This is a repost from one of our sister publications, Windermere Sun, below:
Perovskite solar cells (Attribution: Stanford ENERGY, video by Mark Shwartz, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/, Presented at: WindermereSun.com)
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Back in 2015, I interviewed the Chief Technology Officer Dr. Christopher Case of Oxford PV during the InterSolar North America in San Francisco, CA. Dr. Case introduced me to a potentially game-changing solar technology, the perovskite solar cell technology, that holds much promise for lowering the cost and boosting the performance of solar power by increasing photovoltaic efficiency of any solar photovoltaic thin film material to 30+% in a perovskite tandem layer (which is more than the maximum efficiency achieved in traditional mono-and poly-crystalline silicon cells). In laboratories, perovskite cells are manufactured by spin-coating, spraying, or “painting” them onto a substrate (material that provides the surface for the chemicals to crystalize on). Perovskites are only about half a micron thick while silicon layer is roughly 200 microns. The main hurdle for perovskite is durability. Perovskites are very sensitive to oxygen, moisture, and heat, therefore, requiring heavy encapsulation to protect the cell, leading to increased cost and weight of solar cell. Oxford PV’s tandem cell conversion efficiency is 29.52%. More research and development and data are needed for testing its efficiency, stability, as well as increasing lifespan and replacing toxic materials with safer ones. Company such as Saule Technologies has some very interesting perovskite products in the works: 1. they have a perovskite photovoltaic glass ( a semi-transparent perovskite solar cell printed onto flexible foils and overlayed with layers of glass), making it a window that generates electricity. 2. Saule is also producing energy-harvesting sun-blinds that can block intense summer sunlight, and allowing sunlight to enter the building in mornings and evenings to provide natural light and passive heating. These blinds can be adjusted manually or automatically. 3. In May of 2021, Saule launched the world’s first industrial production line of perovskite solar panels in Poland. Jinko Solaris also working on rolling out perovskite technology. The perovskite solar cell could be the future of energy, in the video published on Sep. 14, 2021, “Perovskite Solar Cells Could Be the Future of Energy“, below:
Perovskite mineral was discovered over 150 years ago, but it’s only recently that scientists have been able to synthesize the properties of the material in laboratories using commonly available chemicals. And what they’re finding is that it can give a big boost to the performance of existing solar cell technology. This week we take at look at how it works, in the video published on Aug. 9, 2020, “Perovskite Solar Cells: Game changer?“, below:
In the video published on March 26, 2021, “Perovskite solar out-benches rivals-2021| perovskite solar cells shines a little brighter“, below:
Perovskite, a calcium titanium oxide mineral discovered in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1839. This new old material is generating quite an explosive buzz because scientists have found, in recent years, that it is a great material to be used in solar absorption applications. It can be made simply and inexpensively by using common wet chemistry lab methods and low cost equipment instead of the expensive deposition equipment common in the semiconductor industry. To take a look at how this process is made cheap and accessible, I’m sharing the video below:
These solar (photovoltaic) cells are made in tandem (layer by layer) fashion on a specially coated glass support. In the video above:
the glass is coated with a dense layer of titanium dioxide, by robotic arm, to prevent electrical charge generated by sunlight from leaking out of the cell.
a less dense porous oxide layer covers the dense oxide layer (usually titanium dioxide, other oxides may also be used).
a simple high speed spin coater deposits this layer from solution and spreads this coating evenly across the device.
heating this glass/device in an oven conditions it for solar cell use.
prepare the Perovskite material (which absorbs in the broad range of solar spectrum) by combining 2 precursor materials: PbI2 (lead iodide) & CH6IN (methylammonium iodide)
drip the liquid phase mixture (from 5.) onto the oxide coated device (from 4.)
spin the resulting device in 6 to assure even coating
applying halide solution
heating the device resulting from 8 on a hot plate–>spontaneously crystallizes precursors in freshly deposited liquid
color changes also result from crystallization process resulting from 9.
