BBC Features Alaska’s Solar Energy

The British Broadcasting Corp.’s “Future Planet” web section introduced the rest of the world to Alaska last week in an article titled “The world’s most unlikely solar farms.”

The article features the largest installations in the state — the 1.35-megawatt solar farm developed by Renewable Independent Power Producers in Willow and the 563-kilowatt Golden Valley Electric Association solar farm in Fairbanks.

The article describes ACEP’s ongoing collaborative research on snow-shedding coatings. It explains how the solar production, and business economics, in winter months could benefit from snow-shedding solar panels.

Chris Pike and Bax Bond recently installed eight panels on the GVEA array and 16 on the RIPP array. The panels were treated with anti-adhesion coatings.

With the precipitous drop in solar panel costs in the last decade, there has been a surge in interest in solar energy technology in northern latitudes.

Learn more about ACEP’s Solar Technologies Program here.

 

Nathan Minnema cleans snow off a solar panel at the GVEA solar array. Photo by Amanda Byrd.