solar

so we can see the August solar eclipse

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Next August 12 you can see the new solar eclipseand it is especially relevant because we have not seen such a spectacular eclipse since 1912. That is why we must be careful when it comes to seeing it and choosing glasses that are approved. Okay, but… what glasses should I buy? Stores like El Corte Inglés did not want to miss this event and have added some other approved glasses to their catalog, being Hawkers one of the most interesting. The reason is that they can be purchased in the online store for only 3.99 euros. Hawkers, approved glasses for solar eclipses The price could vary. We earn commission from these links The new Hawkers are intended for solar eclipses Hawkers glasses are approved with regulations ISO 12312-2which is basically a specific international certification for direct sun observation filters. In addition, it is worth mentioning that they are manufactured in Spain, thus ensuring the traceability and quality of the materials. The funny thing is that these glasses are designed to be comfortable, and they are The temples can be folded and the frame can be adjusted to make them more ergonomic. Furthermore, as the brand mentions, these glasses have a useful life of 10 years from their manufacture, so they will serve you for a long time. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that Not all Autonomous Communities will see the solar eclipse in the same way. We invite you to take a look at the eclipse map to know what it will look like in your neighborhood or city. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: Hawkers glasses for solar eclipses ✅ THE BEST Adjustment levels: allows you to adjust both the temples and the frame so that they are comfortable. Its useful life: The glasses have a useful life of 10 years from their manufacture. They are approved. ❌ THE WORST Shipping costs: They cost more (5.90 euros) than the glasses themselves. 💡 BUY IT IF… You want to see the next solar eclipse and are looking for approved glasses to see it. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You find the glasses in another store where you do not have to pay shipping costs, or they are lower. You may also be interested Galaxium 12x Solar Eclipse Glasses Approved ISO 12312-2 – AAS 2026 Approved – CE Certified – Safe for Direct Observation – Glasses to View Solar Eclipse The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Helioclipse 6 Solar Eclipse Glasses for Viewing the 2026 Solar Eclipse, Safe Solar Eclipse Glasses for Solar Eclipse Observation The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Jongsun Lee in UnsplashHawkers In Xataka | The mobile phones with the best camera 2026: next level photography in your pocket In Xataka | Best wireless over-ear headphones. Which one to buy and five recommended models

Spain produces so much solar energy that it is the envy of Europe. And even so, 70% of what you consume matters

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In June, when the sun hits hardest, the Spanish electricity grid registers demand peaks greater than 36,800 MW that renewables comfortably cover. We are, in electricity generation, the envy of Europe. And yet, at this very moment, 70% of the energy our economy consumes comes from abroad. That is the Spanish paradox in a single sentence: a country that exudes sun and wind but is still 70% dependent on the outside world. This contradiction, which in normal times would be just another energetic debate, has become an open wound since The Third Gulf War closed the Strait of Hormuzthe artery through which approximately a fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited. Is the second major energy shock in just four years and, according to the International Energy Agency, the largest in the history of the oil market. We have the best sun in Europe. And we continue to pay for the war. The report From Fossil Shock to Energy Sovereigntyprepared by the Renovables Foundation and the Meridian Institute, explains why. And the answer is uncomfortable: it is not that we lack resources. It’s just that we are ignoring them. The underlying problem. Here is the key that many overlook. Electricity consumption in Spain represents only 22% of the country’s total energy demand. The rest—78%—is covered by burning things: petroleum products (54%) and fossil gas (16%). It doesn’t matter how many solar panels we put on the roofs if cars continue to pump gasoline, boilers continue to burn gas and factories continue to throw away fossils. We are a country that has learned to produce clean electricity extraordinarily well. And then he uses it for a minimal fraction of what he needs. The three “black holes”. The study identifies three sectors where this disconnection between what we produce and what we consume is most flagrant: Mobility: the biggest hole. Transportation consumes 43% of final energy and accounts for 33% of emissions. The sector is responsible for 71.1% of the final consumption of petroleum products in Spainwith diesel as the undisputed king. By the end of 2025, the share of purely electric cars in sales was 8.85%. Of the total fleet in circulation, only 0.8% is electric. The rest continues to fill the tank. Homes: heating from the last century. Domestic consumption accounts for 30% of final energy use. Only 24% of the heating in our homes is electric; the rest continue to burn mainly fossil fuels. Gas boilers continue to be the majority in Spain while in the Nordic countries they are already history. We are the country in Europe with the most hours of sunshine and one of the countries that installs the least aerothermal energy. The industry: the silent hole. It represents the remaining 27% of final energy use. Its level of electrification has been stuck at around 35% for years, which means that almost two-thirds of the energy that drives our factories is still fossil fuel. It is the least visible sector in public debate and, possibly, the most difficult to transform. Also the one that needs the most time to do it: that is why it is urgent to start now. The Scandinavian mirror (with nuances). Norway leads the way: by the end of 2025, almost 98% of its new passenger cars sold were pure electric. They have more than 600 heat pumps for every 1,000 homes. Spain is located below 90 aerothermal units per 1,000 homes. The difference is more than 6 to 1. In the sunniest country in continental Europe. It is worth being honest: Norway finances its transition precisely with the income from the oil it exports. Spain does not have that cushion. But that does not invalidate the direction, but rather forces us to look for our own mechanisms—tax incentives, collective purchasing, European funds—to follow the same path. So why are we going so slow? The obstacles are real: the entry price of electric vehicles remains high for the average Spanish income, the charging infrastructure unfolds very unevenly throughout the territory, and the housing stock—with many old and poorly insulated buildings—cannot always accommodate a heat pump without major work. Naming these obstacles is not an excuse. It is the condition to overcome them. What it costs us every year to do nothing. If Spain matched the Norwegian pace for a single year—registering some 950,000 electric cars and installing 820,000 heat pumps—the immediate savings in fossil fuel imports would be between 1,300 and 1,700 million euros. With 100% electrification of mobility sustained for a decade, the reduction would reach 36% in oil and gas imports: 16.4 billion euros per year that would no longer go abroad. To understand the scale: Spain has strategic reserves for about 92 days of consumption regardless of a single barrel. Three months of autonomy in the face of a crisis that is already lasting longer. Every year that we do not electrify is one more year of fragility that we consciously choose. And the European irony completes the picture: the EU allocates nearly 88 billion euros annually to subsidize fossil fuels for transport, heating and industry. According to the Meridian Institute, this money would be enough to install more than 10.2 million heat pumps or finance 2.5 million electric cars annually across the continent. Europe has been paying for decades to remain vulnerable. Same trap, different provider. Four years ago we learned the hard way about the danger of depending on Russian gas and we exchanged it for liquefied gas ships from the United States and Qatar. Today we discovered that we have only replaced one vulnerability with another. As long as we need to burn gas to turn on the light, our pockets will continue to be hostage to geopolitics. The name of the country that supplies does not matter. In storage, the gap is also striking. Germany and Italy lead European battery deployment, with 6.6 GWh and 4.9 GWh installed by 2025 respectively. Achieving that capacity would allow Spain to eliminate between 5% and 10% … Read more