Such tandem product has the advantage of being able to be introduced into existing infrastructure of current silicon module manufacturing process, boosting its efficiency. With added few steps toward the end of the production line, the coating (equivalent to second solar cell) takes advantage of the blue portion of the solar spectrum and may improve the solar cell efficiency by 20-25% above the underlying silicon. The fact that Perovskite-based solar cell technology is of earth abundant material also insures its availability and low cost. Its high absorption in solar spectrum enables it to have comparable characteristics to that of gallium arsenide. Its ability to change its sensitivity to different band gaps in solar spectrum allows it to make different architectures in tandem solar cells. It can truly be considered as the Custom Solar Absorber! In short term, Perovskite-based solar cell may boost the efficiency level of existing technology and in the long term. It may be a stand-alone technology with closer efficiency level to that of gallium arsenide but at a much lower cost. It may potentially be sprayed, ink-jet printed, dip-coated, etc. It is no wonder that Dr. Case commented, “the perovskite in solar application is the fastest increasing photovoltaic efficiency of any solar photovoltaic thin film material ever! In just a few years, it went from a lab efficiency of about 6% to well over 17%…the material is a very good solar absorber….bringing the material to 25% efficiency in a monolithic layer and 30%+ in a perovskite tandem layer….potentially the future replacement for silicon.” The perovskite thin-film solar cells, is currently being developed by Oxford PV (a spin-out from the University of Oxford in 2009-2010 to commercialize this technology, which has exclusively licensed the intellectual property developed by Professor Henry Snaith and his team of 20 scientists). Below, Professor Henry Snaith will embellish upon the development of this solar technology, in the video published on Jan. 10, 2014, “Perovskites: The Emergence of a New Era for Low-Cost, High-Efficiency Solar Cells“, below :
Henry J. Snaith is Professor of Physics in the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford and Fellow of the Royal Society. He has pioneered the field of perovskite solar cells and published hundreds of papers. He is founder and CSO of Oxford PV, which holds the largest perovskite patent portfolio worldwide and focuses on developing and commercializing perovskite PV technology. In this interview, he discusses the present status and future prospects of perovskite PV, in the video published on Nov. 11, 2018, “The Path to Perovskite on Silicon PV | Prof. Henry Snaith“, below:
Oxford PVplans on continuing to optimize this technology’s cell efficiency and accelerate the transfer of the technology into production. Furthermore, it aims to develop the range of substrates to which the cells can be applied. With its promising future, we, the solar enthusiasts and investors alike, should keep our eyes on Oxford PV in the coming years. In the next few years, we anticipate that Dr. Henry Snaith and his team of scientists will continue to tackle challenges in trap densities, doping densities, mobility, mechanisms for free carrier generations, etc., to further improve device performance. You will find that many in the solar industry share the optimism of Professor Henry Snaith and Dr. Christopher Case. In the video published on June 9, 2021, “Henry Snaith – The advent of Perovskite solar cells“, below: For those of you interested in more details about Perovskite-based solar cell technology, please refer to the two videos below:
1. Introducing Perovskite Solar Cells to Undergraduates:
2. In the video published on Nov. 17, 2017, “Everything you ever wanted to know about perovskite“, below:
Keep in mind that Shockley-Queisser limit applies to silicon solar cell and not to perovskite solar cell. The Shockley-Queisser limit is calculated by examining the amount of electrical energy that is extracted per photon of incoming sunlight.For better understanding of Shockley-Queisser limit, please refer to the excerpt from wikipedia, in italics, below:In a traditional solid-statesemiconductorsuch as silicon, a solar cell is made from two doped crystals, one an n-type semiconductor, which has extra free electrons, and the other a p-type semiconductor, which is lacking free electrons, referred to as “holes.” When initially placed in contact with each other, some of the electrons in the n-type portion will flow into the p-type to “fill in” the missing electrons. Eventually enough will flow across the boundary to equalize the Fermi levels of the two materials. The result is a region at the interface, thep-n junction, where charge carriers are depleted on each side of the interface. In silicon, this transfer of electrons produces a potential barrier of about 0.6 V to 0.7 V.[6]When the material is placed in the sun, photons from the sunlight can be absorbed in the p-type side of the semiconductor, causing electrons in the valence band to be promoted in energy to the conduction band. This process is known asphotoexcitation. As the name implies, electrons in the conduction band are free to move about the semiconductor. When a load is placed across the cell as a whole, these electrons will flow from the p-type side into the n-type side, lose energy while moving through the external circuit, and then go back into the p-type material where they can re-combine with the valence-band holes they left behind. In this way, sunlight creates an electric current.[6]In physics, the Shockley–Queisser limit (also known as the detailed balance limit, Shockley Queisser Efficiency Limit or SQ Limit, or in physical terms the radiative efficiency limit) is the maximum theoretical efficiency of a solar cell using a single p-n junction to collect power from the cell where the only loss mechanism is radiative recombination in the solar cell. It was first calculated by William Shockley and Hans-Joachim Queisser at Shockley Semiconductor in 1961, giving a maximum efficiency of 30% at 1.1 eV.[1] This first calculation used the 6000K black-body spectrum as an approximation to the solar spectrum. Subsequent calculations have used measured global solar spectra (AM1.5G) and included a back surface mirror which increases the maximum efficiency to 33.7% for a solar cell with a bandgap of 1.34 eV.[2] The limit is one of the most fundamental to solar energy production with photovoltaic cells, and is considered to be one of the most important contributions in the field.[3]The limit is that the maximumsolar conversion efficiency is around 33.7% for a single p-n junction photovoltaic cell, assuming typical sunlight conditions (unconcentrated, AM 1.5 solar spectrum), and subject to other caveats and assumptions discussed below. This maximum occurs at a band gap of 1.34 eV.[2] That is, of all the power contained in sunlight (about 1000 W/m2) falling on an ideal solar cell, only 33.7% of that could ever be turned into electricity (337 W/m2). The most popular solar cell material, silicon, has a less favorable band gap of 1.1 eV, resulting in a maximum efficiency of about 32%. Modern commercial mono-crystalline solar cells produce about 24% conversion efficiency, the losses due largely to practical concerns like reflection off the front of the cell and light blockage from the thin wires on the cell surface.The Shockley–Queisser limit only applies to conventional solar cells with a single p-n junction; solar cells with multiple layers can (and do) outperform this limit, and so can solar thermal and certain other solar energy systems. In the extreme limit, for a multi-junction solar cell with an infinite number of layers, the corresponding limit is 68.7% for normal sunlight,[4]or 86.8% using concentrated sunlight.[5] (See Solar cell efficiency.) Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
This is a repost from one of our sister publications, Windermere Sun, below:
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
On Monday, September 20, 2021, the share of renewable energy (solar, wind, and hydro) on Australia’s main electricity grid shot above 60% (at 60.1%) for the first time at 12:10 pm, exactly one day and 15 minutes after its previous peak and record of 59.8% on Sunday, September 19, 2021, according to Dylan McConnell of the Climate Energy College in Melbourne, Australia, using data from OpenNEM. This new peak highlights the increased pace of transition into the clean or renewable energy and the shrinking output of coal as more solar and wind are rolled out across Australia. According to another data watcher, Geoff Eldridge from NEWLog, Sunday, September 19, 2021, did not just break the record for the share of renewable energy, but also the record for instantaneous wind and solar at 57%. The Australian Energy Market Operator also noticed: NSW record maximum rooftop solar PV (2,694.4 MW) and corresponding lowest minimums for network demand (4,867.4 MW) and Operation Demand (5,065.0 MW) and tweeted on Friday, September 24, 2021, “Spring is the season for records to bloom! Forecast mild temperatures and sunny weather in NSW and QLD on Sunday may see rooftop solar drive down energy demand from the grid to a new record low!” With such occurrence, NSW, the Australian state grid with the highest dependency on coal generation, would find it easier to align with the state government’s push to replace the aging coal fleet of more than 10GW with wind, solar, and storage under its renewable infrastructure plan. According to Eldridge of NEMLog, coal output on the main grid was at a record minimum of 9,161.6 MW at noon on Sunday, September 19, 2021 (or, at leas the lowest since Nov. 1, 2020), and was down 153.57 MW on the previous minimum on Sunday, Aug. 22, 2021. It was also a record low share of coal generation (38.97%) on the main grid and for combined coal and gas (40.05%). The share of solar and wind could have been significantly higher were it not for the level of curtailment, either economic (switching off to avoid negative prices) or network (being forced to switch off due to grid issues or capacity constraints). On Sunday, September 19, 2021, the level of curtailment was more than 3.5 GW when that short-lived record was set. As the rollout of solar, wind, and storage (both battery and pumped hydro) continues to enter the grid, more records will change. AEMO forecasts that the rooftop solar, alone, will be able to reach 100% of demand in the state of South Australia some time this Spring (of Australia), around October, a FIRST for any gigawatt scale grid in the world! AEMO is also predicting that rooftop solar could meet up to 75% of demand on the entire main grid within next five years and is preparing the national grid to accommodate times of up to 100% solar and wind by 2025. ABC News: South Australia’s renewable energy boom has achieved a global milestone, in the video published on Oct. 25, 2020, “ABC News: South Australia runs purely on solar power in world first“, below:
Australia is preparing to build the world’s most powerful solar power plant. Engineers and builders will have to solve complex problems to cover an area equal to 17 thousand football fields that accommodate photovoltaic panels with a total capacity of 10 Gigawatts. The second challenge will be to transfer this energy to Singapore, the main consumer of electricity. There is also talk of exporting energy to Indonesia and various parts of Asia. But how exactly will the power plant be able to power a country more than three thousand kilometers away? In the video published on Sep. 21, 2021, “How Australia’s Most Powerful $16 Billion Solar Power plant Will Power Singapore“, below:
To begin with, it is worth understanding why energy problems have arisen in one of the most developed countries in the world. Australia faces regular power outages, and, unfortunately, South Australia suffers the most. There may be a lot of reasons: for instance, in September 2016, due to a storm, almost the entire state was left without electricity. One reason for the outages is that there are not enough storage facilities on the territory to supply more electricity during peak loads. The local authorities could not ensure the commensurate development of their own energy or storage capacities capable of providing electricity supplies during calm or cloudy weather. And it is quite difficult to restore the network because of the climatic conditions and long distances – Australia is not a tiny country. At the same time, electricity prices in the country are considered one of the highest in the world, in the video published on Jan. 13, 2021, “HOW ELON MUSK MANAGED TO SOLVE THE ENERGY CRISIS IN AUSTRALIA“, below:
In the video published on Oct. 29, 2017, “Elon Musk gets emotional over Australia’s energy emergency (Part Two) | 60 Minutes Australia“, below:
