse design includes thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide. Dow notes the cells’ low cost relative to other solar technologies.
And, on top of low cost, Dow’s new shingle has other advantages. The company reports that the installation process is no different than that of traditional shingles, making Powerhouse shingles attractive to contractors. And in addition to saving money for homeowners by cutting energy use, the shingles are anticipated to make a lot of money for Dow – up to $10 billion a year by 2020.
The Powerhouse Solar Shingle was number 13 on Time magazine’s list. Another high-ranking green energy invention was Philips Electronics’ 10-watt LED lightbulb, which landed at number three. Between solar energy innovations and greener lightbulbs, the future for clean tech is bright.
Could Solar Roadways power the U.S.?
There is no question that the United States is blessed both with some of the world’s best solar resources and the largest highway network in the world.
Put two and two together and you may just have the solution to America’s energy problem. At least that’s what Solar Roadways inventor Scott Brusaw believes.
Brusaw’s company was just awarded a $100,000 grant by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation (DOT) for one of the most visionary solar projects ever conceived — to convert America’s roadways into the world’s largest solar energy system.
According to Brusaw, the lower 48 states contain about 25,000 square miles of roadways. If these roadways collected solar energy at 15 percent efficiency, they would supply three times the annual energy consumption of the United States.
And perhaps even more exciting, the roadways themselves would become the “super grid” of the future, freely conducting energy to urban centers through a network of relays sheltered in the road’s base layer.
Now, that is not going to be an easy task. The Solar Roadways system could make use of current thin film technology (which has reached efficiencies of 10 percent) but the road layer also includes a grid of LED’s to allow digital striping of the roads, a feature which adds to the whopping price tag — $6900 for a 12′ x 12′ panel (producing 7.6 kWh’s of electricity per day).
In addition, the protective layer would have to be both translucent and durable enough to withstand the wear and tear of the nation’s trucking fleet. We’re talking a lot of high-strength plastic (probably polyvinyl) which would mean huge environmental impacts (and lots of petroleum).
Nevertheless it is one brilliant idea. It will be interesting if the DOT grant will result in a working prototype that may garner further research and funding.
The above interview is part of a new film called YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) which documents some of the best out-of-the box solutions to our climate crisis.
Roofing Giant Johns Manville Enters Solar Market
From Greentechmedia.com
A heavyweight is entering the solar roofing business.
Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company with 151 years of history, has inked a multi-year deal with Energy Conversion Devices (NDSQ: ENER) to buy flexible thin films made by ECD’s subsidiary, United Solar Ovonic, that it will then incorporate into roofing materials.
The Denver-based company also created a new company called JM E3 Co. to market eco-friendly products for the commercial rooftop market. This could mean competition for people like Serious Materials and Aspen Aerogels, who have teamed up on energy efficient insulation, or Photosolar, which make integrated window films that repel solar heat. Manville already produces a myriad of insulation products for markets including aerospace, automotive and wind energy.
“Until now solar has not a great return on investments,” said Sarah Tholen, a marketing and communications manager at Johns Manville. “With the economic stimulus package there are a number of drivers that make solar an attractive value proposition.”
In the past, a return on investment for installing solar on rooftops could take 17 years, Tholen said. That window has shrunk to about six to seven years, she added.
Johns Manville’s foray into solar roofing products reflects the growing interest in building-integrated solar products, which remain a tiny market with low-efficiency products.
Unlike many rooftop solar energy systems today that use solar panels with mounting systems, installing flexible solar thin films such as those made by Uni-Solar would require no roofing penetration or racks. That could shave installation costs and reduce the likelihood of leaky roofs and other problems. Integrated solar roofs also could be more aesthetically pleasing.
Makers of copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) thin-film are going after the commercial rooftop market, though many of them are in pre-commercialization stages.
Solyndra, in Fremont, Calif., seems to have made more progress in tackling the roofing market. Last November, CIGS thin film developer said it had signed a $320 million deal with roofing system maker Carlisle Construction Materials, which is based in Carlisle, Penn.
The deal with ECD marks the first commercial product launch for Johns Manville, which has considered adding solar energy generation systems to its lineup for several years.
Under the agreement, Uni-Solar would ship its thin films to Johns Manville’s factory in Scottsboro, Ala., where they would be assembled into Johns Manville’s thermalplastic polyolefin (TPO) roofing membranes, Tholen said.
