I understood that Nanosolar is a development of solar power technology. Nanosolar does not publicly disclose the technical specifications or wholesale costs of its modules. If the cost is really attractive people will go for it. Further the production cost per watts has to be clarified.

Here also we can check the solar energy updates,
http://www.BuildEnergy.org

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Problem could be our infamous “Brain Drain” Rob.
Those “They” you mention have been our biggest export in the last 60 years; from Sir Keith Park thru to well, go see; Russell Crowe say…….
I have a friend in Chicago who’s solar Comapany had a full laundromat up and running on Solar in 1991 – he took me up on the roof! (shocked and stunned little kiwi i was)
$22,000 to run lights and power for 20 washers and 35 dryers.

The Kiwis that could do this live in England, the US and Australia etc etc…

Why won’t they come home?
Too much b!tch!ng and moaning to work out a compromise, instead of deciding and uniting.
And all for a quarter of the money – you gotta have more heart than brains to come back i reckin……..

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That’s neat. It looks like they still haven’t gotten the product to market, but it’s great to know that the prospect of cheaper solar energy is likely some time soon, as I would like to panel my house eventually. Now if they could figure out a way of making them really efficient

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bigblukiwi – Lol! I forget the reason it was pulled, but it made sense to me at the time. I seem to recall that it was pulled by the manufacturer, not Ebay itself. anyway, as you say, it’s in the time warp now. Let’s just hope they relly do get the price down to $1 per Watt, and soon!

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Sorry I didn’t notice the date. My Mistake. It’s my time warp that’s in error. Doh !!!!!

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The ‘item’has been removed by E Bay. WHY ? has it been purchased or what?

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The same source reveals that the inventor of the Super Soaker water gun has invented a solar generator that can exceed 60% effidiency.
http://www.physorg.com/news119107136.html

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It appears they have already made a great advance in battery storage with nano, 10 times the storage http://www.physorg.com/news117212815.html and what with everyone running air conditioners with global warming there will be very little chance in wasted energy with solar power.

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Or, during the transition phase, when they are selling both petroleum and hydrogen they could simply replace Petroleum with Fuel. I’ll leave the acronym to the imagination.

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I think you mean that they would change their name to OHEC, pronounced O-Heck!

Trevor.

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Trevor, Quietly, I think we should all keep an eye on the newswires from Dubai. They seem to have the right combination of physical and financial resources and long term vision.

Twenty years from now I wouldn’t be surprised if they converted their oil pipelines to Europe to carry Europe’s sewerage to the middle east where the water would be extracted by solar evaporation. The resulting sludge would be biodigesed to extract the methane and the remaining sludge would be sprayed on the desert fringes to provide a moist fertile base to revegetate and stop the deserts from spreading. The water evaporated from the sewerage would be electrolysed using solar power. The hydrogen would then be transported to Europe in the current natural gas pipelines.
OPEC woud change it’s name to HyPEC.

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The dams do spill off water, but sometimes this is not because the lakes are full. Instead it is because they need to meet minimum water flow requirements and the generation from that water flow isn’t needed. Typically this is during summer nights when the wind is blowing but demand is very low.

Generation of hydrogen from excess electricity isn’t that far fetched. The efficiency of the generation process is getting up to 78% (if I recall correctly), although there are greater losses converting hydrogen back to electricity. What many people don’t know is that New Zealand already has at least two sites where hydrogen is already being generated – from natural gas (methane). One is the Petrochem plant in Taranaki which uses the hydrogen for ammonia production. The other is the oil refinery. I can see the day when it would make sense to install electroysis equipment at either or both of these sites. However right now it may make more sense to use excess electricity for heating at sites that currently use natural gas or coal, simply because the additional equipment would be cheaper to install and run than an electrolysis plant.

Trevor.

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Good link Kevyn. Unfortunately a solar collector won’t be all that effective in the land of the long white cloud, but it could be part of the answer to Australia’s electricity generation needs.

Trevor.

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Here is an interesting proposal for storing solar energy to generate peak electricity. From a company with revenues of $US5bn last year who are convinced it’s will be profitable in today’s energy climate.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119924708042261755.html?mod=hpp

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As you say sometimes the dams do spill off excess water, however this is probably more likely when there is a high amount of rainfall in the country and not during the peak of summer when solar panels would be working to peak efficiency.
Just because its not done in New Zealand doesn’t mean wouldn’t be a good thing to do when solar power does supply more power to the grid.
Wiki says it would be able 70% to 85% efficient which is a significant lose but better than nothing. Alternately it excess solar power could be turned into hydrogen.

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ekstatek said:
“I assume it would be used the same way they use off-peak power now in some places, to pump the water back up into the dams for later usage.”

I’m not aware of anywhere in New Zealand where this is being done. I do know that there are times when water has to be spilled or wind turbines need to be shut down because there is more intermittant generation and must-run generation (e.g. to maintain minimum water flows) than demand.

Using off-peak power to pump water up has an efficiency trade-off, so the value of the off-peak power (per kiloWatt-hour) is less than the value of the peak power gained by letting the water flow back down again. The same applies to any electricity storage scheme, just the efficiency percentages vary.

Trevor.

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I assume it would be used the same way the use off-peak power now in some places, to pump the water back up into the dams for later usage.

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Don’t expect to be able to sell surplus power generated by PV panels during off-peak time at the same price as you pay for power during peak demand periods after sunset on winter evenings. New Zealand’s generating environment is significantly different to that of most countries in that our fossil-fueled plants don’t need to run all the time. When PV panels are generating surplus electricity, the chances are good that the fossil fuel plants won’t be running, so the cost of generating power is relatively low. Who would pay a high price for extra power that isn’t really needed?

Trevor.

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Trevor, I suspect if you made a really big one it would just be a really good lightning generator. Sounds like the perfect solution for Auckland

I’m sure some clever-clogs can come up with an electronic control system to make it commercially viable.

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Kevyn, you would be aware that Kelvin’s Thunderstorm generates DC rather than AC power? Both Auckland and Fiordland are a bit far from the DC link between Benmore and Hayward and that link runs on the dry side of the Southern Alps.

By the way, happy new year rather than “April fool”. (While Kelvin’s Thunderstorm can generate high voltages, it can’t generate the high currents and therefore the power needed – well for Auckland anyway. I don’t see Fiordland using much power

Trevor.

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