Australian Renewable Energy Agency CEO Darren Miller told Sky News Australia has made “incredible progress” in the transition to renewable energy sources, in the video published on May 18, 2021, “Australia making ‘incredible progress’ in the transition to renewable energy”, below:
Internationally recognized leader on global climate change, Christiana Figueres tells Liz Hayes we have just three years to get our renewable energy house in order, in the video published on Oct. 31, 2017, “Australians have just three years to get our renewable energy house in order | 60 Minutes Australia“, below:
This is a repost from one of our sister publications, Windermere Sun, below:
Elon Musk, 2018 (Attribution: The Royal Society, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en, Presented at: WindermereSun.com & sunisthefuture.net)
Elon Musk talks about his plan for the sun. It’s already very normal day when Elon Musk talks about some revolutionary idea and this speech is no exception, in the video published on Sep. 12, 2021, “Elon Musk – Sun is The Future“, below:
In order to be sustainable, we have to have sustainable means of production and consumption of energy, to drive electric cars in order to reduce CO2 emission, and to generate sustainable energy. Sustainable energy may be in the form of solar, nuclear, hydro-thermal, hydro, and wind energy. The primary form of energy to be generated will be solar. Sustainable or solar energy production combined with stationary storage, the world can be powered many times over by solar energy. About a third of our energy use is electricity, about a third of energy use is for for heating, and a third of energy use is in transport. There is enough energy from the sun to support all three areas of energy use/need. There is 1 gw per square km amount of energy coming from the sun. The earth is already almost entirely solar powered. The amount of energy needed to power our civilization is tiny compared to energy from the sun (1 gigabit per square kilometer). At 20% efficient solar panels, that’s 200 Mw per square kilometer. There would be plenty of energy for all three areas of energy use from solar, with some contribution from wind, geothermal, and tidal. And we need to stop subsidizing burning fossil fuels. For more about the use of solar energy, please visit: Sun Is The Future and Sun Is The Future youtube channel. Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
This is a repost from one of our sister publications, Windermere Sun, below:
Terrific, on Thursday, Sep. 9, 2021, Australia has once again beaten its previous record for the share of renewables on its main grid, reaching instantaneous 58.3% , and also setting a new record for the share of wind and solar in the grid. According to OpenNEM’s data, the new record was set at 12:30 pm, and easily beat the previous record of 57.3% set just a few days earlier. Since such records are usually set on weekends when industrial use is lower, it is quite telling when this new record was set on a weekday.
Wind and solar reached 56.1% at 12:30 pm, also a record of total output, although the aggregate total of about 14.5 GW was not a record. At the time of the record, rooftop solar alone contributed 32.4% of the total demand of about 24 GW while wind farms contributed 12.9%, and utility scale solar farms 10.8%. Coal was reduced to 40% of the output, with black coal in Queensland and NSW providing 29.4% and brown coal in Victoria 10.4%.
After the infamous meltdown in 1986 resulted from a flawed reactor design and poor training, other nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl facility continued to operate until the turn of the century. For the past 18 years, Chernobyl has been nothing but an abandoned wasteland due to the high level of radiation, making the Chernobyl exclusion zone unsuitable for agriculture or forestry. This exclusion zone is a 1000 square mile area around the Chernobyl nuclear plant mostly uninhabited and unused since the 1986 disaster. Since there is already substantial electrical infrastructure in place left over from the nuclear plant and the fact that the land is unused and cheap, the site is an excellent choice for large solar farm(s) to be installed.
“It’s not just another solar power plant…it’s really hard to underestimate the symbolism of this particular project. ” the chief executive of Solar Chernobyl LLC, Evhen Variagin, told reporters at the unveiling of a 1 MW joint project that can power 2,000 homes, on Friday, October 5, 2018, by Ukrainian company Rodina and German company Enerparc AG, costing about $1.2 million (1 million euros) and benefiting from feed-in-tariffs that guarantee a certain price for power. The head of the Chernobyl nuclear plant Valery Seyda said, “It is the first time the site has produced power since 2000, when the nuclear plant was finally shut down. But now we are seeing a new sprout, still small, weak, producing power on this site and this is very joyful.”
Between January and September of this year (2018), more than 500 MW of renewable power capacity is added to Ukraine, more than twice as much as in 2017, according to the Ukrainian government.The head of the Office of the National Investment Council of Ukraine, Yulia Kovaliv, said investors want to reap the benefits from a generous subsidy scheme before parliament is due to vote on scrapping it in July next year. “Investors expect that in the renewable energy sector facilities launched before 2019 will operate on the current beneficial system of green tariffs…that is why investors want to buy ready-to-build projects in order to complete construction before that time.” Yulia Kovaliv told Reuters reporter on the sidelines of a conference in Odessa in September.
Cheap land and sunny skies are attracting interests from around the world. Two Chinese companies, GCL System Integration Technology Co. Ltd. and China National Complete Engineering Corp, are also building a one-gigawatt solar power plant (enough to power 100 million LED bulbs) to the South of Chernobyl. Another dozen smaller investors are also installing solar parks nearby on a smaller scale. These entrepreneurs are not deterred by the challenges of major construction projects in nuclear contamination zone. Engineering work has already begun, but there has not been any public disclosure about safety measures, the completion date, nor a price for the project.
