Effect of climate changes and solar industry

Climate change leads to more intense, longer storms, drought and heat, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And severe weather is costly to human lives and the economy, as Hurricane Sandy has recently reminded us when it hit the east coast of the United States. Unlike nuclear power plants that were shut down, and natural gas explosions in New York and New Jersey as a result of the superstorm, shutting off gas and electricity to millions, solar power is a relatively safe form of energy.

But this doesn’t mean the industry is exempt from climate-change-related risks.

Real Goods Solar issued a statement, “Surviving a Hurricane – Hurricane Sandy, Solar Panels and You,” to its solar customers as the storm descended on the northeastern US, assuring that its PV systems are “designed, engineered and installed to all applicable building codes and engineering standards for their location and environment.”

“You do not need to take any extra measures to secure your solar panels during severe weather,” it said. But, it added, grid-tied solar arrays won’t provide electricity if there’s a blackout.

And extreme weather can pose a risk to solar systems. In addition to the obvious dangers, like floods or tornados carrying away rooftops and their attached solar installations, hailstorms can break glass plates that cover PV modules, and extreme heat and cold can affect panel degradation.

Some installations fared quite well, which is testament to rigorous testing and certification. For example, two commercial solar systems installed in Pennsylvania were unscathed during Hurricane Sandy. Tecta Solar inspected the ET Solar PV systems and reported that both systems were producing at 100%.

“Climate change may drive the solar industry to test more to these new ratings,” says Dr. Paul Robusto, photovoltaic business development manager at Intertek. “Certain areas may see higher temperatures, more rain, rapidly changing temperatures, increased wind and snow levels, and larger hail sizes. The ratings being developed become more important in light of these changing weather patterns.”

He’s talking about new tests and standards being developed by the International PV Module Quality Assurance Task Force, an NREL program that is working to develop a rating system that meets the needs of all countries and customers so that PV manufacturers will need to complete only a single test.  The task force includes nine task groups, responsible for testing for humidity, temperature, and voltage, wind loading, UV and other conditions. Robusto sits on some of the task groups.

Intertek Regional Vice President for Renewable Energy Sunny Rai said, “We are working to establish a quality assurance rating program looking at the impact of modules being installed in an area where they are exposed to very high temperatures, or hot but dry like a desert or hot but very humid like Florida and places in southeast Asia, Malaysia, India,” Rai explains. “Standards are being developed to address different weather conditions or climate conditions as we see on a normal basis.”

Solar energy replaces nuclear energy in Germany

Sun! A star located some 150 million kilometers away is unarguably the most important element for human race as it is their source of life among other vital things. In a latest breakthrough in solar technology, Germany has set an example that cannot be challenged. In late May this year, Germany solar power plants generated a record breaking 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour. This amount of electricity is equal to the power generated by 20 nuclear power plants working at maximum capacity. The 22 gigawatts produced from Germany’s solar plants was utilized throughout the country during midday hours for two consecutive days.

Last year, an unfortunate event that took place in Fukushima, where a great loss of life occurred because of the Nuclear Plant meltdown following the Japan earthquake and Tsunami in March, last year.

After the Fukushima disaster, the German government abandoned their plans to use nuclear power and shut down eight of their 17 nuclear plants immediately and plans to shut down the remaining nine by the year 2022. This move had naturally motivated the German government to look for more practical and renewable energy sources like wind turbines, solar and bio-mass which is basically biological material from living or recently living material which is turned into bio-fuel for energy.

Germany’s director of Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR), Norbert Allnoch, said that the 22 gigawatts of solar power per hour met almost 50% of the country’s mid-day electricity demands.

“Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity,” Allnoch told Reuters. “Germany came close to the 20 gigawatt (GW) mark a few times in recent weeks. But this was the first time we made it over.” he said, while speaking to Reuters. This breakthrough which was supported and funded by the German administration has proved that a full-fledged industrial country was able to keep up with a third of the nation’s energy demand on a working day and half on the weekend, when factories and mills were closed. Germany is now second in the list of countries using renewable energy sources and the leading country in the list of countries using solar technology, followed by Spain which stands at number two.

The solar power generation capacity of Germany is almost equal to the rest of the world combined. It gets about four percent of its overall annual electricity from the sun and it aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by the year 2020.