BOOKS ON SOLAR ENERGY

Basics of Energy Efficient Living: A Beginners Guide to Home Energy and Home Energy
Savings by Loonie Wibberding.
Whether you're building a new house or have an existing one, "Basics of Energy Efficient Living" shares
the principles behind energy efficient living. Have you ever wondered: What is R-value? How much
energy could I get from my creek? Can I use alternative energy in the city? How much heat will it take
to keep my house warm? How much heat will I lose if I put in a bigger window? Learn what it takes to
save energy, then take the next step and collect your own. Find out how much energy you can get from
water, sun, wind, and wood. Discover how much energy you need by making an energy budget specific
for your house. Learn energy principles as you design a house step-by-step

Complete Idiot's Guide to Solar Power for Your Home by Dan Ramsey and David Hughes.
Solar Power (photovoltaics) is now a one-billion-dollar industry, and its poised to grow rapidly in the
near future as more pressure is placed on limited fossil fuel resources and as advances in solar
technology drive down the costs of residential solar systems. This book helps readers understand the
basics of solar power and other renewable energy sources, explore whether solar power makes sense
for them, what their options are, and whats involved with installing various on and off-grid systems.
Fully illustrated, it covers every conceivable solar-power topic and concern, including updated
information on the increasing number of state rebate and incentive programs

Energy Autonomy by Hermann Scheer.

The new book from the internationally renowned author of The Solar Economy and A Solar Manifesto,
and named one of Time Magazines "Heroes of the Green Century." For 200 years industrial civilization
has relied on the combustion of abundant and cheap carbon fuels. But continued reliance has lead to
perilous consequences. On the one hand, the insecurity of relying on the worlds most unstable region-the Middle East--compounded by the imminence of Peak Oil, growing scarcity, and mounting prices. Yet
there is an answer: to make the transition to renewable sources of energy and to distributed,
decentralized energy generation. It is a model that has been proven, technologically, commercially and
politically, as Scheer comprehensively demonstrates.

Got Sun? Go Solar by Rex A. Ewing and Doug Pratt.

A good introductory book on solar energy, it also includes a section on using solar in combination with
wind turbines. The appendix in this book is particularly useful. It contains some practical worksheets
for estimating the size of the solar array you would need, as well as some helpful graphs, charts and
maps.

The Homeowners Guide to Renewable Energy by Daniel D. Chiras.

As the price of gas, oil and electricity rises, homeowners will scramble to cut their fuel bills. Two
options for meeting the upcoming challenge are dramatic improvements in home energy efficiency and
efforts to tap into clean, affordable, renewable energy resources to heat and cool homes, to provide
hot water and electricity, and even to cook. These measures can result in huge savings and a level of
energy independence. The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy tells you how. It starts by outlining
the likely impacts of fossil fuel shortages and some basic facts about energy. It then discusses energy
conservation to slash energy bills and prepare for renewable energy options. Focusing carefully on
specific strategies needed to replace specific fuels, the book then examines each practical energy
option available to homeowners including solar energy.

Photovoltaics Design and Installation Manual by Solar Energy International (SEI).

Designing, installing and maintaining such systems requires knowledge and training, but there have
been few easily accessible, comprehensive guides to the subject. Now, with Photovoltaics: Design and
Installation Manual, a world-class solar energy training and education provider-Solar Energy
International (SEI)-has made available the critical information to successfully design, install and
maintain PV systems. The book contains an overview of photovoltaic electricity and a detailed
description of PV system components, including PV modules, batteries, controllers and inverters. It also
includes chapters on sizing photovoltaic systems, analyzing sites and installing PV systems, as well as
detailed appendices on PV system maintenance, troubleshooting and solar insulation data for over 300
sites around the world.

Solar Energy: Complete Guide to Solar Power and Photovoltaics (2 CD ROM Set) by U.S.
Government.

This up-to-date and comprehensive electronic book on two CD-ROMs presents an incredible and totally
revised collection of important documents and publications about solar energy, solar heating and
lighting, solar concentrating technology, and photovoltaic (PV) solar power cells. Encyclopedic
coverage of every practical aspect of solar power, heating, electricity, and research is thoroughly
covered in this incredible collection!

Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry by Travis
Bradford
In Solar Revolution, fund manager and former corporate buyout specialist Travis Bradford argues - on
the basis of standard business and economic forecasting models - that over the next two decades solar
energy will increasingly become the cheapest choice for cost electricity and energy applications. Solar
Revolution outlines the path by which the transition to solar technology and sustainable energy
practices will occur.

Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling by Daniel D. Chiras

Passive solar heating and passive cooling can provide comfort throughout and reduce or eliminate the
need for fossil fuel. Readers will learn the principles of passive solar design and how to implement
them; how to select a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly backup heating
system; how to preserve indoor air quality in an airtight, energy-efficient home; and how to employ
green building materials in a naturally conditioned home.

Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook by John Schaeffler

Do you want to harvest sunlight, wind, or falling water to power your home? Or sell that renewable
energy back to your utility company? Are you looking to build your dream eco-home? This fully updated
classic of sustainable living technology from Real Goods, the nation's largest solar retailer, tells how
and gives you access to the world's most extensive selection of hardware to make it all happen.

Solar Power Your Home for Dummies by Rik DeGunther.

Want to take advantage of solar power in your home? Whether youre looking to save on your energy
costs by adding a few solar components or you want to build a solar-powered house from the ground

up, Solar Power Your Home For Dummies takes the mystery out of this energy source and shows you
how to put it to work for you! This friendly, hands-on guide is packed with tips for making your home
more energy-efficient though solar powerand helping the planet at the same time. Youll see how to
survey your home to determine your current household energy efficiency and use, and evaluate where
solar power would best benefit you. Youll also calculate what the return on your investment will be
before you make any decisions. Once youve decided on a project, youll see whether its best to hire a
contractor or do it yourself.

Solar Water Heating by Bob Ramlow and Benjamin Nusz.

Heating water with the sun is almost as old as humankind itself, and it is done all over the world. Yet
there are strangely few resources on the topic in North America. Solar Water Heating fills this gap. It
reviews the history of solar water and space heating systems from prehistory to the present, then
presents the basics of solar water heating, including an introduction to modern solar energy systems,
energy conservation and energy economics. Drawing on the author's experience as an installer of these
systems, the book goes on to cover types of solar collectors, solar water and space heating systems and
solar pool heating systems, including their advantages and disadvantages.

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Photograph by Jim Richardson, National Geographic

About the Great Energy Challenge

Energy is an issue that touches every person on the planet. That's why National Geographic, in
partnership with Shell*, has launched the Great Energy Challenge.
The Great Energy Challenge convenes and engages influential citizens and key energy stakeholders in
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It's a call to action to become actively involved, to learn more and do moreto change how we think
about and consume energy so that we can all help tackle the big energy questions.
National Geographic has assembled some of the world's foremost researchers and scientists to help
address the challenge. Led by Thomas Lovejoy, a National Geographic conservation fellow and renowned
biologist, the team of advisors will work together to identify and provide support for projects focused on
innovative energy solutions.
Learn more about the Great Energy Challenge panel of advisors here.

The Great Energy Challenge website is a one-stop resource where you can participate actively. Get
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Perovskites provide big boost to silicon solar cells

Date:
January 15, 2015
Source:

Stanford University
Summary:
Stacking perovskites onto a conventional silicon solar cell dramatically improves the overall
efficiency of the cell, according to a new study.

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This is a microscopic cross-section of a tandem solar cell made with two photovoltaic materials,
perovskite and copper indium gallium diselenide, or CIGS.
Credit: Colin Bailie, Stanford University
[Click to enlarge image]

Stacking perovskites onto a conventional silicon solar cell dramatically improves the
overall efficiency of the cell, according to a new study led by Stanford University
scientists.
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The researchers describe their novel perovskite-silicon solar cell in this week's edition of the
journal Energy & Environmental Science.
"We've been looking for ways to make solar panels that are more efficient and lower cost," said
study co-author Michael McGehee, a professor of materials science and engineering at
Stanford. "Right now, silicon solar cells dominate the world market, but the power conversion
efficiency of silicon photovoltaics has been stuck at 25 percent for 15 years."
One cost-effective way to improve efficiency is to build a tandem device made of silicon and
another inexpensive photovoltaic material, he said.
"Making low-cost tandems is very desirable," McGehee said. "You simply put one solar cell on
top of the other, and you get more efficiency than either could do by itself. From a commercial
standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to use silicon for the bottom cell. Until recently, we didn't have
a good material for the top cell, then pervoskites came along."
Perovskite is a crystalline material that is inexpensive and easy to produce in the lab. In 2009,
scientists showed that perovskites made of lead, iodide and methylammonium could convert
sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of 3.8 percent. Since then, researchers have achieved
perovskite efficiencies above 20 percent, rivaling commercially available silicon solar cells and
spawning widespread interest among silicon manufacturers.

