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1. Solar Cell Repower Raises $1.5M to Upgrade Subpar Solar Panels
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2. Scotland Looks at Seaweed for Biofuel
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3. California Regulators Say Heck Yeah to Sunrise Power Line
Solar Cell Repower Raises $1.5M to Upgrade Subpar Solar Panels
Josie Garthwaite - Startups
Solar Cell Repower, a Norwegian startup working on technology to upgrade off-spec solar panels, has closed a Series A round of financing for $1.48 million from NorthZone Ventures. The company, which plans to partner with module manufacturers and begin production next summer, also announced $1.8 million in grants and loans today from the state-owned Innovation Norway for building a factory.
Starting with modules from other manufacturers, Solar Cell Repower could sidestep the tumult anticipated in the solar industry as a result of the looming polysilicon glut — but it also means it may not be able to leverage collapsing prices to its advantage. When production of the raw material was short (and prices high), many solar manufacturers negotiated long-term contracts to lock in supply. Those that can renegotiate will see dramatic cost reductions, since polysilicon represents the single largest expense in producing a solar module.
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Scotland Looks at Seaweed for Biofuel
David Ehrlich - Big Green
Don’t try stuffing seaweed into your car just yet, but a new project in Europe just received £5 million ($7.5 million) to help turn marine plants into biofuel. The BioMara project will be led by scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science and include researchers from Ireland and Northern Ireland to look at producing biofuel from marine biomass as an alternative to production from land-based plants.
Seaweed is a type of algae, and a significant amount of funding has already gone into developing biofuel from algae, with San Diego’s HR BioPetroleum making a deal earlier this year to build a commercial-scale plant in Hawaii. Other algae-to-biofuel startups include Massachusetts-based GreenFuel Technologies, San Francisco’s Solazyme, and New Zealand’s Aquaflow Bionomic.
Funding for the four-year BioMara project comes from the EU, Scotland’s Highlands and Islands Enterprise agency, and the UK’s Crown Estate. The Scottish scientists will work on the cross-border project in partnership with the Institutes of Technology in Dundalk and Sligo in Ireland, and Queens University Belfast and the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. About 65 percent of the cash will go to the Scottish Association of Marine Science, with the remainder split among the other partners.
While any kind of volume production is likely years away, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said in a statement that the project has the potential to create hundreds of jobs in remote coastal areas and islands in the region. He said the development of seaweed-based biofuels could provide locally produced, relatively cheap, low-impact fuel.
In areas such as Europe, where land for growing biofuel crops is limited, the marine plant could become an attractive option for a biofuel feedstock. Seaweed could also be used for more than just for biofuel. A recently released UK report on marine biomass noted that biogas made from seaweed could be burned to produce heat or generate electricity. The report said the biomass could also be anaerobically digested to produce methane which, in turn, could be used to generate electricity.
Work on the BioMara project is expected to get underway early next year.
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California Regulators Say Heck Yeah to Sunrise Power Line
Amy Westervelt - Policy
An engine designed almost 200 years ago could be the future of solar energy. At least that’s what San Diego county is banking on, along with Phoenix-based Stirling Energy Systems, which will be building a 1,000-MW solar plant run off of Stirling engines in the county’s desert thanks to the California Public Utilities Commission’s approval this morning of the Sunrise Powerlink project.
Sunrise will essentially be a big ole power line through the deserts and mountains, running from Stirling’s plant in the Imperial Valley to the cities of San Diego and Chula Vista. Without the line, Stirling Energy was prepared to call it quits on its proposed plant and contract with San Diego Gas & Electric, stating that it would have no way to get power from the plant to local residents. Stirling was also relying on approval of the line to raise more funding, the company said during the CPUC meeting.
Approval of the line was not unexpected. CPUC President Michael Peevey issued a proposed decision last month supporting the project with no restrictions. The decision was supported by most of the mayors in San Diego County, as well.
The Stirling engine was developed in the 19th century as an alternative to the steam engine. In the context of solar energy, the engine is attached to a large dish-style solar concentrator, which focuses the sun’s rays in order to heat helium, which expands and drives the engine’s piston. The piston moves back and forth, and an alternator captures the power created and converts it to AC power.
The engine has been used in pacemakers and on spaceships, but the solar application has yet to be proven at a commercial scale; Stirling’s project was conveniently planned to leap over pilot testing the technology at scale. Skipping such a massive step had many concerned that Stirling’s plant was doomed to be the largest solar failure of the decade.
The approval of Sunrise represents a big step toward the large-scale commercialization of some of the first Stirling solar technology on the market. It will also have implications for other companies exploring solar as an application for Stirling engine technology. Washington-based Infinia, for example, tested its systems alongside Stirling Energy Systems at Sandia National Labs and received $50 million in funding from GLG ventures last year to begin mass manufacturing its Stirling-based solar systems.
Beyond the affect on Stirling, the renewable energy community, including Californians for Renewable Energy, are happy to see transmission lines for renewable energy projects approved, period. The majority of CPUC commissioners echoed this sentiment, expressing concern that failure to approve this line would lead to difficulties securing financing for other transmission lines related to renewable energy. And the construction project could create a significant amount of jobs, which representatives from Imperial County took care to mention at the CPUC meeting this afternoon.
Detractors, amongst them Commissioner Dian Grueneich and representatives from the Sierra Club criticized President Peevey’s alternate decision for not including a mandate that the line be used for renewable energy, and cited rate increases, wildfires, and destruction of natural habitat as additional concerns.
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