Almost 80 million Nigerians do not have access to electricity and its erratic supply is costing the economy an estimated $29 billion annually. Nigeria’s abundant sunlight could be the solution.
Expanding solar power potential more than it’s needed could replace more expensive energy storage.
Jamey Stillings
Solar and wind can’t deliver power on demand. But overbuilding solar and wind, and simply dumping unneeded energy, would go a long way to smoothing out those bumps, study finds.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has six pumped hydro projects on his list, and most are better taxpayer investments than the already announced Snowy 2.0 project.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Twelve power projects are in the running for federal government dollars: six pumped hydro, five gas and one coal. It’s clear which one shouldn’t be on the list, for economic and environmental reasons.
Australia could be getting half of its electricity from renewable energy by 2025, even without government subsidies for new wind and solar projects, according to a new analysis of energy industry trends.
The first commercial-scale installation of rooftop solar cells, printed with specialised inks, is a step towards an energy future in which solar power can be stuck to any roof or structure.
The number of coal mining jobs has gone up slightly, but many times less than solar-related ones.
AP Photo/Dake Kang
The Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy Plan would help the declining coal industry, but a study shows many coal workers could transition to a new industry – solar – and earn more money.
What if it were a lot easier to install solar power?
zstock/Shutterstock.com
Silicon is cheap and a good semiconductor, but it’s bulky and rigid. Using organic polymers as semiconductors could yield solar panels with the physical characteristics of plastics.
As the name suggests, Windy Hill near Cairns gets its fair share of power-generating weather.
Leonard Low/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons
There are calls from the backbench and elsewhere for the federal government to safeguard the future of coal. But do those calls make economic sense? A look at Queensland’s energy landscape suggests not.
Nigeria has abundant energy resources but about 40% of the population don’t have access to electricity.
Shutterstock/i_am_zews
Households that are most likely to go solar are those that can afford solar panels, but aren’t so rich that they don’t have to worry about their electricity bill at all, says a survey of 8,000 homes.
Could this monitor and window be combined with a solar panel?
patat/Shutterstock.com
Solar photovoltaics and wind power are on track to supplant fossil-fuel-based electricity generation by the 2030s. The only thing holding back the renewable revolution is politics.
Solar panels sit on the roof of a home in Enkanini, on the outskirts of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa.
(Shutterstock)
Innovation in small-scale solar systems and mobile money systems is giving people in sub-Saharan Africa access to electricity at a lower cost than diesel or kerosene.
Solar windows would need to trap enough light to generate power, while letting through enough to keep buildings light. Thankfully, newly developed semitransparent cells offer to do just that.