China manufactured more solar panels in one year than the planet can absorb. Now the market is devouring itself

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In early 2026, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz shook energy markets. Consumers, frightened by the volatility of fossil fuels, looked in all directions for alternatives. What they found was a disconcerting paradox: the planet had—has—a historic surplus of clean, cheap energy. There was no shortage of solar panels. There were plenty of them. And no one really knew what to do with them. Economist Adam Tooze summed it up bluntly in his column Financial Times: “Clean energy, on a scale that would have seemed utopian at the time of the Paris Agreement in 2015, is now within our reach. The price of solar panels has plummeted. And yet factories are paralyzed.” It’s not rhetoric. It’s a diagnosis. After a huge increase in investment since 2020, Chinese companies reached a production capacity of 1,000 gigawatts of solar panels per year. To get an idea: in 2023 global demand was only 451 GW, according to Energy News. Chinese production of solar cells that year—588 GW—already doubled international demand. And they continued building. The result was what economists call “involution”: a spiral of destructive competition where companies destroy each other with none winning. More than 40 Chinese manufacturers have gone bankrupt, been acquired or delisted. A third of the staff of the surviving big five were laid off. JinkoSolar, the world’s largest supplier, registered in 2025 a drop in revenue of 29%, a drop in gross profit of 86% and net losses of 4.45 billion yuan. In this way, in June of last year, more than 30 manufacturers They agreed to an OPEC-style pact to stabilize prices and curb supply. Six months later, the result was a disaster: far from stabilizing, production reached historic highs, installations tripled and losses continued to accumulate. “Since when are solar panels just another commodity? They are a technological miracle. They make us cultivators of the sun,” details Adam Tooze in his column. And in all that time, the price of a solar module fell to $0.10 per watt, according to EnkiAI —well below the $0.16/W production cost of the most advanced TOPCon modules. It is, strictly speaking, the largest climate technology sell-off in history. This is not a steel crisis. It’s something else When economists talk about Chinese overproduction, the debate usually revolves around steel, cement or electric cars. But Tooze makes a distinction worth hearing: Solar panels are no ordinary commodity. They are the result of half a century of research—from NASA spinoff programs in the 1970s to the big energy push of the Carter era—and, along with batteries, they are the master key to a sustainable future. Wasting that surplus is not just an economic problem. It is a civilizational irrationality. According to the OECD, China invested less than $18 billion in sector support over 15 years to build an industry capable of providing more clean energy than the world can easily absorb. That figure is less than the cost of building a medium-sized international airport in Europe, or what the US spent on a single Gerald Ford-class aircraft carrier. The concentration of power in the supply chain is also unprecedented in the history of energy. China controls more than 80% of the entire global solar production chaindirect result of the plan Made in China 2025 with which Beijing decided to stop being the world’s cheap factory and become its technological supplier. By the end of 2025, its operational module capacity exceeded 900 GW, several times the total global demand. The five largest Chinese manufacturers concentrate more than 50% of the market. LONGi Green Energy alone shipped more than 45 GW in 2025 – more than the entire US domestic manufacturing capacity (73 GW). Never in the history of energy has a single nation so completely dominated a key technology for the decarbonization of the planet. Not even oil at its peak. And the climate paradox is painful: since the Paris Agreement of 2015, a scale of deployment like the current one would have seemed like science fiction. The goal was to stop global warming. The instruments to do so are manufactured and stacked in warehouses. What fails, Tooze points out, is coordination: what Keynes would call a global “chaos,” a catastrophe of collective planning. The global bet Chaos has its own correction mechanisms, even if they are painful. In China, the crisis has already forced the Government to act a few months ago, Beijing called for ‘concerted efforts’ to end price war. The proposed measures include capacity control, minimum guideline prices, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property protection “to promote the high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry.” In practice: the Chinese State orchestrating an orderly rescue of the sector that it itself encouraged to grow without limits. The consolidation had already started before. In August of last year, several players in the sector launched a plan for large manufacturers to jointly invest $7 billion in buying and closing the least efficient facilities, according to OilPrice.com. In practice, a cartel to stop the bleeding. Prices already reflect the shift. According to ABC SolutionsChinese modules have risen between 10% and 20% in 2026 due to the adjustment of overproduction and new logistics tariffs. Wood Mackenzie forecasts a further rise of 9%. The window for the big bargain is closing, although prices remain historically low. The critical variable for 2027 is how the surplus is resolved: through orderly consolidation or through new business disruptions. Meanwhile, Chinese foreign business continues to boom. As Tooze points out in the FTexports of Chinese solar technology to virtually every country except the United States are skyrocketing. And manufacturers have evolved: they now integrate batteries into systems to offer greater stability to the grid, pushing the product towards the complete solution instead of the isolated module. Storage batteries, which They have also reached historical lows in cost Pushed by the same dynamic of overproduction, they thus complete the package: panel plus storage, at a knockdown price. Domestic demand will also recover. China exceeded 1,230 GW of installed solar capacity … Read more

