The world must speed up the deployment of solar power as it has the potential to meet all the world’s energy needs, the chairman of an industry gathering that wrapped up on Friday in Spain said.
“The solar energy resource is enormous, and distributed all over the world, in all countries and also oceans,” said Daniel Lincot, the chairman of the five-day European Photovoltaic Solar Energy conference held in Valencia.
“There is thus an enormous resource available from photovoltaics, which can be used everywhere, and can in principle cover all the world energy demand from a renewable, safe and clean source,” Lincot said.
PHOTO: AFP
Lincot, the research director of the Paris-based Institute for Research and Development of Photovoltaic Energy, said solar energy was growing rapidly but still made only a “negligible” contribution to total energy supply.
Last year the world production of photovoltaic models represented a surface of 40km², while meeting the electrical consumption of countries like France or Germany would require 5,000km², he said.
Under current scenarios, photovoltaic models will represent about 1,000km² by 2020, accounting for only about 3 percent of energy needs in the 27-member EU, he said.
More than 200 scientists and solar power experts have signed a declaration calling for the accelerated deployment of photovoltaic power that was launched at the conference.
More than 3,500 experts and 715 sector firms took part in the gathering, billed as the largest conference ever organized in the field of photovoltaic conversion of solar energy.
Germany and Spain are the world leaders in solar energy power.
Germany has 4,000 megawatts of installed capacity, while Spain has 600 megawatts.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS