Solar tweaks to reach large-scale production.

[skids]

A team-up of a solar-grade silicon producer and "string ribbon" manufacturing technology is set to open a 30MWp/year manufacturing
facility in Germany this summer. The plant may later scale to 120MWp.

While not the quantum leap -- this is still crystal silicon -- it is a good sign to see price reduction technologies finally being built into large facilities.

MARLBORO, Massachusetts, & THALHEIM, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 28, 2005--Evergreen Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: ESLR), a manufacturer of solar power products with its proprietary, low-cost String Ribbon(TM) wafer technology, and Q-Cells AG, the world's largest independent manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells, today announced a partnership with Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC), based in Hovik, Norway. The world's largest manufacturer of solar-grade silicon and multicrystalline wafers, REC is joining EverQ, a strategic partnership between Evergreen Solar and Q-Cells that is currently building a 30-megawatt solar wafer, cell and module manufacturing plant in Thalheim, Germany.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20051128005374&newsLang=en

[papau]

1. CA has 300 MW and 500 MW solar on the public Utility building

plan.

[Massacure]

2. I think those are thermal plants though, not PV.

[JohnWxy]

3. WIND ENERGY POTENTIAL 3 TIMES CURRENT TOTAL ELECTRICAL PRODUCTION

A Government study determined that the wind energy potential of the United States is equal to 3 times our current TOTAL electrical energy production.(i will try to get a web-site for this) Wind power is now CHEAPER that coal, natural gas and heating oil. Most of the states with the greatest wind power potential are the plains states (California has high potential too).

Billions of dollars of investment in R&D is not required to make Wind Power practical. It is practical and cheap right now. But we have to contact representaatives in the Government to make it clear this energy source should be a priority.

Wind farms allow dual use (farming and grazing), provide distributed power production (less attractive targets for terrorists), greater reliability during localized power outages and of course produce no green house gasses.

Here is a link, but the data was compiled in 1996. Natural Gas, heating oil and coal are much more expensive now. So the cost advantage to wind is much greater than this report indicates.

Wind Energy - Comparitive Cost

It's not easy to get current cost data for wind generated electricity. For Large wind farms, situated in the plains states, it is probably about 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour. If these wind farms were financed like utilities finance their traditional coal/ gas fired plants the cost would drop 30 - 40%! For electricity from Natural Gas I'm not sure. I think it's about 9 - 12 cents per kWh. Natural gas has recently shot up in price, so this may be low. ANy help here would be greatly appreciated.

Another link:

Wind Energy Cost

"The cost of energy from larger electrical output wind turbines used in utility-interconnected or wind farm applications has dropped from more than $1.00 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 1978 to under $0.05 per kWh in 1998, and is projected to plummet to $0.025 per kWh when new large wind plants come on line in 2001 and 2002. The hardware costs of these wind turbines have dropped below $800 per installed kilowatt in the past five years, underpricing the capital costs of almost every other type of power plant."

A good site for renewable energy data:

REnewable Energy Alternatives