Johns Manville also will offer another product that combines the thin films with its bitumen roofing offering, said Brad Burdic, group manager for owner services at Johns Manville. This product requires customization, so it’s not an off-the-shelf solution like the one with TPO.
Bitumen systems are the oldest products for the roofing industry, Burdic said. But the newer TPO membranes account for the fastest growing segment, and they cost less, he added. TPO membranes also meet California’s cool roof requirements.
California and New Jersey are two states that promise to be strong markets for the solar roofing products, thanks to strong state incentives for solar, Tholen said.
JM E3 plans to sell its new roofing products for the low-slope commercial roofing market, Tholen said. The company expects to see the first installations during the first half of 2010, she added. She declined to disclose the value of the company’s contract with ECD.
Johns Manville opted for Uni-Solar’s thin films because they are ready to be integrated into conventional roofing materials, even though those thin films aren’t as efficient at converting sunlight into electricity as other thin films under development, Tholen said.
Uni-Solar uses amorphous silicon as the key ingredient for its thin films, which have about 6 percent to 7 percent efficiency.
“We are looking at more efficient products, including monocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon,” Tholen said. “Generally, our interest would be in systems with very limited roof penetration.”
Silicon solar panels are more expensive for integrating into roofing systems, she added. Most of them also are glass panels that require racks to support them.
There are companies such as Redwood Renewables that are putting crystalline silicon cells in roofing tiles, however (see Getting Solar Energy Cheap and Easy).
Alternative-Alternative Energies: What’s Next?
From Technewsworld.com
Gone are the days when “fringe technologies” meant things like solar energy and wind power.
Those and other alternative energy approaches have all gone mainstream, to one degree or another, and they’re gaining more steam each year.
However, the fringe is still out there, and so-called alternative-alternative energy technologies are in development.
Some are closer to application than others; some depend on geographical factors for practical use.
“We start paying attention once they reach the point of showing some promise,” Gartner (NYSE: IT) More about Gartner analyst Zarko Sumic told TechNewsWorld. ”
Emerging energy technology is now known as “operational technology,” said Sumic, who works with Gartner’s energy and technology advisory services, a group that explores the potential effects of emerging energy technologies on the IT sector.
“All the renewables, and climate and energy independence, have received significant attention,” Sumic said.
Thermal solar energy is getting a lot of research time, he noted. “There are different formats of it. It uses concentrated solar energy in order to create steam and ultimately generate electricity through traditional movement of the steam and heat medium.”
Thermal solar energy is probably generating enough attention to be moving away from the category of “fringe” technology, said Sumic. “It’s kind of coming,” he said.
So-called fringe technologies have taken hold in bastions of early technology adoption like California, said Charles King, principal with Pund-IT More about Pund-IT.
“Energy on the fringe is a fairly common topic here in California,” he told TechNewsWorld. “I’d include everything from do-it-yourself projects [such as] home solar and wind turbine energy production [and] electrical car kits to cutting-edge research in areas such as thin-film solar, next-gen batteries, cellulosic ethanol, algal fuel, ocean/tidal energy and natural gas conversion.
Thin film solar has gotten quite a bit of attention — and research dollars, King said, “but is still some ways out. On the plus side, it’s far cheaper and, literally, more flexible than traditional silicon-based solar power technologies. On the down side, it currently costs way more and is significantly less efficient. Lots of work being done here.”
Tidal Power
There’s also a set of tidal-power technologies, Gartner’s Sumic said.
“They have been used for a number of years in river estuaries and capturing the water in high tide and releasing it through hydro turbines,” he noted.
“Now, there are some different metals being explored to use some of the latest research in looking at using slow-moving water,” Sumic continued. “There is some research that is looking at using the different levels of waters — peaks and lows — and using that to push the water through the turbines.”
Indirectly, it can be categorized as an extension of wind power, through intermediaries, he added.
A third category of ocean energy involves trying to take advantage of the turbine energy in deep water, Sumic said.
“It’s a whole class of oceanic, or water-related, technology: the tidal, veil and the thermal,” he said.
Tidal energy, derived from turbines driven by the motion of the tides or river or ocean currents, shows “incredible” potential, commented Pund-IT’s King.
“A company called Verdant Power has been running a research project on the East River since 2006,” he said, “and SeaGen, in Northern Ireland — the first commercial unit installed anywhere — began generating at full power last month.”
Water power presents a number of options, noted Gartner’s Sumic. “We have that reversible hydro power plant: You can pump water back in the reservoir and reverse the flow during the peak.”
However, hydro power is limited by geography, observed Rob Enderle, principal with the Enderle Group More about Enderle Group.
“You’ve got to have a stream in close proximity to make that work,” he said.
Hydrogen power also belongs more in the realm of potential than practical energy sources, said Gartner’s Sumic, noting that the category has received attention primarily due to its possible use as an automotive fuel.
“To have an infrastructure Linux MPS Pro Focus on Your Business — Not Your IT Infrastructure. — to find a way to store and produce it effectively — is where a lot of research is,” he said.
Down Side of Geothermal?
Geothermal energy isn’t practical, at least at the moment, said Enderle.
“Doing an earth-core tap will cost a million bucks,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Gas sources are also questionable and limited to certain areas, Enderle pointed out, although “the methane stuff is being considered for farms because you’ve got a lot of it.”
Natural gas conversion uses catalytic processes to convert carbon-based materials — including coal and feed stocks — into pipeline-quality natural gas, noted Pund-IT’s King.
“T. Boone Pickens is pressing hard in this area,” he said, “and bankrolled an initiative in California last November to promote the use of natural gas in automobiles. Converting cars to use natural gas is fairly simple and the technologies are readily available, but many consumers are reluctant to drive the Detroit equivalent of the Hindenburg.”
Technologies that help to use energy more efficiently, rather than power generation, are the focus of Sumic’s group at Gartner.
“The one that is definitely critical or has a huge promise is super conductivity — high temperature,” he said. “It’s not used as a means to generate; it’s a technology that can reduce losses. So, indirectly, it increases the availability of the energy.”
There also are storage technologies that aren’t used directly to generate power but can be used predictably with wind and solar and renewables, Sumic said.
“Some technologies are lithium batteries, where there’s a lot of research because of electric vehicles,” he said. “There’s a whole set of other storage technologies — some of them using magnetic fields. Some are using traditional capacitors. Some flywheels and things like that.”
Some of those fringe technologies have made more progress toward practical use than others, noted Sumic.
“High-temperature superconductivity has been around for a number of years but hasn’t moved from the very early stage,” he said. “[Regarding hydrogen], there’s a lot of technology there, but it faces challenges in how to produce economically efficient hydrogen. At this point, you spend more energy than you get.”
Storage also represents a significant hurdle that “research hasn’t passed,” he said.
Still, next-generation batteries are showing promise, maintained Pund-IT’s King.
“It’s another area of great focus — especially in Asia — that will eventually provide power storage for everything from fuel cells for mobile computers and cell phones to next-generation lithium ion batteries for electric autos,” King said. “There’s some interesting stuff being done, but viable commercial products are some years away.”
Even with renewable energy sources, storage remains an issue, Sumic emphasized, and it has attracted a “significant amount of investment. … “The reason for that in the utility industry is because of the increased percentage of renewables. You need to find a way to couple them with storage technology. You store it and release it when it’s needed.”
Biofuels Progress
On the biofuels front, there is plenty of research into cellulosic ethanol as a less labor- or chemically intensive energy source than corn- and grain-based ethanol, King said.
“Switch grass is one of the sources most people are discussing here, but ethanol can also be brewed with everything from wood chips to corn stalks and leaves,” he explained. “It’s interesting technology that is more environmentally friendly than corn ethanol, but volume production is a long way down the road.”
Alternative-Alternative Energies: What’s Next?
Algal fuel or algae-based biofuel holds “great promise,” due to its energy potential,” King said, adding that algae contains up to 30 times more fuel than equivalent amounts of other biofuel sources and can be grown almost anywhere.
Still, he acknowledged, “for now, it’s far too expensive to produce commercially.”
Where all the research goes depends largely on funding. The U.S. government spends less in inflation-adjusted dollars on alternative-energy research than it did in the 1970s, particularly in the area of geothermal technology.
“While it is true that we have structural — tax and regulatory — benefits for renewal and nonpolluting energy sources, that is not the same as research dollars,” Jonah Stein, founder of ItsTheROI.com, told TechNewsWorld.
There is more to discover on the edges, he noted.
“I suppose the fringe elements are things like high altitude wind generation, tide- and wave-based ocean generation, and biological solar capture,” said Stein.
“Really fringe? How about passive nuclear energy — [a] technology that converts radiation from nuclear waste into electricity from micro-generation, instead of building highly complex and potentially disastrous reactors that require the nuclear chain reaction to be on the borderline of going critical? Given the half-life of some of these radiation sources,” he speculated, “we could build 10,000-year generators.”
