DOE to Invest Up to $13.7 Million in 11 Solar Cell Projects
Report: Four Key Clean Energy Markets Increased 40% in 2007
Tesla Motors Starts Production of its Electric-Only Roadster
Cargo Ship Completes Maiden Voyage Using Towing Kite
Washington State Approves Bill to Slash Greenhouse Emissions
Oregon and South Dakota Approve Renewable Energy Tax Incentives
EIA: New Energy Act to Yield More Renewable Energy by 2020
DOE to Invest Up to $13.7 Million in 11 Solar Cell Projects
DOE announced last week that it will invest up to $13.7 million over the next three years in 11 projects run by 9 universities that will develop advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing processes and products. With a minimum university and industry cost share, up to $17.4 million will be invested in these projects. The chosen universities include Arizona State University, the California Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Delaware, the University of Florida, and the University of Toledo. Each of the 11 universities will work with an industry partner that will help transition the discoveries to the marketplace.
All of the projects will involve researching ways to make high-performance solar cells more effective by using different metals, alloys, and cell designs. One project will try to reduce bottlenecks in the qualification testing for concentrating solar cells, two will explore better methods of building crystalline silicon solar cells, four will explore solar cells built from thin films of semiconducting materials, one will combine an organic (plastic) semiconductor with arrays of titanium dioxide nanotubes, and two will try to create multijunction solar cells by depositing thin layers of materials (amorphous silicon and indium phosphide) onto silicon solar cells.
Multijunction solar cells convert more sunlight into electricity by employing multiple layers of photovoltaic material, with each layer capturing a different part of the solar spectrum. While current commercial multijunction solar cells have three active layers, the project conducted by North Carolina State University and Spectrolab, Inc. will involve building a four-junction solar cell with a targeted efficiency of 45%, that is, the cell would be able to convert 45% of the sunlight hitting it into electricity. See the DOE press release.
Tesla Motors Starts Production of its Electric-Only Roadster
Tesla Motors started limited production of its all-electric 2008 Tesla Roadster on Monday. The rear-wheel-drive two-seater sports car combines a lithium-ion battery pack with a 185-kilowatt (248 horsepower) electric motor, packaging it all in an aluminum chassis wrapped in a carbon-fiber body that yields a curb weight of about 2,690 pounds. The car has a top speed of 125 miles per hour (mph) and a range of about 220 miles, and its worst-case recharging time, for a drained battery, is about 3.5 hours. Tesla claims that the battery will last through 100,000 miles of driving.
According to the company, the car achieves the equivalent of 135 miles per gallon and costs only 2 cents per mile to drive, counting only the fuel costs, of course. The company set a base price of $98,000 on its 2008 models, all of which have been sold, and it is accepting deposits on its 2009 models, but has not yet set a price on them. See the Tesla press release.
Tesla has faced its share of problems in the production of the Tesla Roadster. The company had to delay its production due to problems with its two-speed transmission and ultimately decided to build its initial models using a transmission that is essentially locked into second gear. That creates some disappointment for performance enthusiasts, because the two-speed transmission promised to accelerate the car from zero to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds, on par with the top supercars, but the interim transmission will slow that time to 5.7 seconds.
Tesla now plans to drop the two-speed transmission altogether and will instead employ a new powertrain with a single reduction gear. The cars being built today will be upgraded for free when the new powertrain becomes available later this year. Because of the transmission issues, Tesla expects to only produce about 600 vehicles for the 2008 model year, but plans to ramp up production to 2,000 cars per year in the near future. See the Tesla press release on the transmission issues.
