Could be renewables are becoming “too cheap to meter”

Germany’s renewable energy transition continues to set new records with yet another for wind energy forecasted in early November 2017 to drive electricity prices below zero .  According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, negative pricing for too much electricity from the country’s wind turbines means that the power producers either have to shut down turbines down or pay customers “to take the electricity off the grid.” We are talking about a forecast for Germany’s wind energy production to generate 39,109 megawatts of electricity in one day, the equivalent of 40 nuclear power stations.  Germany is now licensing offshore wind farm development without government subsidies as the technology’s cost continues to plummet, now projected by 71% over the next 20 years. But Germany’s rapid deployment of innovation renewable energy is only a part of the global expansion picture for abundant wind and solar power.

The design for Doctors Without Borders new Geneva headquarters uses innovative transparent photovoltaic cells coating the colored glass building. The beautiful architecture incorporates energy efficiency and its own renewable energy production from the sun.  Transparent solar cells have only entered to commercially emerge in the last few years but according to the authors of a study published in Nature, light-harvesting materials are the new wave for an ever innovative solar power industry turning glass into an electricity producer. With more than 750 billion square feet of glass in the United States, a transparent solar laminate overlay on windows oriented to the sun’s arc could generate 40% of the nation’s energy according to researchers.  One project, led by energy researchers at Michigan State University, is using organic molecules fashioned into thin plastic-like transparent film that can capture ultraviolet and infrared wavelength in sunlight and convert it into electricity.