Solar generation increased by 18% in the second quarter of this year as renewables overtook nuclear, new data from EnAppSys reveals. Solar in Great Britain generated 4.42TWh in Q2 2019, making up 6.3% of total generation. This is an increase of 18% on Q2 2018. Across Europe, solar generated 40.5TWh, an 8% decrease from the same period of the previous year. It did constitute 6.5% of total generation in Europe, however, and 16.5% of total renewable generation.
Solar Power Portal 18th July 2019 read more »
A new, translucent material made of little more than silica and air can double the solar dividend, collecting solar heat and raising temperatures to 200°C, delivering new ways to heat homes or power industrial processes. And other researchers in the same US city believe they may be on track to deliver much more electricity from solar cells. They have found a way to make a single photon of light dislodge not one electron but two. A third team in Saudi Arabia has now shown that their solar arrays can not only generate electric power: they can also turn sea water into fresh drinking water at the same time. All three technologies are at the laboratory stage. All three are a long way from commercial exploitation on any scale. But all three are also demonstrations of the extraordinary ingenuity and imagination at work in the world’s laboratories as scientists look for new ways to tackle the energy challenge of a zero carbon world, and deliver more power without raising planetary temperatures to hazardous levels.
Climate News Network 22nd July 2019 read more »