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker
More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
Hurricane Florence was a Category 4 at its peak, at 130 miles per hour (or 210 kilometers per hour) wind two days before making its landfall on September 14, 2018. That was so close to the threshold (140-160 miles per hour) of the design of new solar farms. About a third of the 3,000 megawatts of solar capacity connected to Duke Energy Corp’s system went down initially, according to utility spokesman Randy Wheeless. As of this week, about nine projects in North Carolina remained offline. Four of these were due to damage to Duke Energy facilities and five were due to damage to the project themselves. Wheeless said facilities that suffered the most tended to be five megawatt projects connected to Due’s distribution system.
Duke had been trying to get developers to move toward larger solar projects to connect largely to its transmission system, the high-voltage wires that link Duke plants to the distribution system that delivered power to homes and businesses. With hundreds of solar projects connected to Duke’s grid in North Carolina, the number of damaged projects remained small. Senior vice president at Strata Solar, Brian O’Hara, said that the Chapel-Hill based solar developer with more than 140 projects in the state saw damage at only two facilities. O’Hara said, “Duke has done a commendable job responding quickly and getting our facilities back online shortly after we notified them that they were inspected and ready to reconnect….our teams have coordinated closely with Duke’s recovery team, and it has been professional, responsive and pretty seamless.” The chief operating officer for Durham-based Ecoplexus Inc., John Morrison, said his company also saw very little damage, with only two of the 16 sites operating in North Carolina suffering some broken modules, amounting to less than 0.34% of the the developer’s modules, “not enough to even exceed the insurance deductible.” Spokesman for the California-based Cypress Creek Renewables, Jeff McKay, also reporting no notable damage in its solar fleet. As for Duke itself, its only project that suffered damage was the 60-megawatt Monroe Solar project in Union County, with few panels being damaged by wind. Duke’s Fayetteville, Warswa and Camp Lejeuene solar projects were all undamaged and returned to service as soon as grid operations allowed. Most outages during and after the worst of the hurricane Florence were due to problems with Duke’s grid rather than problems at the projects themselves.
To see what solar had done for North Carolina, check out these videos below:
Video “The birth of a solar farm in Halifax, NC” below:
Video “What’s the future for solar energy in NC” below:
Video “Study shows North Carolina as number 2 for solar electric capacity installed through 2017“: below:
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker
More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
Aerial view of Apple Park, the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc., located in Cupertino, CA. The roof is covered in solar panels with an output of 17 MW, making it the biggest solar roofs in the world. Photo is taken from a Cessna 172M. (attribution: Daniel L. Lu (user: dllu), presented at: WindermereSun.com)
In China, solar panels are mounted high off the ground to let sunlight shine through so grass can grow and local yaks can eat it. (credit/attribution: Apple Inc., presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Apple’s headquarter in Cupertino, CA is powered by 100% renewable energy in part from a 17 megawatt onsite rooftop solar installation (credit/attribution: Apple Iinc., presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Ibiden, a component supplier outside Nagoya, Japan, maintains a floating solar photovoltaic facility to power 100 percent of its manufacturing. (credit/attribution: Apple, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
This week, Windermere Sun is devoting several posts on how some of the individuals, groups, or companies commit to help combat climate change and to create a healthier environment. Back in April of this year (2018), Apple announced its global facilities being powered with 100% clean energy. This was achieved through retail stores, offices, data centers and co-located facilities in 43 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and India. Apple also announced nine additional manufacturing partners committed to power all of their Apple production with 100% clean energy, bringing the total number of supplier commitments to 23.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We’re committed to leaving the world better than we found it. After years of hard work we’re proud to have reached this significant milestone. We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.”
Excerpt from Apple’s press release, in italics, from April of 2018, below:
Apple and its partners are building new renewable energy projects around the world, improving the energy options for local communities, states and even entire countries. Apple creates or develops, with utilities, new regional renewable energy projects that would not otherwise exist. These projects represent a diverse range of energy sources, including solar arrays and wind farms as well as emerging technologies like biogas fuel cells, micro-hydro generation systems and energy storage technologies.
Apple currently has 25 operational renewable energy projects around the world, totaling 626 megawatts of generation capacity, with 286 megawatts of solar PV generation coming online in 2017, its most ever in one year. It also has 15 more projects in construction. Once built, over 1.4 gigawatts of clean renewable energy generation will be spread across 11 countries.
Since 2014, all of Apple’s data centers have been powered by 100 percent renewable energy. And since 2011, all of Apple’s renewable energy projects have reduced greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e) by 54 percent from its facilities worldwide and prevented nearly 2.1 million metric tons of CO2e from entering the atmosphere.
Apple’s renewable energy projects include:
Apple Park, Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, is now the largest LEED Platinum-certified office building in North America. It is powered by 100 percent renewable energy from multiple sources, including a 17-megawatt onsite rooftop solar installation and four megawatts of biogas fuel cells, and controlled by a microgrid with battery storage. It also gives clean energy back to the public grid during periods of low occupancy.
Over 485 megawatts of wind and solar projects have been developed across six provinces of China to address upstream manufacturing emissions.
Apple recently announced plans to build a 400,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art data center in Waukee, Iowa, that will run entirely on renewable energy from day one.
In Prineville, Oregon, the company signed a 200-megawatt power purchase agreement for an Oregon wind farm, the Montague Wind Power Project, set to come online by the end of 2019.
