Power Purchase Agreement (PPA)

A Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is an agreement between a homeowner/building owner and Solar City, where Solar City covers the full cost of installing and maintaining a solar system. In return, the host customer agrees to buy the power produced by the system. This allows building owners to pay as they go, rather than in one large upfront payment.

On/Off Grid System

A solar energy system that is interconnected with the utility grid is said to be an on-grid or grid-tied system, while a system with battery storage is not interconnected and is described as an off-grid system.

What is Inverter

A device that converts DC power captured by the photovoltaic cells on solar panels into AC power that can be used to power your home or business. This device is an integral part of a solar system. Large solar systems may have more than one inverter.

What are Greenhouse Gases

Gaseous components in the atmosphere that contribute to a gradual warming of the planet. The most prevalent of these gases is carbon dioxide, which is released in large quantities when fossil fuels are burned. Nothing is burned to convert sunlight into power. Since solar energy does not have any gaseous by-products, it is considered "clean."

What is DC Power

An electrical current whose magnitude and direction stay constant. The photovoltaic cells on solar panels capture energy from sunlight in the form of DC. In order to power your home or business, this current must be converted to AC by an inverter.

What is AC Power

An electrical current whose magnitude and direction varies continuously and sinusoidally. AC is the form in which electricity is delivered to businesses and residences. It can be thought of as "standard" electrical power.

What is a a Battery ?

Two or more electrochemical cells enclosed in a container and electrically interconnected in an appropriate series/parallel arrangement to provide the required operating voltage and current levels. Under common usage, the term battery also applies to a single cell if it constitutes the entire electrochemical storage system.

Africa's Solar ability

Which country boasts the world's fastest growing clean energy investment? Germany? No. United States? Think again.

Jumping from a few hundred million dollars to $5.7 billion, South Africa recorded last year the world's highest growth in renewable energy investment, according to the (UNEP).

The spectacular surge, led largely by investments in solar power projects, comes as South Africa moves to reduce its dependency on coal, that's around 86  of total energy. To achieve that, the country has set the advaned target of generating 18 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy by 2030.

As a result, a series of investments have trickled into the country, including Google's first foray into Africa's solar power market. The internet giant, which has spent more than $1 billion in renewable energy programs in the United States and Europe in recent years, announced in late May its decision to back the JPP (Jasper Power Project) a 96 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Northern Cape, with a $12 million investment.

Pakistan has potential in Solar Energy sector

Secretary General Renewable Energy Association of Pakistan Iftikhar Qaisrani has said Pakistan has 2.9 million megawatt of solar energy potential besides photovoltaic opportunity. Talking to Radio Pakistan, Iftikhar Qaisrani said that Pakistan is among a few fortunate countries that have a lot of potential of alterative and renewable energy production.  Pakistan has well-defined wind energy corridors which are about 340 thousand megawatt. Pakistan also has the natural resources of bio-fuel and cogeneration.
Iftikhar Qaisrani expressed hope that the government of Nawaz Sharif will capitalize on the renewable energy resources.He opined that Pakistan will be in a position to export energy besides meeting its own needs after utilizing these vast opportunities of alternative energy resources.

What is Failment

A coil of tungsten wire suspended in a vacuum or inert gas-filled bulb. When electricity flows thru the tungsten "filament" it radiates energy in the form of heat and light. This is the basic operation of inefficient incandescent lamps.

What is Electron

An elementary particle of an atom with a negative electrical charge and a mass of 1/1837 of a proton. Electrons surround the positively charged protons in the nucleus of an atom and the number of electrons determine the atomic element. Elements that loose electrons easily make good conductors and elements whose electrons are tightly bound together make good insulators. It is this movement of electrons which is the electric current in circuits.

SolarTech Expo Japan

SolarTech Expo Japan 2013, a strictly B2B conference and exhibition will be held in Tokyo city on 28-29 October 2013. Located in the networking area exhibition will hold 25 exhibition stands where leading solar energy technology companies will showcase their technologies and solutions for the industry.

China's Govt Tax reliefs to solar industries

Chinese ministry of finance announced it will offer tax breaks to manufacturers of solar power products on Sunday, as China moves to support an industry still struggling to deal with massive overcapacity and weak demand. The ministry said in a short statement on its website that producers of solar power products will receive immediate refunds of 50 percent of value-added taxes.

The National Development and Reform Commission provided subsidies for solar power stations in late August.

"China's bloated photovoltaic industry still faces a grim outlook as many companies are deeply mired in debts," said a report on the official Xinhua news service discussing the announcement.

It cited data from the China Renewable Energy Society saying that the country's top 10 solar panel makers are up to 100 billion yuan ($16.34 billion) in debt, with a debt to asset ratio above 70 percent on average.

Beijing has said it wants to consolidate the industry, but the sector continues to enjoy protection at the central and local level; the latter is particularly strong because solar power companies are frequently major employers.

China's LDK Solar Co Ltd partly defaulted on a bond payment in April, then failed to meet another payment on time in August.

China's Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd said Chief Executive David King had resigned from the company in mid September, weeks after three directors left amid the solar panel maker's efforts to restructure its debt.