Waymo’s ambitious plan to turn its batteries into gigantic solar powerbanks

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The electric car industry has been grappling with an elephant in the room for years: what to do with the millions of battery packs that, while no longer useful to power a vehicle, still retain enormous energy capacity. Now, the answer could come with autonomous driving. Waymo has formalized a strategic agreement with the company B2U Storage Solutions to give a “second life” to the spent batteries of their robotaxis, preventing them from ending up directly in recycling plants to convert them into gigantic solar energy storage systems. The paradox of the robotaxi. To understand why this movement is so relevant, you have to understand how an autonomous car ages. As detailed Wall Street Journalthe life of a robotaxi is nothing like that of a private car. While our personal vehicles spend most of the day parked, Waymo vehicles operate as high-use shared assets. In statements to the financial newspaper, Adam Lenz, director of sustainability at Waymo, explained that this high utilization causes its cars to accumulate kilometers at a dizzying rate, forcing the batteries to be removed from commercial service much earlier than usual. According to data from Geotaba consumer electric car loses just 2.3% of battery capacity per year, retaining more than 81% after eight years of use. Robotaxis, however, suffer much more rapid degradation. But just because a battery no longer offers the range needed to safely carry passengers doesn’t mean it’s dead. The new business model seeks to squeeze the residual value of these batteries to use them in stationary applications, avoiding waste and taking advantage of critical materials that have already been manufactured. “Energy sponges.” When Waymo vehicles can no longer perform, B2U removes the batteries, tests their performance, and packages them in large metal cabinets about 2.7 meters high, similar to small shipping containers. Each of these containers houses dozens of units. From there, they function as true “energy sponges” for the electrical grid. During the day, when there is plenty of sun or wind and prices are low, the system absorbs and stores that electricity. It then injects that energy back into the grid during nighttime demand peaks, just when solar production drops. The economic and energy impact is notable. Freeman Hall, CEO of B2U, details that each reused battery can add between $8,000 and $10,000 in electrical value. Additionally, a single storage container has enough capacity to supply an average home for up to three months. Although Waymo has not specified an exact number of units, the goal in the long term it is to deploy “hundreds of megawatt-hours” of capacity, concentrating initial efforts in California and Texas, two states with great dependence and growth in renewable energy. The figures of an unstoppable fleet. As detailed Ars TechnicaWaymo currently operates about 4,000 vehicles, mainly consisting of Jaguar I-Pace with 90 kWh batteries, to which are being added the new “Ojai” models from the Chinese manufacturer Zeekr, equipped with 93 kWh batteries. This fleet makes about 500,000 trips a week, a rate that will only grow: the Wall Street Journal cites Morgan Stanley estimate which predicts that autonomous journeys in the US will go from 15 million in 2025 to 36 million at the end of this year. However, Waymo’s purely “green” narrative has its chiaroscuros, and the specialized press does not ignore them. Ars Technica Enter critical and necessary information: Although the company assures that its electric fleet avoids 530 tons of CO2 every half a million trips, its recent landing in Austin (Texas) together with Uber raised blisters. There, they used mobile generators from the company L-Charge powered by natural gas to recharge the robotaxis, which generated neighborhood complaints about noise and highlighted the logistical difficulties of operating electric vehicles without adequate charging infrastructure. On the other hand, companies like Redwood Materials (backed by Waymo’s own parent company, Alphabet) are also launching their own second-life storage divisions. All this occurs in a context of absolute record: in the first quarter of 2026, the US installed 9.7 GWh of stationary storage, an increase of 32% year-on-year. Beyond the green posturing. In short, this agreement seals a perfect urban circularity. As Adam Lenz reflectsthe same batteries that today transport passengers through their streets, tomorrow will be supporting the local electrical networks of those same communities. However, behind the obvious environmental benefit is a movement of pure business strategy: this is not just green philanthropy. Waymo depends on the electrical grids of the cities where it operates to be stable and robust to be able to keep its fleets operational 24/7. In the age of mass automation, shoring up the electrical grid with batteries from your own retired cars is no longer just an ecological medal; It is a strict necessity of business survival. Image | Daniel Ramirez Xataka | A man ordered a Waymo to go to the airport. When he got there he ran into a problem: the trunk wouldn’t open.