In Reno, Nevada, Apple created a partnership with the local utility, NV Energy, and over the last four years developed four new projects totaling 320 megawatts of solar PV generation.
In Japan, Apple is partnering with local solar company Daini Denryoku to install over 300 rooftop solar systems that will generate 18,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy every year — enough to power more than 3,000 Japanese homes.
Apple’s data center in Maiden, North Carolina, is supported by projects that generate 244 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy per year, which is equivalent to the energy used by 17,906 North Carolina homes.
In Singapore, where land is scarce, Apple adapted and built its renewable energy on 800 rooftops.
Apple is currently constructing two new data centers in Denmark that will run on 100 percent renewable energy from day one.
To get to 100 percent renewable energy for its own facilities, the company worked to set an example for others to follow. Apple also announced that 23 of its suppliers are now committed to operating on 100 percent renewable energy, including nine new suppliers. Altogether, clean energy from supplier projects helped avoid over 1.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from being emitted in 2017 — the equivalent of taking more than 300,000 cars off the road. In addition, over 85 suppliers have registered for Apple’s Clean Energy Portal, an online platform that Apple developed to help suppliers identify commercially viable renewable energy solutions in regions around the world.
New supplier commitments include:
Arkema, a designer of high-performance bio-based polymers, which manufactures for Apple at its facilities in France, the United States and China.
DSM Engineering Plastics, which manufactures polymers and compounds in the Netherlands, Taiwan and China that are used in many Apple products, including connectors and cables.
ECCO Leather, the first soft goods supplier to commit to 100 percent clean energy for its Apple production. The leather that ECCO produces for Apple is of European origin, with tanning and cutting occurring at facilities in the Netherlands and China.
Finisar, a US industry-leading producer of optical communication components and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), which power some of Apple’s most popular new features like Face ID, Portrait mode selfies and Animoji.
Luxshare-ICT, a supplier of accessories for Apple products. Luxshare-ICT’s production for Apple is predominantly located in Eastern China.
Pegatron, which assembles a number of products, including iPhone, at its two factories in Shanghai and Kunshan, China.
Quadrant, a supplier of magnets and magnetic components in a number of Apple’s products.
Quanta Computer, one of the first Mac suppliers to commit to 100 percent renewable energy for Apple production.
Taiyo Ink Mfg. Co., which produces solder masks for printed circuit boards in Japan.
You may also be interested in these articles below:
Below, is a re-post from our sister publication, Windermere Sun:
There is a climate crisis unfolding (attribution: 350.org, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Global Climate Movement (attribution: 350.org, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Thousands of Rallies in Cities & Communities Around the World (attribution: 350.org, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
September 8, 2018 (attribution: 350.org, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
No New Fossil Fuels Anywhere (attribution: 350.org, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
A just and fair way to transition to 100% renewable energy (attribution: 350.org, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
Just received a message about an event when/where thousands of rallies that will take place on September 8, 2018, worldwide, to demand our local leaders to commit to building a fossil free world that puts people and justice before profits. This is the message they are trying to convey, in italics, below:
No more stalling, no more delays: it’s time for a fast and fair transition to 100% renewable energy for all.
Real climate leadership rises from below. It means power in the hands of people not corporations. It means economic opportunity for workers and justice and dignity for frontline communities that are the hardest hit by the impacts of the fossil fuel industry and a warming world.
This September, cities, states, businesses and civil society from around the world are gathering in California for the Global Climate Action Summit.
The Summit has invited every mayor, governor, and local leader in the world to make a bold climate commitment to help the world reach the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
We know what those commitments need to achieve: a fast, fair and just transition to 100% renewable energy and an immediate end to new fossil fuel projects.
Plan or join an event in your community. If your elected officials commit, your rally can be a celebration. If they fail to act, it’s a chance to hold them accountable.
We are at a crossroads. By acting together, we can end the era of fossil fuels and save the climate we all depend on.
Here, in Florida, there are already multiple locations near Orlando, Tampa, Fort Myers, and Miami, ready to join Rise for Climate, Jobs, & Justice. Keep checking for there will be more locations as we progress toward 9/8/2018. So far, these are the locations in Florida, listed below:
Rise Up Orlando: Saturday, September 8, 2018, 11:00 am., Lake Eola Park, 512 E. Washington St., Orlando, FL 32801
She Moves Me, Saturday, September 8, 2018, 9:00 am., Fort Mellon Park, 600 East First Street, Sanford, FL 32771
Rise Up Ringing-People’s March/Rally/Meditation for Climate, Jobs and Justice, Saturday, September 8, 2018, 10:00 am., Williams Park, 350 2nd Ave. N, St. Petersberg, FL 33701
Indoor Block Party-Town hall, Saturday, September 8, 2018, 2:00 pm., St. Paul Lutheran Church, 5103 N. Central Ave., Tampa, FL 33603
SWFL People’s Climate March 2018, Saturday, September 8, 2018, 2:00 pm., Centennial Park, 2000 W. First St., Fort Myers, FL 33901, 33908
Miami Rising for Climate, Jobs & Justice, Saturday, September 8, 2018, 2:00 pm., Bayfront Park, 301 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33132
Explanations of FAQ regarding this event/day, taken from riseforclimate.org/#map, in italics, below:
What’s happening on September 8?
People on every continent will come together to Rise for Climate Action.
On 8 September we will rise together in our neighbourhoods to take action, telling the story of the communities we want, and showing governments how to follow our lead. We’ll connect all our local efforts globally to help make an unstoppable wave of people’s climate leadership – from our town halls, to our schools, and places of worship.
Why are people mobilizing on September 8?
We are at a tipping point. 2020 is a threshold for meeting global targets to tackle the climate crisis. We are fast running out of time to act, but meaningful action from national governments has been slow at best.
With climate impacts escalating — we don’t have the luxury to wait to see what bureaucratic negotiations have to offer. We need our local leaders to step up and do everything they can right now to stop the fossil fuel industry and build 100% renewable energy for all.
We believe that the Global Climate Action Summit, being held in California on 12-14 September 2018 presents a unique opportunity to pressure local governments and institutions to raise their ambition and do more for climate action. Every city and local leader has been invited to make a commitment around the summit.
We think this is an opportunity to set a new bar for climate leadership, drive ambition and close the gap between what justice and science clearly tells us – and the achingly slow action by our national governments.
Our actions won’t stop with this mobilization, we will keep the pressure on our local, state and national leaders to turn words into deeds for a fossil free world.
Every local leader has the power, and a moral obligation to do everything they can to stop the fossil fuel industry and build 100% renewable energy for all.
What are we asking for?
The bar for real climate leadership is simple: public, actionable commitments to a fast and fair transition to a fossil free world, powered by 100% renewable energy for all.
We can’t keep powering our lives with dirty fuels from the last century. It’s time to repower our communities with clean, renewable energy from the sun, earth, wind and water.
We need every local government and institution to commit to building 100% renewable energy and stopping new dirty energy projects in their community. Anything less than that is out of line with what science and justice demand.
What is the Global Climate Action Summit?
The Global Climate Action Summit is a gathering of mayors & local governments, business and civil society in San Francisco on 12-14 September 2018. Its stated goal is to showcase climate action taking place around the world, and inspire deeper commitments from each other and from national governments. It will be the largest gathering of its kind to take place, and we believe it’s an opportunity to pressure local leaders to step up and do much more to stop the fossil fuel industry and build 100% renewable energy for all.
But this summit needs to be about more than just words. We need communities, cities, regions, governments, businesses, institutions, and places of worship, to significantly increase their ambitions — and go beyond the Paris agreement, to close the gap left by slow national action. But time is running out, the time for false solutions is over: we need a global, just transition away from fossil fuels and towards 100% renewable energy for all.
Who is organizing Rise For Climate Action?
Rise for Climate Action is a global movement organized by hundreds of local leaders and dozens of partners. It’s coordinated by a global steering group in conjunction with our global and national partners. You can see the full list of groups involved here.
Every individual action is different, but most are organized by local groups who are leading the way for climate action in their communities. You can host an action in your community by registering it on the map above.
If your organization would like to support Rise For Climate Action, contact the steering group here.
How can my organization support this mobilization? There are many ways your organization can support Rise For Climate Action. You could hold an action and register it on the map, help promote the day of action or join as a partner. If you have any questions, get in touch with us here.
What about climate justice?
Climate change is both a result of, and a cause of injustice. We simply cannot solve the climate crisis without building a new economy that is fair, equal and works for all of us.
The weight of the climate crisis falls on those who have the least to do with perpetuating it, including indigenous communities, frontline communities in vulnerable countries, low income communities of color, and poor communities who are bearing the brunt of fossil fuel extraction, overburdened with unsafe and unfair levels of exposure to pollution, and are on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
A fast and fair transition away from fossil fuels to a renewable energy economy must protect the most vulnerable communities, including where that shift immediately impacts people and their city or state. Workers must be truly heard by companies and governments – working together to develop employment plans that include training, support and, if appropriate, re-skilling of workers. The shift away from fossil fuels is urgent and it must happen without harming some of the most vulnerable people.
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Solar panels atop a house in Riverside, CA (photo attribution: Jim Sun, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Community Solar Garden or Solar Farm of Clean Energy Collective at Cowdery Meadow Community Solar Gardens (attribution: Susan Sun Nunamaker, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Visitors at a Westmill Solar Cooperative Open Day at Westmill Solar Park (attribution: MrRenewables, Westmill Solar Cooperative, Ben Cavanna, presented at: WindermereSun.com)
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
Today, California has become the first U.S. state to require solar panels on nearly all new homes and low-rise apartment buildings, starting in 2020. The California Energy Commission voted 5 to 0 to approve the new building standard/requirement that residential buildings up to three stories, including single-family homes and condos, be built with solar panels installations starting in 2020. About 117,000 new single-family homes and 48,000 multi-family units will be built in 2020. The commission endorsed this requirement after building representatives, utilities, and solar manufacturers and advocates voiced their support. It still needs the final approval from California’s Building Standards Commission (which usually adopts the energy panels’s recommendations when updating the state’s building codes). This is California’s latest step to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The technical director for the California Building Industry AssociationRobert Raymer called it a “quantum leap.”This requirement would only be applied to newly constructed homes, although many homeowners are choosing to install rooftop solar panels with help from various rebate programs. The California Energy Commission estimated that adding solar panels would boost construction costs by $9,500 for a single-family home but save homeowners about $19,000 in energy cost and other expenses over 30 year period. The price of solar has dropped dramatically in recent years, therefore, it is a no-brainer that it is cost effective for all homeowners to install solar. The amount of solar power required by the new standards is minimal and not enough to meet all the energy needs of most homes, therefore, most homes would still have to draw some of their power use from the power grid.