Suntech's Chinese lenders dragged its unit Wuxi Suntech into insolvency proceedings after it defaulted on $541 million in bonds after the business was hit by a glut in solar panels.

Largest Solar Power Plant

The largest solar power plant in the world is expected to be completed by the end of 2012 and officially open in the first quarter of 2013, solar power giant Masdar has announced. Shams 1 will have a generation capacity of over 100 MW of power, and was designed with the stated purpose of providing 20,000 homes in the region with electricity. The project will be followed shortly thereafter by Shams 2 & 3, which are planned to generate similar levels of electricity.

On-Grid Solar-Electric Systems

Grid-tied Solar Electric Systems, also known as on-grid, grid-connected, or grid-intertied photovoltaic systems, generate electricity for your home or business and route the excess power into the electric utility grid.

Off-Grid Solar-Electric Systems

Although they are most common in remote localities without utility grid service, off-grid solar-electric systems can work anywhere. These systems operate independently from the grid to provide all of a household’s electricity. That means no electric bills and no blackouts—at least none caused by grid failures. People choose to live off-grid for a variety of reasons, including the prohibitive cost of bringing utility lines to remote home sites, the appeal of an independent lifestyle, or the general reliability a solar-electric system provides. Those who choose to live off-grid often need to make adjustments to when and how they use electricity, so they can live within the limitations of the system’s design. This doesn’t necessarily imply doing without, but rather is a shift to a more conscientious use of electricity.

How does SS (Solar System Works) ?

Solar panels  convert solar energy (sunlight) directly to electricity. The electricity is stored in solar batteries and used to power home appliances in rural and remote location.

Requirements for a Solar System

Following are needed for a solar system.
1. Solar Panel
2. Solar Charge Controller
3. Battery
4. DC Lights

These are things that you must have to turn your lights on. Without them it is impossible to power up lights. Solar system works in this order. Solar Panel is giving current to charge controller. Charge controller charges a battery. And lights are powered up by a battery. In this case it is DC lights.

PHOTON

The actual (physical) particle unit of light, as the electron is of electric charge and the atom and molecule are of matter. Light has both wave properties and particle properties. Violet light has relatively short wavelength and higher energy in its photons; red light has longer wavelength, lower-energy photons. The wavelength and/or energy spectrum of the sun extends in both directions beyond the visible range of light, of course, and the silicon module solar cell can capture some energy in both of these invisible zones. Photons not captured by the cell are either reflected or converted to heat in the solar array.

Photovoltaic (PV)

Photovoltaic cells are made of parallel clusters of semiconductor materials such as silicon. Although silicon has been by far the most commonly used material, basically because of its abundance (it's the second most available element in the Earth's crust), it takes a lot of effort to generate a quality and efficient PV cell and until recently the cost for PV arrays restricted most people from using it.
Today those costs have come down considerably and are further diminished by the abundance of federal, state, and local tax credits, reliefs and other monetary incentives to make installing a solar energy system a viable and cost effective energy alternative. The future looks brighter and clearer still as scientists continue to explore different ways to create other non-silicon based photovoltaic panels with the hope of eventually producing solar cells at about one-tenth the cost of silicon based products.

Kilowatt-hour

A common unit of electric power consumption. One kilowatt-hour equals 1000 watt-hours and can be used to define the amount of energy used over a one-hour period. For example, a 60-watt incandescent light bulb turned on for one hour would use 60 watt-hours of energy.
A side note: Interestingly, a 19-watt compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) packs the equivalent amount of output as a 60-watt incandescent, but saves 68% of the comparable energy. There are two reasons for this: (1) 75% of the energy incandescent light bulbs use ends up as heat, only 25% gives off light; (2) CFLs last 10 times longer than incandescents and save $30 or more in energy bills over their lifetime. So use CFL bulbs wherever possible to cool down the planet too.

Net metering

The ability to record both power produced and power consumed. Utility companies record the information, as they do for all home meters, and charge customers for the power they use as well as credit them for any extra or excess power they generate and produce..

Passive Solar Design

 

If you are part of  constructing a new home, consider ways to take complete advantage of the sun – termed "passive solar design". Houses that incorporate passive solar design can positively augment the effects of a solar power system.

Main features to passive solar design include:

• Positioning a home on an east-west axis and ensuring that the home's south side receives its maximum amount of daylight.
• Designing interior spaces so that rooms used most frequently are along the building's south face.
• Taking advantage of thermal mass spaces to store, absorb, and distribute heat.
• Installing overhangs, selecting windows, and adding insulation to maximize sun (and shade).
• Planting trees and other vegetation strategically around your home to provide natural shading and buffer from intense heat.

Renewable Energy

Renewable energy sources consist of the sun and the wind. Harnessing energy from water currents, tides, and waves also described  as types of renewable energy. In opposition, the traditional energy sources we depend on to generate power namely natural gas and oil and coal are non-renewable sources of power. Once these resources are sufficiently depleted they become too expensive and costly to retrieve.
Mind it, not all renewable energy sources come devoid of consequences (think about issues surrounding hydroelectric dams in the West). Solar power has the unique advantage of tapping energy from the sun without actually impacting any other natural resource.