Enertech Breaks Record of Providing Lowest Tariff Solar Energy Project

A good news for all Pakistanis. According to a press release, the company Enertech — a Kuwaiti shareholding company fully owned by National Technology Enterprises Company (NTEC) provided lowest tariff determined for Independent Power Projects in the history of Pakistan.

Enertech Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Al-Mutairi congratulated NEPRA, government of Balochistan — especially Chief Minister Jam Kamal — on achieving the breakthrough. The CEO hailed support of the CM for unlocking the potential of the province.

Al-Mutairi assured his commitment to bring significant investment in renewable energy and water sectors in Pakistan. He also announced Enertech’s upcoming goal of developing solar power projects near Lasbela and Kharan.

The company has provided a solar energy project with National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) in Balochistan by breaking record of providing lowest tariff of $3.76/kWh for its 500 MW project.

The maiden renewable project in Balochistan will create investor friendly environment in the province having immense renewable energy potential, according to the press release. It further added that achieving lowest tariff is the outcome of resource rich province, engineering efforts and commitment of Inner-Tech to lower down prices of the energy to international averages.

“The initiative of setting up solar power projects in Balochistan would open doors for prospective investors,” said Enertech Pakistan CEO Yasir Malik.

He added that the company was committed to harnessing renewable potential of Balochistan aiming to develop it into the ‘Renewable Energy Hub of Pakistan’.

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After 40 Years of Hunting, Scientists Identify a Key Flaw in Solar Panel Efficiency

Solar panels are fantastic pieces of technology, but we need to work out how to make them even more efficient – and last year, scientists solved a 40-year-old mystery around one of the key obstacles to increased efficiency.

The 2019 study outlined a material defect in silicon used to produce solar cells that has previously gone undetected. It could be responsible for the 2 percent efficiency drop that solar cells can see in the first hours of use: Light Induced Degradation (LID). Multiplied by the increasing number of panels installed at solar farms around the world, that drop equals a significant cost in gigawatts that non-renewable energy sources have to make up for.

The estimated loss in efficiency worldwide from LID is estimated to equate to more energy than can be generated by the UK's 15 nuclear power plants. The new discovery could help scientists make up some of that shortfall. "An absolute drop of 2 percent in efficiency may not seem like a big deal, but when you consider that these solar panels are now responsible for delivering a large and exponentially growing fraction of the world's total energy needs, it's a significant loss of electricity generating capacity," said Peaker.

Because of the environmental and financial impact, solar panel 'efficiency degradation' has been the topic of much scientific and engineering interest in the last four decades. However, despite some of the best minds in the business working on it, the problem has steadfastly resisted resolution until now.

To find what 270 research papers across four decades had previously been unable to determine, the latest study used an electrical and optical technique called deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) to find weaknesses in the silicon.

Here's what the DLTS analysis found: As the electronic charge in the solar cells gets transformed from sunlight, the flow of electrons gets trapped; in turn, that reduces the level of electrical power that can be produced. This defect lies dormant until the solar panel gets heated, the team found.

The researchers also found that higher quality silicon had charge carriers (electrons which carry the photon energy) with a longer 'lifetime', which backs up the idea that these traps are linked to the efficiency degradation.

What's more, heating the material in the dark, a process often used to remove traps from silicon, seems to reverse the degradation.

The work to push solar panel efficiency rates higher continues, with breakthroughs continuing to happen in the lab, and nature offering up plenty of efficiency tips as well. Now that the Light Induced Degradation mystery has been solved, solar farms across the globe should benefit.

Related Article:

https://reonenergysolution.wixsite.com/reon-energy/post/alternative-energy

To cut carbon, Sindh taps into the wind and the sun

As the world grapples with global warming, developing countries like Pakistan face the gravest risk from the adverse impact of climate change. To get a leg up on the challenge, Sindh is preparing to do its part to reduce its environmental footprint.

According to a senior minister, the provincial government is looking to add another 2,485 megawatts of electricity to the national grid using nothing but wind. Some 24 wind-powered electricity plants are already contributing 1,235 megawatts to the national grid, Shaikh said. “These power plants were set up under the federal government’s Alternative Energy Development Board in Thatta district,” he pointed out.

“Some 12 companies have started the construction of new wind-powered electricity plants in the Thatta and Jamshoro districts,” said Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh. “Both districts form a wind corridor that we are working to tap into.”

Wind is not all the Sindh government is looking to tap into to both meet the province’s energy needs and mitigate the climate crisis. The world is doubling down on solar power. In 2017, global investments in solar power projects reached a record $160.8 billion, which was 18 per cent higher than 2016, as per data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Solar power currently plays a negligible role in Pakistan’s power generation mix. The country gets 64pc of its energy from thermal power projects which generate electricity by burning fuels — such as furnace oil — that are damaging for the environment.

According to the minister, the provincial government has issued letter of intents for setting up 25 solar power projects in the province.