The regulations exempts solar panels installations when it is not cost-effective or feasible (such as for homes shrouded in shade). Community solar generation would be an option for such circumstances.
According to SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association), California is already the nation’s leader in solar installation, with more than 5 million homes in the state using solar power. California has set the goal of all residential buildings being “zero net energy”, meaning producing as much energy as they consume. California has positioned itself as the leader for clean energy in USA, pushing more electric vehicles on the roads and lower emissions from homes and commercial buildings.
California Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister said, “This is a step, a very important step, in a long trajectory that we have been planning for and telling the world….This is not a radical departure. It’s a step in the right direction to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and improve our air, which for many, many decades California has been doing better and better each time.”
Perhaps it is high time for rest of the 49 states to also follow the California lead, for it is both economical and environmentally friendly for homeowners to install solar.
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Below, is a recent post from our sister publication, Windermere Sun, below:
Permafrost status (permafrost_nsidc 2016, NASA, presented at WindermerSun.com)
Global Permafrost-Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions, 1998, revised Feb. 2001, Source: http://nsidc.org/data/docs/fgdc/ggd318_map_circumarctic/index.html(phto attribution, presented at WindermereSun.com)
Alaska Coastal Permafrost (photo attribution: NASA, presented at WindermereSun.com)
Massive buried ice (blue) on the north shore of Herschel Island, Yukon, Canada (photo attribution: Dave Fox, presented at WindermereSun.com)
The ice wedge in permafrost, Source: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast27jul99_1.htm, with permission from PD=USGov-NASA, presented at WindermereSun.com)
Recently thawed Arctic permafrost and coastal erosion on the Beaufort Sea Arctic Ocean near Point Lonely, Alaska, photo taken in August, 2013 (photo attribution: Awing88, presented at WindermereSun.com)
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
(This is an article that helps to remind us why we need to Go Solar, Renewable, and EV).
We’ve known for a long time that thawed Arctic permafrost would release much powerful greenhouse gases. Scientists estimated that five times as much carbon might be stored in frozen Arctic soils—permafrost—as has been emitted by all human activities since 1850. This worries people who study global warming. While emissions from permafrost currently account for less than 1 percent of global methane emissions, some researchers think this could change in dramatic ways as the world warms and that carbon-rich frozen soil breaks down.
Today, U.S. scientists and researchers revealed the discovery of permafrost in the northern hemisphere storing massive amounts of natural mercury (a potent neurotxin), a finding with significant implications for human health and ecosystem worldwide. In geology, permafrost is ground, including rock or (cryotic) soil, at or below the freezing point of water 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years. The Arctic’s frozen soil of permafrost also acts as a massive ice trap that keeps carbon in the ground instead of in the atmosphere. There are 32 million gallons worth of mercury (or the equivalent of 50 Olympic swimming pools) trapped in the permafrost, according to the scientists who published the study in the journal Geophysical Reserach Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
“As permafrost thaws in the future, some portion of this mercury will get released into the environment, with unknown impact to people and our food supplies,” said Kevin Schaefer, a scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., and a co-author of the study. The research was led by Paul Schuster, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and was co-authored by 16 other federal, university-based and independent researchers. These scientists performed their research by taking cores from permafrost across Alaska. They measured mercury levels and then extrapolated to calculate how much mercury there is permafrost across the glove covering large portions of Canada, Russia, and other countries in northern hemisphere. “We figure that this represents the buildup of mercury during and since the last Ice Age.” Normally as plants die and decay, they would decompose and release the mercury back into the atmosphere. But plants in the Arctic often do not decompose fully because their roots are frozen and become buried by layers of soil. This suspends the mercury within the plants and within the permafrost. So, how much of these mercury will be released would depend on how much the permafrost thaws resulting from volume of greenhouse gas emissions and subsequent warming of the planet. The permafrost thaw has begun is some areas. Scientists project that, with the current emissions level, permafrost could shrink by 30% to 90% by 2100.
At the event/video below: How is climate impacting the Arctic, what does this mean & what can we do? hosted by The Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), at the University of Alaska Fairbanks May 11, 2017. Professor of Geophysics Vladimir Romanovsky discusses the impact of Arctic permafrost thaw. Related http://permafrostwatch.org This video is an event excerpt, audio and video has been edited (additional media, contrast, sound effect, volume), you can watch the full event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ0cW…
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