UK start up announces £1bn solar panel giveaway

UK solar start up HomeSun will this week launch an ambitious £1bn plan to install free solar panels on 100,000 homes within the next three years.

The company, which was launched by a group of executives from the energy, building and carbon offsetting industry, will cover the cost of installing and maintaining rooftop solar photovoltaic panels in return for keeping the revenue generated by the panel through the government's feed-in tariff scheme.

HomeSun claims that homeowners who sign up to the scheme will be able to reduce their electricity bill by up to a third, without having to spend the £11,000 it typically costs to install a rooftop solar panel.

It has raised £20m from a group of undisclosed private investors and banks to fund the initial wave of installations and has set a target of installing 2,000 rooftop solar panels within the next year.

Only homeowners with a large unshaded south facing roof will qualify for the free installation service, although the company is also offering a separate scheme, dubbed SolarShare, where a household with a roof that "isn't quite perfect" for solar panels can pay a one-off £500 fee followed by a £5 a month maintenance payment towards the cost of the panel.

Daniel Green, chief executive at HomeSun, said the availability of free solar panels will help to rapidly accelerate the rollout of rooftop systems. "Solar power is natural, free and clean – it’s the price which has slowed widespread take-up," he said. "We are changing that. Today is the beginning of a new era as HomeSun takes solar power out into the mainstream."

Under the scheme, HomeSun effectively leases roof space from domestic customers, meaning that it is responsible for the maintenance and insurance of the panels. Households can then buy the solar panels from HomeSun at any time during their life, giving the homeowner access to the income generated through the feed-in tariff.

The scheme is likely to attract plenty of interest from households keen to cut their energy bills and carbon footprint.

However, HomeSun is likely to face intense competition as growing numbers of solar firms use the feed-in tariff to introduce similar business models that reduce or remove the upfront costs for customers.

A number of firms are currently developing alternative financing arrangements that would allow customers to use low-interest loans to purchase solar panels, meaning that they can keep payments generated using the feed-in tariff which can reach around £900 a year.
View the original article here

Green rule draws flak

Ontarioa s feed-in-tariff program offers a guaranteed long-term pricing structure for producers building wind farms, solar power and renewable biogas Jameson Berkow, Financial Post As investment in Ontarioa s alternative-energy sector continues apace, legal experts are warning the provincial government may be violating international trade ...

View the Original article

Solar panels can attract breeding water insects ... but scientists propose a simple fix

Solar power might be nature's most plentiful and benign source of energy, but shiny dark solar cells can lure water insects away from critical breeding areas, a Michigan State University scientist and colleagues warn.
Applying white grids or other methods to break up the polarized reflection of light, however, makes mayflies and other aquatic insects far less likely to deposit eggs on the panels thinking that they are water, the group discovered.

"This research demonstrates that solar panels are a strong new source of polarized light pollution that creates ecological traps for many types of insect," says Bruce Robertson, a research associate at MSU's Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners. "This is of significant conservation importance given the radical expansion in solar energy development and the strong negative impacts of ecological traps on animal populations."

Using nonpolarizing white grids, he adds, demonstrates a novel approach to reducing the attractiveness of a false habitat by applying what biologists call habitat fragmentation. That is an effect that usually is harmful to species, but in this case promises to solve a conservation problem.

Robertson's team estimates that adding white markings to solar cells might reduce their ability to collect solar energy by perhaps 1.8 percent, depending on the amount of space the strips cover.

Conventional solar cells share a problem with glass-clad buildings and other expanses of shiny dark surfaces -- even vehicles. Reflected sunlight becomes polarized, or aligned in a single, often horizontal plane, which is how at least 300 species of insect recognize the surface of water bodies to lay their eggs.

When species such as mayflies and caddis flies mistake shiny dark surfaces for water, they set themselves up for reproductive failure and often become easy targets for predators, Robertson and colleagues noted in a recent online article in the journal Conservation Biology. Local population collapse could be a result, with cascading impacts on predators and other species up the food chain.

Humans typically recognize reflected sunlight as glare, which polarized sunglasses overcome by filtering the horizontal waves through vertically polarized lenses.

Robertson conducted his research in Hungary with scientists associated with Eotvos University in Budapest and Szent Istvan University in Godollo, Hungary. Their work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and the Hungarian Science Foundation.

View the Original article