Just think of a cloud moving in front of the sun, taking your solar generation down instantaneously.
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"We need to have instant-on sources of energy" like gas to balance loads from wind and solar generation.
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Grid storage is seen as helpful to smooth the sudden ups and downs in electricity supplies from wind and solar generation.
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Natural gas power plants can increase or decrease their production relatively quickly, and that ability could help to make up for any shortfall in wind or solar generation, which varies depending on weather conditions, in order to meet demand.
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An increasing number of manufacturers have entered the business of developing solar energy generation projects since they are not making money selling solar panels.
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California recently set a record for winter solar power generation, almost reaching the previous record set this summer of just over 1 gigawatt of solar energy.
Gawell may be right in noting that solar energy generation is an easier concept to grasp than geothermal.
Edifier's factory is located in a special high tech economic zone with emphasis on environmental sustainability including state of the art recycling, solar power generation and treated water reuse.
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The Other Building Materials and Equipment Business segment offers wooden interior furnishing materials, interior fabrics, external tiles for houses and buildings, internal decorative tiles, siding, stone materials, roofing materials, precut products, and solar power generation systems.
In addition, two easy-to-use and reliable online tools for energy optimization and solar power generation will offer users a great overview of where, how, and how much energy can be saved or even generated on an individual basis.
In fact, as I was talking to the folks from Sempra, they were explaining that this location is almost optimal for solar power generation, not only because it's flat, transmission lines were already here, the sun is traveling and there's no haze and it's absolutely clear.
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Fab 15 will be TSMC's next "green fab" following Fab 12 and Fab 14, incorporating green concepts in energy conservation and pollution control in its design, including a process water conservation rate of 85%, reclamation of rainwater, recirculation and reuse of general exhaust heat, and development of solar power generation and LED lighting applications.
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In certain configurations, the apparatus can be used for solar thermal energy generation and even water heating.
Large conglomerates have the capital, factories and customer contacts required to get new technologies like next-generation solar cells to market.
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In February it said it will increase its solar-power generation capacity nearly eightfold to more than 10, 000 megawatts by March 2017.
However, the installed base of solar thermal electricity generation uses twice the water as coal and five times the amount as gas-fired plants.
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Seven of the world's largest energy companies also announced that they would share technical plans on how to get more solar-powered generation plants to rural areas in poor countries.
Sometime in the next five to ten years, solar fans predict, the cost curves of solar and fossil fuel generation will cross in most parts of the world, and solar will sell itself to consumers without a subsidy.
Technologically, spin-offs from the space program have revolutionized fields from medicine to energy generation (solar panels were made to power satellites) to breakfast drinks.
Recently, Texas businesses signed six agreements worth half a billion dollars in exports to China, including cotton, crystalline silicon solar cells and photovoltaic generation systems.
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China has been setting larger and larger solar energy goals in recent years as it tries to increase renewable energy generation while supporting its troop of solar manufacturers.
In practice that generally means dramatically reducing energy consumption through passive design measures and installing a small amount of on-site energy generation, often solar.
The other thing that we have to do is look at things like wind power and solar power and the next generation of electric vehicles.
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We are now on pace to double renewable energy generation from wind and solar from the time the President took office.
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Chu has long been on record as a staunch advocate of reducing the nation's carbon emissions by vastly expanding generation from wind and solar power.
Its calculations do demonstrate that power generation projects that use solar panels and geothermal technologies will be cheap enough to start to replace coal by 2030.
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That is not great compared with the 20% and more achieved by a silicon-based solar cell, the 40% managed by a solar-thermal turbine, or even the 18-20% of one of the new generation of cheap and cheerful thin-film solar cells.
The Japanese government instituted an incentive program last summer for boosting solar and other types of renewable energy generation.
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