We fill the field with solar panels to stop climate change. We have unintentionally saved 122 species of bees

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There’s a hum under Minnesota solar panels that engineers didn’t put in the plans. It is a biological, dense, ancient hum. Beneath the photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity, 122 species of native bees have found something that has been disappearing from the fields of half the world for decades: flowers. It’s not a coincidence. It is the result of a management decision that costs money, requires planning and that, according to the latest science, is producing results that no one expected when the first solar panel was installed in a meadow. The bees are disappearing. A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolutionwith data from 681 agricultural fields on three continents and more than 19,500 specimens of 910 species of wild bees, reached an uncomfortable conclusion: pesticides and habitat loss are reducing bee populations in an additive, independent way, without one factor compensating for the other. That is, having more natural habitat around a field does not neutralize the damage from pesticides. And reducing pesticides is not enough if the habitat has disappeared. They are two different problems that require two different solutions. The work, led by Anina Knauer and researchers from Agroscope among other institutions, found that pesticides not only reduce the number of bees: they also reduce their functional and phylogenetic diversity. Communities not only become smaller, they become simpler, less resilient, less able to cope with future shocks. A desert with seasonal flowers. In Iowa, in the heart of the American Corn Belt, 72% of the territory is covered in corn and soybean monocultures. Less than 0.01% of the original prairie remains standing. This is what researchers at Iowa State University publish in BioScience described as “an extreme example of landscape simplification”. Bees literally have very little to go to. And when the soybeans stop flowering at the end of summer, there is nothing. The colonies enter what science calls the feast-famine dynamic: the festival of flowering followed by famine that kills hives before winter. This is the background scenario. An agricultural world that urgently needs more pollinator habitat, free of pesticides or with minimal exposure. And in that desert, solar panels are doing something no one expected. 14 floors. 122 species. And an unexpected star. A team of researchers led by Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar of Western EcoSystems Technology and James McCall of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory asked a very specific question: Of all the plants that can be grown under and around solar panels, which ones actually establish? And how many bees can they hold? The work, published in Environmental Research Communicationstested 101 plant species in eight different seed mixtures at three solar farms in the tallgrass prairie region of Minnesota. After three years of monitoring, 14 species of flowering herbaceous plants had successfully established themselves. With those 14 species as a starting point, the researchers cross-referenced the data with an exhaustive catalog of plant-bee interactions from the same region. The result is that those 14 plants can support 122 unique species of native bees, 24% of all bee diversity in the state of Minnesota, which has 508 documented species. The star of the system is Zizia aureathe golden Alexander, a yellow flowering plant that blooms early in the season. Alone, it supports 67 species of bees. And 36 of those species—30% of the total study—only visited Zizia aurea among all the plants studied. If it is not in the seed mix of the solar park, those 36 species have nothing. Not all flowers are worth the same. The study also documents an important nuance: bumblebees, the group of pollinators with the most species in decline—three of the eleven species of Bombus of the study are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN: B. pensylvanicus, B. terrestrial and B. fervidus—they don’t get along with Zizia aurea. Only one species of bumblebee visited that plant. Bumblebees prefer Monarda fistulosathe wild bergamot, visited by nine of the eleven species of Bombus of the study. The practical lesson: there is no universal mix. The design of what is planted must respond to what is to be conserved. And what if there are pesticides in the surrounding fields? He study by Toth and colleagues in BioSciencewith more than a decade of data on strips of native prairie embedded in corn and soybean fields in Iowa, systematically reviewed chemical contamination in that type of habitat. Pesticides arrive—neonicotinoids, pyrethroids, fungicides—but in concentrations that, for the best studied species, are below the damage thresholds. And most importantly: the concentrations are no higher than in the rest of the surrounding agricultural landscape. They are not an ecological trap; They are an island of resources in a sea of ​​fields that already have pesticides on them anyway. In addition, a diet rich in quality pollen—exactly what these plants provide—makes bees better tolerate chemical exposure. Nutrition acts as a shield. The authors of that work themselves explicitly point out that their conclusions are applicable to “other types of landscape improvements for pollinators such as hedgerows, pollinator gardens, solar installations with pollinator habitat.” It is not a journalistic extrapolation. It’s in the text of the paper. If there are flowers inside there are bumblebees. If field studies answer the “does it work now?” published in Global Change Biology by Hollie Blaydes and colleagues at Lancaster University answers “will it still work in 2050?” The team modeled the 1,042 operational solar farms in Britain under three socio-economic scenarios for mid-century: a sustainability scenario, an intermediate scenario and a fossil development scenario with maximum agricultural intensification. The main finding is compelling: the management of the solar park is the main determining factor of bumblebee density within the park, above land use changes in the surrounding landscape. Solar parks last between 25 and 40 years. That means decades of stable habitat in landscapes that are going to change and possibly get worse for pollinators. And there is an economic angle that is not minor either. Colonies located near diverse native vegetation avoid feast-famine dynamic which in monocultures weakens … Read more

