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December
29, 2022
By BLAKE
MATICH
2022 review in trends: Applications (Part II)
The first part of this review covered solar-wind hybrid projects,
offshore floating PV, and islandable microgrids. The second part
covers trends in projects and applications.
Image: Citizen Group
Solar-water nexus
Microgrids not dissimilar from the one in Castañer, Puerto Rico,
highlighted in the first part of this series, are also being used to
run pumps in order to access groundwater. And this is just one example
of how solar is helping in the battle against water scarcity in many
parts of the world.
The solar-water
nexus is a rapidly expanding network of applications and for many
regions around the world solar’s ability to work on small scale could
reap big benefits.
On the island of Zanzibar, diesel generators are used to pump often
quite brackish water through rundown pipes at a cost of over $200,000
a month. The Zanzibar Water Authority (ZAWA) wants to use off-grid
solar systems to operate water pumps at its bore holes, treatment
reservoirs and distribution network.
ZAWA Director General Salha Mohammed Kassim told pv
magazine that only 36% of households are water connected on
the island of 1.7 million people.
“We have a long way to go to get to 100%, but for this reason we are
looking to off-grid solar,” said Kassim.
Another application in the solar-water nexus is solar-powered
desalination. This is a deployable off-grid solution in drought-ridden
regions like Somalia, but it is also attractive at the larger scale to
supply water for industry – notably green hydrogen.
McKinsey & Company says that companies with water-intensive operations
can reduce their risk by switching to renewables. From analysis of
1,500 companies in the chemicals and food-and-beverage processing
industries, it found that a considerable amount of the energy
purchases came in countries with low renewables uptake and high levels
of water stress, resulting in disproportionate impacts for water and
emissions. The analysis showed that a 50% increase in renewables
purchasing, would provide a 60% reduction in water consumption in both
sectors.
One particularly promising trend is that of installing solar above
canals, particularly in regions battling water scarcity. Canal-top
solar was pioneered in India a decade ago when the first canal-top
solar array was installed in Gujarat. But new findings from the
University of California (UC) and Project Nexus are now highlighting
the symbiotic nature of the solution, which helps to save water while
generating energy and all without occupying arable land.
Project Nexus is scheduled for completion in late 2023.
Image: Solar AquaGrid
“Using canal infrastructure for solar development can make both
systems more efficient. Shade from the solar panels can reduce
evaporation of water from the canals, especially during hot
Californian summers,” said Brandi McKuin, a UC Merced environmental
engineer and the study’s lead author. “And because water heats up more
slowly than land, the canal water flowing beneath the panels could
cool them by a few degrees, boosting electricity production by 3%.”
The study showed that if all 6,500 km of California’s canals were
covered with solar panels it would save almost 300 billion liters of
water per year and generate 15 GW of renewable energy.
Building-integrated PV
Building-integrated PV (BIPV) has long held great promise, but
large-scale applicability remains a challenge. In the last decade,
BIPV’s technological and aesthetic improvements have made it more
feasible across a broader range of projects. One interesting use case
for BIPV is in the renovation and emissions reduction of historical
buildings.
“The fact that you can develop new products based on crystalline
technology which hide the solar cells makes it easier to employ solar
in renovation projects because the glass is going to look like any
other material, such as ceramic tile or stone,” said Teodosio del Caño,
chief technical officer of Spain-based Onyx Solar.
Onyx Solar has already installed innovative BIPV solutions on historic
buildings around the world, and del Caño says it is the technology’s
aesthetic improvements that have seen the niche grow in recent years.
“In the last two years, facades have become our main product,”
said del Cańo. “It used to be skylights and canopies, but now façades
are an excellent market. There are now no restrictions on using BIPV
on the front of a building.”
Sky-scraping
solar
The technology improvements in BIPV facades are something the owners
and operators of tall buildings are keeping an eye on, especially as
avenues for emissions reductions for grid-reliant buildings are rather
limited.
With the exploding populations of global cities, many of us live in
work in places that have long been solar deserts. For most of history
the rather small rooftop size compared to the structure’s overall
square footage made the generation profile of solar hardly worthwhile.
But as solar’s cost has continued to fall and panel energy density
increase, the often barren rooftops of cities’ skyscrapers can now
provide a respectable percentage of a building’s electricity. Combine
that change with the improvements in BIPV technology, particularly
when it comes to facades, and suddenly skyscrapers have the potential
to be solar powerhouses.
“With the advances in solar technology, energy-dense panels now
available exceed 450 W per panel, enabling significant and meaningful
renewable projects in [central business district] locations that
couldn’t otherwise be achieved on the constrained rooftop,” said
Venergy Australia CEO Matthew Wilkins.
Walker Corp.’s Collins Square Tower site in central
Melbourne hosts 223kW of solar. Image: Venergy
Venergy integrated the 223 kW solar system with the building’s
regenerative lifts and its trigeneration of 600 kW gas turbines
across five
commercial towers in downtown Melbourne’s Collins Square, bringing
the site’s total generating capacity to 2 MW.
According to a study published in the journal Solar Energy, the
buildings in Melbourne’s downtown are capable of providing 74% of
their own electricity needs of solar was fully integrated into roofs,
walls and windows. Rooftop solar would constitute 88% of this supply,
with wall-integrated and window-integrated solar delivering 8% and 4%,
respectively.
Monash University Professor Jacek Jesieniak, an author of the study,
said that
the researchers’ goal “was to showcase that actually there is huge
potential (for urban PV, particularly rooftop), it’s just enormous.
But people don’t think about it because people tend to think at the
scale of a building rather than the scale of a city.”
Jim Stewart, associate director at Fender Katsalidis – the Australian
architectural firm behind the world’s second-tallest building, Kuala
Lumpur’s 678.9-meter Merdeka 118 (p. 50), topped with a 140 kW solar
array for its Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur hotel – told pv
magazine that clients are encouraged to consider PV
solutions, as “most buildings over 180 meters tall are not demolished
within 50 years. Rooftop solar arrays have become common place in
skyscraper design and development.”
Few remain unconvinced of solar’s ability to provide reliable energy
in remote off-grid locations or utilise previously barren or
single-usage spaces. In 2022 we’ve seen the spectrum of places solar
shines expand yet again, even to some of the world’s most hazardous
locations.
From offshore oil rigs to remote mine sites and the frontlines of
conflict zones, solar power functions where others fail, and it does
so without the need of refuelling or regular maintenance. Not only can
remote sites use solar and save expensive fuel transportation and
upkeep costs, but also reduces worker risk.
These savings have also been noticed by the US military.
Brooklyn-based solar fabric and structure developer Pvilion has
developed an easy to put up solar tent. Pvilion’s Julia Fowler told pv
magazine that the tents do a lot more than provide shelter in
forward locations. They also “provide power, convenience,
adaptability, heating and cooling, and protection from the elements …
with the goal of maximizing mission-objective readiness.”
Interestingly, the solution can also be considered part of the
solar-water nexus. The US Army’s Project Arcwater sees the solar
tents’ energy generation used to harvest water in agile combat
deployment situations.
Senior Master Sgt. Brent Kenny of the 52nd Fighter
Wing says a three-day 30-person mission that would normally cost
$40,000 would, with the help of the solar tent power other tech such
as the water harvester, cost under $600 while providing the same
combat capability.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
Nathan1@greenplayammonia.com
exactrix@exactrix.com
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