11% is to be produced by solar panels on homes and offices, the other 14% to be produced by CSP, Concentrating Solar Power also known as solar power stations. As it stands now, only 0.5% of the world's energy is produced by Solar power. This number will have to rise dramatically if we are to meet the carbon emission reduction goals.
The carbon emmision reduction goal is to cut 6 billion tons per year by 2050. Obviously there will be huge infrastructure set up costs for CSP, but the IEA predicts that Solar should become financially competitive with coal and nuclear power plants by 2030. North America will be the largest supplier of Solar Energy. India and North Africa will be the second in line, feeding half of it's production to Europe.
Almost all countries around the world are tapping into this clean, renewable energy source. As the supply and demand chain expands the costs of Solar Panels decreases as well. Therefore the development of CSP will grow exponentially.
Under developed countries that do not have an existing, electrical infrastructures are by-passing coal and nuclear energy. They are progressively installing Solar Panels as a main contributor of Energy. An incredible example of this was derived from the tragic earth quake in Haiti. Street lights, powered by Solar Panels brings light and hope to the darkened roads of Haiti.
Advancement in Solar Technology has also decreased Solar Cell costs. A Solar cell development corporation Solaria has come up with a new technology that traps 90% of the power with 50 % of the Silicon, dramatically reducing Solar Panel costs.
The Nanosolar Corporation has another ground breaking innovation. They have used nano technology enabling them to print an incredibly thin solar film onto a polymer material. This new technology will be able to produce the same square area at 1/5 to 1/10 of the costs as conventional PV Solar Panels. Along with the standard visible light, new technology advances are using the infared spectrum of light by combining semi conductors with titanium and vanadium. The technology has a theoretical absorption limit of 63%, which compares to about 40% for ordinary solar cells.
As incredible as these new innovation may seem I think, we are just scratching the surface of the Future of Solar Power. The Future of Solar Power is now looking beyond earth surface. We all know that Solar Panels have been powering satellites and space stations for years. However most of us do not know that the US and Japan are exploring innovation to use orbiting CSP to supply energy back to the earth. The Future of Solar Power is expanding to the Solar system.
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Mark Doyle. Author and adminstrator for http://www.buildsolarpanelsfast.com PS. Grab a Free copy of "Solar Energy Intro Guide". A comprehensive source for Solar Energy beginner questions such as "How do Solar Panels Work?" and "How to Build Solar Panels?"
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