Energy from the Desert - 2 Volume Set

Keiichi Komoto has contributed to VLS-PV activity since its preliminary stages. He currently works as a senior consultant in the field of renewable energy for Mizuho Information and Research Institute, and is focusing on photovoltaic technology from environmental and socio-economic viewpoints. Masakazu Ito is an assistant professor at the Integrated Research Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. He research on photovoltaic system fields, especially, how to use, manage, and evaluate it. He awarded as Academic Researcher Award, and was selected as JSPS Research Fellow in his doctoral course. Peter van der Vleuten has an extensive background in photovoltaics: as president of Free Energy Europe he gained experience with the development, manufacture and worldwide marketing of thin film silicon module, while his presidency of Free Energy International involved him in strategy and finance in the field of solar electricity, as well as in joint research and development projects. As chairman of the Free Energy Foundation, Peter's focus has been on awareness campaigns and dealer support in rural areas in developing countries. He has been involved in work on VLS-PV for desert applications from the beginning, some 8 years ago, and has enjoyed contributing significantly to the IEA Task 8 project, being eager to see the first gigawatt projects appear, which he believes could take place much earlier than many people have expected. David Faiman is a professor of physics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and director of Israel's National Solar Energy Center. He was a founder member, 30 years ago, of the university's Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Sede Boqer, whose Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics he heads. Kosuke Kurokawa has over 30 years of experience in energy systems technology, including HVDC transmission and solar photovoltaics. In recent years he has researched a wide variety of photovoltaic systems, from small AC modules to very large scale PV systems, at the Tokyo Institute of the Technology. He is the Operating Agent of the IEA PVPS Task 8 project on VLS-PV, and chairman of Japan Council of Renewable Energy (JCRE), as well as a number of technical committees.

1. Introduction

2. World Energy and Environmental Issues

3. PV and Other Renewable Energy Options

4. Socio-Economic Considerations

5. Financial Aspects

6. Recent and Future Trends in PV Technology

7. MW-Scale PV System Installation Technologies Nowadays

8. Future Technical Development for VLS-PV Systems

9. Environmental and Ecological Impacts of VLS-PV

10. Global Potential Analysis

11. Case Study on the Sahara Desert

12. Case Study on the Gobi Desert

13. VLS-PV Roadmap

14. Conclusions and Recommendations