We thought that solar parks were a death trap for birds. 19,000 hours of video and an AI have just dismantled the myth

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During the last decade, the story of the energy transition has carried a shadow of suspicion. The visual image of a sea of ​​glass and silicon, dark and geometric, made us believe that the installation of large solar parks was equivalent to sterilizing the earth. We imagined a devastated ecosystem, an industrial desert where the hum of transformers chased away any trace of fauna. It seemed the inevitable price to pay for decarbonizing our economy. However, when science has decided to turn off the noise of public debate and turn on the cameras to observe what really happens under those plates, the result has broken all schemes. The AI ​​that watched the sky. One of the deepest fears was the theory that solar panels acted as a lethal mirage for birds. To clear up this mystery, an exhaustive study published in the scientific journal Diversity has resorted to the latest technology. A team of scientists installed high-definition cameras at five photovoltaic plants in the United States (spread across the desert Southwest, Midwest and Northeast) and collected more than 19,000 hours of daytime recordings over several years. Given the human impossibility of reviewing such a quantity of footage, the researchers developed an Artificial Intelligence model (MODT) designed specifically to detect and track moving objects. After filtering more than 4,000 hours of video, AI and human reviewers identified 68,646 bird appearances. An unprecedented find. Not a single bird collision with solar infrastructure was confirmed in all the observations analyzed. Far from colliding or being disoriented by the supposed “lake effect” of the panels, the images showed that the birds integrate the solar plant into their daily lives: they fly over it (an activity that accounted for around 54% of the observations), cross it underneath, look for food on the ground, preen and even nest in the metal structures themselves. More life inside than outside. Crossing the Atlantic, scientific evidence supports this coexistence. According to a study published in AgricultureEcosystems & Environmentcarried out by researchers in Poland, small-scale solar farms located in agricultural environments significantly increase birdlife diversity. After analyzing 43 photovoltaic parks and comparing them with 43 neighboring control areas, Polish experts documented that the vast majority of species improved their presence. Except for the meadowlark, which showed a negative reaction, species typically threatened in rural areas such as the wildcatcher or the northern stonechat appeared in much larger numbers within the park. As the study explains, the facilities provide them with safe breeding areas, tall grass (which is mowed late or left to grow) and fences perfect for perching, singing and monitoring their prey. This reality is identical in our country. As we recently explained in Xataka, Spanish photovoltaic enclosures are acting as authentic sanctuaries. The data collected by the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) and audited by the environmental consulting firm EMAT in 2025 show an irrefutable pattern. In Minglanilla (Cuenca), 32 species of birds were found inside the solar plant compared to 19 in the external agricultural area. In Revilla Vallejera (Burgos) the balance was 39 versus 34, and in Trujillo (Cáceres), 31 versus 25. Furthermore, these enclosures not only house common birds, but have become home to protected or seriously declining species such as the curlew, the little bustard or the lesser kestrel. What is the secret of this explosion of life? The answer requires changing perspective. These parks are not being installed on virgin forests, but on fields that have been subjected to intensive agriculture for decades. According to Martín Behardirector of Studies and Environment at UNEF, by building a solar park a de facto “ecological exclusion zone” is created where tractors, pesticides and herbicides disappear. Human silence attracts weeds; weeds to insects; insects to small birds, and these to large birds of prey. The key: active management. If energy companies limit themselves to fumigating the land or sweeping the brushcutter to leave the ground bare for convenience, the park will effectively be an inert desert. For flora and fauna to return, will and active management are required: using native seeds, leaving wild ecological strips on the margins, allowing extensive grazing for natural control of forage and avoiding agrotoxins at all costs. The data has spoken. We had been fearing for years that solar panels would destroy life in the countryside. It turns out that, managed with rigor and sensitivity, they have the exact power to do just the opposite: heal the ecological wounds of centuries of agricultural exploitation and give nature a voice. Image | AnkerSolix Xataka | The largest study to date on solar panels and their effect on the field debunks several persistent myths

A scientist wants to build a space shield against solar storms. Your secret weapon: lithium and barium