"Our goal is to leverage the silicon factories that already exist around the world," said Stanford
graduate student Colin Bailie, co-lead author of the study. "With tandem solar cells, you don't
need a billion-dollar capital expenditure to build a new factory. Instead, you can start with a
silicon module and add a layer of perovskite at relatively low cost."
Sunlight to electricity
Solar cells work by converting photons of sunlight into an electric current that moves between
two electrodes. Silicon solar cells generate electricity by absorbing photons of visible and
infrared light, while perovskite cells harvest only the visible part of the solar spectrum where the
photons have more energy.
"Absorbing the high-energy part of the spectrum allows perovskite solar cells to generate more
power per photon of visible light than silicon cells," Bailie said.
A key roadblock to building an efficient perovskite-silicon tandem has been a lack of
transparency.
"Colin had to figure out how to put a transparent electrode on the top so that some photons
could penetrate the perovskite layer and be absorbed by the silicon at the bottom," McGehee
said. "No one had ever made a perovskite solar cell with two transparent electrodes."
Perovskites are easily damaged by heat and readily dissolve in water. This inherent instability
ruled out virtually all of the conventional techniques for applying electrodes onto the perovoskite
solar cell, so Bailie did it manually.
"We used a sheet of plastic with silver nanowires on it," he said. "Then we built a tool that uses
pressure to transfer the nanowires onto the perovskite cell, kind of like a temporary tattoo. You
just need to rub it to transfer the film."
Remarkable efficiency
For the experiment, the Stanford team stacked a perovskite solar cell with an efficiency of a 12.7
percent on top of a low-quality silicon cell with an efficiency of just 11.4 percent.
"By combining two cells with approximately the same efficiency, you can get a very large
efficiency boost," Bailie said.
The results were impressive.

"We improved the 11.4 percent silicon cell to 17 percent as a tandem, a remarkable relative
efficiency increase of nearly 50 percent," McGehee said. "Such a drastic improvement in
efficiency has the potential to redefine the commercial viability of low-quality silicon."
In another experiment, the research team replaced the silicon solar cell with a cell made of
copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS). The researchers stacked a 12.7 percent efficiency
perovskite cell onto a CIGS cell with a 17 percent efficiency. The resulting tandem achieved an
overall conversion efficiency of 18.6 percent.
"Since most, if not all, of the layers in a perovskite cell can be deposited from solution, it might
be possible to upgrade conventional solar cells into higher-performing tandems with little
increase in cost," the authors wrote.
A big unanswered question is the long-term stability of perovskites, McGehee added.
"Silicon is a rock," he said. "You can heat it to about 600 degrees Fahrenheit shine light on it for
25 years and nothing will happen. But if you expose perovskite to water or light it likely will
degrade. We have a ways to go to show that perovskite solar cells are stable enough to last 25
years. My vision is that some day we'll be able to get low-cost tandems that are 25 percent
efficient. That's what companies are excited about. In five to 10 years, we could even reach 30
percent efficiency."

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Stanford University. Note: Materials may
be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:
1.

Colin D. Bailie, M. Greyson Christoforo, Jonathan P. Mailoa, Andrea R. Bowring, Eva L.

Unger, William H. Nguyen, Julian Burschka, Norman Pellet, Jungwoo Z. Lee, Michael
Grtzel, Rommel Noufi, Tonio Buonassisi, Alberto Salleo, Michael D. McGehee. Semitransparent perovskite solar cells for tandems with silicon and CIGS. Energy Environ.
Sci., 2014; DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03322A

olar Power: Cost of production dropped 60%;

price to equal thermal power's in three years
Shreya Jai, ET Bureau Mar 17, 2014, 04.23AM IST

Tags:

Tata Power|
net worth|
Natural gas|
Insurability|
gasoline

(More importantly, the MP)

Earlier this month, when Madhya Pradesh accepted the bid of Himgiri Energ y Ventures to
supply solar power to the state grid at Rs 6.5 a unit, it was a figure to note even by the industry's
standards of smashing records by the season. This contract award shaved off 13 per cent from
the lowest price at which Indian industry was willing to supply solar power; over three years, the
drop is a steep 61 per cent.

More importantly, the MP tender brought the price of solar power closer to the price of thermal
power produced from coal or gas, and India's largest source. For 2012-13, Delhi's power
utilities were projecting to buy conventional power at an average unit price of Rs 5.71.
In other words, at Rs 6.5, solar is just 14 per cent above thermal. Its price prognosis is also
better. Even as coal and natural gas become costlier, solar plants bask in free and ample
sunshine and falling equipment prices. All this is taking the energy sector towards a game-

changing milestone: grid parity, or the situation where solar costs the same as conventional
sources.
"Price bids in conventional power have been up to Rs 5 per unit," says Sanjay Chakrabarti,
partner (clean energy), Ernst & Young. "Keeping that as the grid parity price, wind power has
already achieved grid parity and solar is quite close." The ministry of new and renewable energy
is projecting grid parity by 2017 -- five years ahead of its initial projection of 2022.

Cheaper solar power

Some countries are there. Like Germany, which has 36,000 MW of solar capacity, according to
Bloomberg New Energy Finance. An early adopter, Germany started seeing a spike in solar
capacity from 2001.
In India, the spike came only in 2012, since when its solar capacity has increased from 2.5 MW
to 1,759 MW (See graphic). The Central government is looking to increase capacity through the
National Solar Mission, which gives a certain set of incentives to companies and aims to put up
22,000 MW of solar capacity by 2022.
In its last round of bidding, held this January, the government received bids for 2,170 MW, three
times the advertised requirement, from 53 companies. Among them were state power utilities,
global renewable-energy players and fresh entrants with international funding, holding out an
investment of Rs 5,000 crore.
Also active are select states. Madhya Pradesh leads, with Rs 30,000 crore in the pipeline for
renewable power development. It is followed by Gujarat, an early mover that has 850 MW of
solar capacity at an investment of11,000 crore up and running. The jump in capacity is
coming from the ongoing recalibration in tariffs.
The second phase of the National Solar Mission, from 2013 to 2017, set the tariff at Rs 5.5 per
unit, with some financial support from the government in the form of 'viability gap funding'.

According to Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary at the ministry of new and renewable energy, viability
gap funding was about Re 1 per unit. He sees this reducing with equipment becoming cheaper,
particularly from China, and competing fuels becoming costlier.
"Our experiment with viability gap funding turned out to be successful, with foreign investment
coming in," he says. "Looking at the current trend, this amount would gradually go down."
The latest tenders floated by stateswhich don't offer viability gap funding, but offer subsidised
land or tax breaks give a glimpse. Price bids stood at Rs 6.5 per unit in Madhya Pradesh, Rs
7 in Rajasthan and Rs 8 in Punjab.
Increasing consumer adoption
Solar is also seeing increasing adoption at the consumer level. Micro grids, of 150 watts
(powering 20 households) to 5 kilo watt (40 households and commercial use like water pumps)
are being set up to independently power villages. There are solar lanterns and street lights.
Inverters, water pumps and other agri machines are increasingly coming in the solar option.
Ajay K Goel, CEO of Tata Power Solar, which makes solar equipment, feels adoption of solarbased products has parallels with telecom. "Offgrid products have better reach in areas where
grid connectivity is an issue," he says.
"Just as landline connections could not reach deeper pockets of the country but mobile phones
did, decentralised systems would serve the same purpose." For example, Lucknow-based
Naturetech Infra has installed micro grids in villages in districts of Uttar Pradesh, including
Gonda, Sitapur and Unnao.
A micro grid entails installing a small field of solar panels at a central location in a village. The
panels generate solar power during the day and store it in batteries. In the night, this power is
released for seven hours to houses connected to the grid. Households pay Rs 120 per month to
run two bulbs, one fan and a mobilecharging point.
Shubhra Mohanka, director of Delhi-based Solid Solar, says her company sold 10,000 solar
invertersa cleaner and cheaper back-up option than diesel, which costs Rs 16-18 a unit in
UP, Bihar, Delhi and Tamil Nadu last year. "Solarbased products have a huge market in remote
areas, where they can easily replace costly diesel and kerosene," says Parag Shah, managing
partner of Mahindra Partners and head of Mahindra cleantech division.
Solar is also diversifying into new spaces. Maharishi Solar, for example, does solar-powered
garden lights, swimming pool heating, fridge, AC and cooler, among other things. "As more and
more creative minds go into it, new technology development will take place," says Pradeep
Khanna, the company's CEO & MD. A solar ecosystem is taking shape.

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/energy/smart-energy-solutions/smart-energysolutions-increase-renewable-energy
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