Once completed, the solar power plants due to be constructed in Thatta, Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and Sukkur districts will generate as much as 1,550 megawatts, he said. “Four of them have already obtained tariff and are waiting for formal approval from the federal government,” he told The Express Tribune.

A push for cleaner renewable energy could have come in Sindh sooner, provincial officials said. They blamed administrative hurdles from the federal government for holding up progress on this front. “The Sindh energy department had finalised agreements from six wind powered electricity plants in 2015,” said one official. “But the federal government imposed a ban on wind and solar power projects through an executive order on April 20 that year.”

The ban was imposed under the recommendation of the Federal Cabinet Committee on Energy. Due to the unilateral action of the federal body, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) stopped the process of awarding tariff to companies who had finalised their agreements pertaining to wind and solar projects with the Sindh government.

The move prompted then chief minister of Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah, to write a letter to then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Shah, in the letter, argued that the cabinet committee’s decision would hold up development in the province.
The share of solar power was so small in the previous fiscal year that it wasn’t highlighted in the Finance Ministry’s report. The Central Power Purchasing Agency’s annual report shows that solar power accounted for less than one per cent of Pakistan’s energy mix.

The rest of the world, on the other hand, has embraced solar power. Germany has invested $200bn in developing various clean energy sources in the past two decades and gets almost a third of its electricity from them.
Although there is no denying the fact that gas, furnace oil, and coal-fired plants are crucial for fulfilling Pakistan’s energy needs, the solar sector certainly deserves more attention.

For More:
Is solar power really the best solution for Pakistan?
Nepra grants generation tariff for two 150MW solar power projects
Alternative Energy

Researchers Build World’s Most Efficient Solar Cell

Research teams from Australian National University (ANU) and China are closing in on a solar cell design that could revolutionize solar panel efficiency. The breakthrough is the material perovskite, a crystalline structure first found in Russia in the mid-1800s. Studies suggest a perovskite solar panel could achieve efficiencies as high as 35%, while also reducing costs by cutting out some steps in the manufacturing process.

For the past several years, engineers have been focusing on newer materials to build panels that are ultimately more efficient and cost-effective in tandem with silicon-based panels, which are popular and more durable. The material is also much easier to fabricate and use than very high purity silicon, which requires an intricate refinement process. Perovskite is obtained as a powder that can be mixed into a solvent and used to coat glass substrates.

Silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) panels currently have efficiency rates of 16% to 18% absorption, and researchers put the theoretical limit for silicon PV efficiency at 29%.  Thomas White, a researcher and professor at ANU and others note that innovation should be geared to improving energy conversion efficiency—the degree to which a panel converts energy from sunlight directly into electricity. “There’s a lot of emphasis now on improving efficiency, and that’s why there’s suddenly these tandem approaches,” said White.

The largest obstacle remains durability, perovskite crystals break down faster than silicon. The crystals dissolve easily so they are particularly susceptible to moisture and Perovskite also can’t take the heat as well as silicon can. White at ANU acknowledged this deficiency.

“The main challenge at the moment is stability,” he said. “We’re still struggling to make them sufficiently stable that you would want to put them on a rooftop for 25 years. So that’s still an unsolved question.”

In related developments, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced more funding and support towards advanced solar photovoltaic energy applications including a grant of $15 million for R&D teams.

Engineers based at universities in China and the United States have taken an interest in the state of perovskite solar cell research and in a recent edition of the scientific journal Advanced Functional Materials, published a paper acknowledging the problems with heightening stability but also thought there was “astounding progress in the efficiency of perovskite solar cells.” White agreed. “That will make or break perovskite over the next few years,” he said.

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Energy future hinges on Renewable

Under the CCoE decision, renewable energy projects would be accepted only through competitive bidding for specific generation capacities. The new policy was now in final stages, had been supported by lending agencies and could not be held back to accommodate 2006 policy investors who could be considered separately and on examination of their cost-benefit analysis.

The provinces and other private stakeholders wanted the new policy to accommodate those past investors after having spent a lot of time and money in the new policy as had been the case in all the past power policies and petroleum policy to allow existing investors to adopt new regime with cost plus tariff formula subject to certain conditions.

It was assumed that provinces would be left with no option but to raise objections over the new policy when it was taken up for approval at the level of Council of Common Interests (CCI). A dispute at the ultimate forum under the constitution to adopt the policy could have negative repercussions unless the projects awarded by provincial governments under the independent power producer (IPP) mode were covered in the new policy to safeguard the interests of the provinces.

The new renewable energy policy had been developed in the light of present day situation when the technologies on one side were fast developing while on other side the cost was continuously going down. Country’s electricity basket is hugely tilted towards thermal imported fuels and emphasized that the new policy envisages increasing the share of renewable energy from around 4 per cent to 20pc by year 2025 and 30pc by year 2030.

Underscoring the importance of renewable resources and their optimal utilization for generation of electricity, he said that from the prospect of attaining energy security and decreasing the impact of current thermal generation on environment, Pakistan needed to develop and harness to the maximum level its indigenous renewable energy resources.