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EGEB: 120GW of solar panel supply, Germany considering free public transport, more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial, and political review/analysis of important green energy news. Featured Image Source.

Germany mulls free public transport to quash air pollution menace – It’s real tough to lower our individual carbon footprints. The Netherlands managed to move to bikes. New York City and other subway heavy cities have done amazing jobs. Germany is a large country, with challenging climate issues (don’t want nuclear, but still have coal). Plus – people like me see Germany as a high-speed aggressive sports car. Well…Tesla has shown me that high-speed aggressive sports cars don’t have to pollute. Maybe we all can change.

PV capex to exceed US$10 billion in 2018, with 25% growth forecast – Module supply continues to expand at unprecedented rates, with signs that 2018 will comfortably hit or exceed 120GW (despite the typical doom-and-gloom seen by many industry observers at the start of 2018, all of whom have been getting market forecasts wrong for years now). 120 GW of panel availability will mean 120GW of panels getting installed real soon thereafter because these days we’re running at relatively high-capacity in these factories. 25% more money being spent on hardware – means there will be a huge amount of cutting edge equipment hitting the factories. We will see per watt pricing, and increases in efficiency.

Meyer Burger sues China firm over diamond wire management patent – C’mon China, we need a chance to make money from our inventions, from our research, from our education and focus and energy. Figure out – via your state controlled model – how to get Meyer Burger a big pile of money for their innovation, while also getting a technology the world needs – into the world as broadly as you can. It’s a challenge, makers need patents – but, the world needs these technologies.

In honor of the Olympics, a quick formula – 2πr – The longest wind blade is 290 feet, add about 5 feet for the hub center, and 2*3.14*295 equals 1,852 feet per rotation. Let’s say this large unit rotates six times per minute, 360 times per hour = 126 miles per hour at the blade tips. Cool.

Maryland is first state to launch energy storage tax credit – The incentive reimburses 30% of the total installation costs, up to $5,000 for a residential project and $75,000 for commercial. A total of $225,000 dollars has been allocated for residential taxpayers and $525,000 dollars for commercial. Get moving folks in Maryland.

On the tweet below – Who can help us start a political meme equivalent to ‘Solyndra’ equated to clean coal fraud? Think about it – first the coal/oil/gas industries pay off your politicians to lie to you about them killing the planet. Then they fund fake scientists. Then they trick you into giving them money for ‘cleaning’ their product. And they spend the money, but not on hardware, research, or – you know, the purpose of the grant – a demonstration project. By the way – the Solyndra loan program made money.

Featured image is from the Department of Energy SunShot programAerial photo of Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System taken from a helicopter on March 23, 2015. Photo by Cliff Ho.

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