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Predict the arrival of very strong solar storms It is important for many reasons. Not only to keep an eye out and not get lost the most beautiful auroras. Also because these could affect satellites or terrestrial communications systems, so it is important to take precautions. The problem is that, no matter how much prevention methods have improved, we cannot do much more than be prepared for what is coming. Today there are no ways to stop these solar storms. However, a scientist from Boston University has announced that it is working on a method to strengthen the Earth’s natural shield against this type of phenomena. A stronger shield. The scientist in question is called Brian Walsh and is working in what he himself has called a wall against solar storms. Its objective is to send six ships to strategic points in a geostationary orbit, so that they release chemical elements capable of strengthening the magnetic field. These should be elements such as lithium or barium, since they are easily converted into positively charged ions when solar ultraviolet radiation hits them. At that point, the cargo released by the ships is converted to plasma. Precisely, what reaches Earth with solar storms is also plasma. However, there is a big difference. The one that comes from the sun consists of charged particles that move at very high speed, with great energy. On the other hand, what would be released into the magnetosphere would be cold, static plasma, which acts as a kind of wall, preventing this high-speed plasma from passing through the magnetosphere. A good shield when the activity is not too intense. The Earth has a great shield against solar storms. Generally, our magnetic field prevents these charged particles from the Sun from crossing into our atmosphere. This is because the magnetic field generally acts as a kind of rail on which the plasma circulates. The electrically charged particles are retained on these rails, but do not cross to the other side. They can only reach the atmosphere at the poles, where the inclination of the magnetic field lines acts as a kind of funnel. Even so, the charged particles that come from the surface of the Sun may already arrive somewhat weakened there. They interact with the gases in the atmosphere, exciting the atoms and causing the release of the light that makes up the auroras. But there are usually not very detrimental effects on communications. On the other hand, if the solar storm is very intense, the particles may be able to deform the rails of the magnetic field, filtering at the poles, but also in other places in the magnetosphere. Historical consequences. The consequences of these types of events have been seen numerous times throughout history. The most dramatic case was possibly that of Carrington eventwhich took place in 1859. It is considered the most powerful solar storm that has been recorded in history with consequences on Earth. Because of this large release of plasma from the Sun, auroras were seen in places as far from the poles as Hawaii and Cuba, but there were also less noticeable consequences, such as the burning of telegraph lines in many parts of the world. Another very notorious and dangerous case took place during the Vietnam War, in 1972, when a solar storm caused the accidental detonation of several magnetic underwater mines. And much more recent is the Gannon Storm, which in 2024 affected the GPS systems of planting tractors in several locations in the United Statescausing losses of 500 million dollars among farmers. But the situation could be worse. It is estimated that a major storm like Carrington’s could occur once a century. There hasn’t been one this big since then, so it could happen in the not too distant future. And today we depend much more on technologies than then. It is estimated that the losses could be more than 2 billion dollars. A natural process. This artificial wall that Walsh wants to create is inspired by a process that occurs naturally. And the thing is that, from time to time, small fragments of the Earth’s atmosphere break off and join the magnetic field, reinforcing it before the arrival of charged particles from the Sun. Lithium and barium would do something similar, artificially. Simulations only: For now, Brian Walsh has only made simulations of his invention, he has not tested it in space by any means. He himself recognizes that it is a complex process, so it must be done perfectly so that it causes more benefits than problems. Releasing ionizable elements at random could be harmful if not done in the right place. In addition, ways must be found to put ships in the correct place in their orbit before the storm arrives, so it is important to speed up the process while improving prediction methods. Handicaps. Although it may seem like a lot of mass is required to carry out this procedure, Walsh insists that the payload needs fall within current launch capabilities. However, he recognizes that it is an expensive process. Therefore, it would be necessary to look for ways to optimize it so that the necessary investment is not so large. For example, you want to work on pulsed release so that ionizable material is not wasted. In short, this method of controlling space weather is not at all something that will be used imminently, but it is clear that in the future we will need something like this. If not this method, another, but we greatly need something that protects us from the harshest elements of the Sun. Image | NASA | Walsh et al. In Xataka | A sunspot 17 times larger than Earth caused red auroras across half the world. It is a very rare event

We will run out of space on dry land one day. So Spain is already putting solar panels into the sea

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Filling the field with solar panels has a physical limit. It is very likely that, while reading this, you have heard the debate that in our landscapes there are beginning to be more panels than crops. Faced with this growing land saturation, the alternative is already floating in the water: The San Enrique de Vigo Shipyard has just launched the first floating marine solar platform with purely Spanish technology. Named “Paiporta”—a tribute to the victims of the deadly DANA in Valencia in October 2024—this pioneering modular structure marks an industrial milestone. Its destiny is not to stay in the Galician estuary, but to be towed in the coming weeks to the Valencian coast to undergo its final test: validate its operability and generate electricity in the open sea. The sea as a technological ally. The saline and hostile environment of the sea offers conditions that multiply the efficiency of the panels. Traditional solar panels lose efficiency when they reach high temperatures. However, in these floating installations, seawater acts as a powerful natural coolant. By heating up less, the panels perform more and are capable of producing more electricity than their twins installed on the ground or on roofs. Added to this cooling effect is an intelligent design decision. Those responsible for the project They detail that the panels installed on the platform they use bifacial technology. This means that the installation not only absorbs direct solar radiation falling from the sky, but is also capable of capturing and generating energy from light bouncing off the sea surface. In the near future, they are expected to operate jointly with offshore wind farms (offshore), sharing evacuation infrastructure and maximizing the amount of clean energy that can be extracted from the same ocean coordinate. Mass-produced photovoltaic catamarans. The “how” is as important as the “what.” PV-bos (PhotoVoltaic-BlueNewables Offshore Solutions) technology has not been conceived to create unique and artisanal prototypes, but to revolutionize the assembly line. The project – called Renovar – pursues the development of platforms manufactured through industrialized and modular processes, directly inspired by mass manufacturing models. The objective is clear: reduce costs, cut production times and make photovoltaics offshore be competitive at a global level. To achieve this, the technological solution is based on an innovative catamaran-type design, specifically optimized to withstand harsh ocean conditions. This format allows the plates to be raised to a safe height above sea level, which not only improves energy performance, but also greatly facilitates maintenance work. The overall project contemplates a floating system of one megawatt of total power, divided into two PV-bos units of five hundred kilowatts each. Bringing this steel and silicon giant to the water was no easy task. From BlueNewables They explain that the launching It required a complex tandem lifting maneuver, using the emblematic and colossal cranes of the Vigo shipyard to place the structure with millimeter precision on the estuary. The industrial muscle. Behind this technological advance there is a powerful business and institutional alliance. The initiative combines the vast experience in marine structures of Astilleros San Enrique (belonging to the Meridional Group), the technological specialization of the Canarian engineering BlueNewables, and the technical collaboration of Soermar (Society for the Study of Maritime Resources). In addition, the project has the strong financial support of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, and the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) through its RENMARINAS program. On the other hand, it is a breath of fresh air and an opportunity for reinvention for the naval industry. José Luis Torres, general director of the San Enrique Shipyard, emphasizes that this success demonstrates the capacity of the traditional Spanish naval sector to lead cutting-edge developments. Far from remaining anchored in the construction of conventional ships, shipyards demonstrate that they can compete at the highest international level in the new markets opened by the energy transition. Next station: open sea. With the “Paiporta” now afloat, the Spanish industry sends a clear message to the world. In the words of Bernardino Couñagoco-founder and CEO of BlueNewables, this launch places his company “among the world leaders in the marine floating solar sector” and clearly demonstrates the enormous “industrial and technological capabilities that exist in Galicia and Spain to lead innovative energy solutions at an international level.” But the work is not finished. This successful maneuver in Vigo is just a decisive step. Now, the platform leaves behind the safety of the manufacturing phase in the shipyard to head towards the final stages: commissioning, connection and monitoring. When the “Paiporta” reaches the coasts of Valencia, it will have to demonstrate that the engineers’ mathematics can withstand the onslaught of waves and salt. The limit of the earth has already been surpassed; Now it’s time to conquer the horizon. Image | Bluenewables Xataka | Many towns oppose wind farms. In Euskadi they want to solve it the hard way: giving them 7% of their profits

In Aragon, farms are starting to do something with their slurry ponds: cover them with solar panels

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only in Aragon there is more than 4,000 farms of pigs, farms from which every year thousands and thousands of tons of meat that later is marketed in the rest of the world. In the pigsties where the cattle are raised, however, something else is generated: an enormous amount of slurry that represents a real challenge environmental. At the end of the day, these wastes end up stored in ponds that emit harmful gasessuch as methane, ammonia or nitrous oxide. In Aragon they have had an idea: cover them with solar panels. From farms and slurry. Spain is one of the big producers of pork in the European Union, something that is possible thanks to a vast network made up of thousands of farms. The problem is that not only cattle come out of them. The industry generates millions of tons of slurry, a manure that can be used as fertilizerbut whose management poses some challenges. Although the composition varies depending on its source, farm manure generally generates greenhouse gases and pollutants, including methane and ammonia. It is not a minor issue if we take into account that some calculations They estimate that the Spanish pig sector produces just over 60 million tons of slurry each year. A challenge, an opportunity. Manure management takes time under the magnifying glass of the environmentalists and is regulated in the lawwhich includes measures such as cover at least part of the ponds or the use of systems that reduce their emissions. With this backdrop, a few years ago a consortium formed by the Aragonese firm Intergia Energía Sostenible and two other entities became a question: What if necessity were made a virtue and the space occupied by the slurry ponds was used to generate energy? What if, at the same time that manure deposits are covered to reduce their emissions, photovoltaics could be expanded? A “win-win”. The result was a project developed between 2020 and 2023 which, with the support of the European EAFRD fund and the Government of Aragon, dedicated itself to investigating this path. His idea was very simple: cover the slurry ponds with floating solar panels to achieve a win-win manual. Polluting emissions remain at the levels established by regulations and, at the same time, the farms improve the performance of their ponds, converting them into sources of solar energy production. Instead of covering rooftops or acres of fields with solar panels, they are deployed directly over manure deposits. Rethinking floating systems. From Intergia they explain that the project developed between 2020 and 2023 let some interesting lessons. For example, the ammonia in slurry ends up oxidizing and degrading some elements of photovoltaic installations. Specifically, certain parts of the module fastening system and wiring. Now the company wanted to go one step further and open the way. “While floating photovoltaics are already widely used in bodies of water, such as irrigation ponds or lakes, their use in other liquid bodies is in the study phase,” claims. Hence, the firm (along with other allies, such as the University of Zaragoza) is promoted Fotopura project that wants to help the pork sector reduce its emissions while generating energy. One project, two bets. To move in this direction, the company has set up two facilities pilot with which he hopes to learn more about the potential of photovoltaic panels to cover slurry ponds. In fact, both are designed to “maximize” reducing polluting emissions and resisting ammonia corrosion, although they differ in a key aspect: one of them uses standard commercial parts, designed for floating photovoltaics; the other has been designed specifically for ponds in which livestock manure is stored. A Zamora farm. That is the place where Fotopur has assembled its first prototype. In November They installed their photovoltaic cover on an 880 m2 slurry pond located on a breeding farm in Calzada de Tera, Zamora. To be more precise, Intergia deployed a 13.5 x 25 m floating platform with 56 panels and a peak power of 33.04 kWp. In total, the entire installation covers 90% of the pond and those responsible hope that it will help cover up to 22% of the farm’s electricity bill. The interesting thing is its components. The company used a commercial floating photovoltaic system used in water ponds. That is, it was not created specifically for slurry ponds. What Intergia and the rest of Fotopur’s partners have done is apply small changes. For example, to avoid corrosion, they replaced the steel parts that came from the factory with aluminum and stainless steel parts. To reduce friction they also incorporated a plastic sheet. …And a Zaragoza farm. He another prototype It was assembled weeks later at a bait farm in Tauste, in Zaragoza, and unlike the Castilla y León version, it was designed specifically for use in slurry ponds. For example, its creators devised a system that “minimizes the air-slurry contact surface between the floating elements and that will facilitate the support of the photovoltaic panels.” Another of the tasks they have had to face is “design a specific structure”formed by a matrix of anodized aluminum beams anchored to the platform and with brackets that allow the panels to have an inclination of 15º. In total they house 16 panels with a power of 9.44 kWp. The screws are made of aluminum and stainless steel to prevent corrosion. If its authors’ plans are fulfilled, the floating platform will “effectively” cover 10% of the pond’s surface and its photovoltaic production will reach 15.2 Mwh/year, enough to cover up to 53% of the farm’s electrical demand. That plus, claims Intergiawill allow the Aragonese exploitation to reduce its fuel consumption, “expensive and polluting.” And now what? With its prototypes Fotopur aims to continue advancing on the path that was already opened in 2020, solve the problems that were identified then and demonstrate the advantages of covering the slurry ponds with solar panels. Now, once the Zamora and Zaragoza facilities have been set up, the experts will dedicate themselves to controlling … Read more

Perovskite is the “holy grail” of solar energy, but its industrial manufacturing was hell. This new technique changes everything at once

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Solar energy has a clear favorite to lead the future: tandem solar cells. The idea is brilliant and simple on paper, since if you combine traditional silicon with a top layer of revolutionary perovskite, you create a “super panel.” Perovskite swallows high-energy, short-wave light, and silicon finishes the job with longer waves. So the result is capturing much more solar spectrum and generating more electricity than with traditional plates. The valley of industrial death. The problem is that the photovoltaic industry had been banging its head against a wall for years. Perovskite was a wonder in the “Petri dish” of the laboratory, but manufacturing those very thin layers on a large scale, uniformly and quickly, was a true technical nightmare. Technology ran the risk of remaining an eternal promise, until a bridge built between Karlsruhe and Valencia showed that the problem was not the material, but the method. The 10 minute record. A team of researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and the University of Valencia, supported by institutions in France and Argentina, has just published a historic milestone in the magazine Nature Energy. They have designed an ultra-fast, solvent-free vacuum process that deposits the layer of perovskite at a pace never seen before. They have managed to manufacture tandem cells with a very high efficiency of 24.3% and the conversion process lasts just 10 minutes. To understand why this turns the industry upside down, you have to look at the factory numbers. As Professor Ulrich Paetzold (KIT) explainsIn the industry, not only efficiency matters, but also that the process is robust and scalable. This new method achieves a deposition rate of 47 nanometers per minute, that is, a speed ten times greater than that of conventional thermal evaporation methods. In addition, it consumes very little material and allows sources to be reused, drastically reducing costs. The “magic” of sublimation. The technique is called Closed Space Sublimation (CSS). We could say that it is like a microscopic oven: the precursor materials evaporate and collide directly against the silicon cell, which is placed just a few millimeters away. There they react on site to form the structure of the perovskite almost magically. Sofía Chozas-Barrientos, researcher at the University of Valencia, emphasizes that this system It allows you to do without solvents and save a lot of time. However, the recipe needed to be refined. For the tandem to work, the perovskite The upper part must act as a spectral filter (have a wider bandgap), and this is achieved by adding bromine. The drama was that, when trying to introduce bromine, it literally vanished during the process. The solution, according to researcher Alexander Dierckswas to create a mixed organic source by mixing methylammonium iodide and methylammonium bromide in an exact ratio of 3 to 1. Thus they managed to retain the bromine and nail an ideal band efficiency of 1.64 eV. Ready for the real world. The point is that good solar panels are not smooth; They are full of textures (with micropyramid shapes) to better catch the light. And this CSS process has worked perfectly on smooth, nanostructured and microstructured silicon, without having to touch a single button in the machine’s settings. Microscopes confirmed impeccable coverage in all topographies. As Professor Henk Bolink summarizesfrom the University of Valencia, a process that only works on smooth laboratory surfaces is of no use in industry. The fact that this sublimation achieves uniform layers on textured silicon is what makes this advancement real, viable and marketable. The future, on the roofs. Closing the gap between the laboratory and the factory is the great challenge of our energy era. With this Spanish-German milestone, the mass production of tandem solar technology finally removes the “unviable” label. The perovskite revolution no longer has to wait decades; is ready to make the leap to factories and, very soon, to rooftops around the world. Image | Eurekalert Xataka | Where you see an old bullet from the 17th century, Germany sees a magnificent source of perovskite for solar panels

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