BAM Energy Group (formerly BAM Solar Power) is a photovoltaic system systems installer based in Miami, Florida. [1] The company provides design, installation, monitoring and maintenance services for solar energy. [2] [3]
In January 2010, BAM installed the first solar electricity system on a cruise ship, Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. The installation covered a surface area of 21,000 sq. ft. (1950 m2) on deck 19 and cost US$750,000. [2] In January 2011, BAM installed an 80 kW system on RCL's Allure of the Seas, covering the largest area to date on a cruise ship - 2000 square meters. The system powers the shopping district, [4] cost US$600,000, and used Uni-Solar [5] durable BIPV laminates designed to withstand foot traffic and marine conditions. [6]
Royal Caribbean International (RCI), also formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line brand founded in 1968 in Norway and organised as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997. Based in Miami, Florida. It is the largest cruise line by revenue and second largest by passengers counts. In 2018, Royal Caribbean International controlled 19.2% of the worldwide cruise market by passengers and 14.0% by revenue. It operates the five largest passenger ships in the world. As of January 2022, the line operates twenty-six ships and has four additional ships on order.
A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, or solar panel, also known as a photo-voltaic (PV) module or PV panel, is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a frame. Solar panels capture sunlight as a source of radiant energy, which is converted into electric energy in the form of direct current (DC) electricity.
The Oasis class is a class of 5 Royal Caribbean International cruise ships. The first two ships in the class, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, were delivered respectively in 2009 and 2010 by STX Europe Turku Shipyard, Finland. A third Oasis-class vessel, Harmony of the Seas, was delivered in 2016 built by STX France, and a fourth vessel, Symphony of the Seas, was completed in March 2018. As of March 2022, the fifth Oasis-class ship, Wonder of the Seas, is currently in service. A sixth ship, to be named Utopia of the Seas has also been ordered by the company.
Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Chinese producer of solar panels, with 2,000 MW (2,700,000 hp) of annual production capacity by the end of 2011. It is headquartered in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited, a HKSE listed renewable energy investment and Independent Power Producer company, acquired Suntech in 2014 following Suntech's bankruptcy in 2013. With offices or production facilities in every major market, Suntech has delivered more than 13,000,000 solar panels to thousands of companies in more than 80 countries around the world. As the center for the company's global operations, Suntech headquarters, in Wuxi, China, features the world's largest building integrated solar facade.
Many countries and territories have installed significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources. Solar power plants use one of two technologies:
Solar shingles, also called photovoltaic shingles, are solar panels designed to look like and function as conventional roofing materials, such as asphalt shingle or slate, while also producing electricity. Solar shingles are a type of solar energy solution known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).
Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are photovoltaic materials that are used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building envelope such as the roof, skylights, or facades. They are increasingly being incorporated into the construction of new buildings as a principal or ancillary source of electrical power, although existing buildings may be retrofitted with similar technology. The advantage of integrated photovoltaics over more common non-integrated systems is that the initial cost can be offset by reducing the amount spent on building materials and labor that would normally be used to construct the part of the building that the BIPV modules replace. In addition, BIPV allows for more widespread solar adoption when the building's aesthetics matter and traditional rack-mounted solar panels would disrupt the intended look of the building.
Spain is one of the first countries to deploy large-scale solar photovoltaics, and is the world leader in concentrated solar power (CSP) production.
Solar power represented a very small part of electricity production in the United Kingdom until the 2010s when it increased rapidly, thanks to feed-in tariff (FIT) subsidies and the falling cost of photovoltaic (PV) panels.
Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2021, utility-scale solar power generated 115 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 2.8% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 164 TWh.
A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity, a solar inverter to convert the output from direct to alternating current, as well as mounting, cabling, and other electrical accessories to set up a working system. It may also use a solar tracking system to improve the system's overall performance and include an integrated battery.
Oasis of the Seas is a cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean International. She is the first of her class, whose ships are the largest passenger ships in the world. Her hull was laid down in November 2007 and she was completed and delivered to Royal Caribbean in October 2009. At the time of construction, Oasis of the Seas set a new capacity record of carrying over 6,000 passengers. The first of her class, she was joined by sister ships Allure of the Seas in December 2010, Harmony of the Seas in May 2016, Symphony of the Seas in April 2018, and Wonder of the Seas in March 2022. Oasis of the Seas conducts cruises of the Caribbean from her home port of PortMiami in Miami, Florida.
Allure of the Seas is an Oasis-class cruise ship owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International. As of 2018, the Oasis class ships were the largest passenger vessels ever in service, and Allure is 50 millimetres (2.0 in) longer than her sister ship Oasis of the Seas, though both were built to the same specifications. Designed under the name "Project Genesis", she was ordered from Aker Finnyards in February 2006 and her construction began at the Perno shipyard, Turku, Finland, in February 2008. She was named in May 2008 after a contest was held to name her and her sister. The keel of Allure of the Seas was laid on 2 December 2008, shortly after the shipyard had been acquired by STX Europe.
Solar power has been growing rapidly in the U.S. state of California because of high insolation, community support, declining solar costs, and a renewable portfolio standard which requires that 60% of California's electricity come from renewable resources by 2030, with 100% by 2045. Much of this is expected to come from solar power via photovoltaic facilities or concentrated solar power facilities.
A rooftop solar power system, or rooftop PV system, is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a system include photovoltaic modules, mounting systems, cables, solar inverters and other electrical accessories.
Photovoltaic mounting systems are used to fix solar panels on surfaces like roofs, building facades, or the ground. These mounting systems generally enable retrofitting of solar panels on roofs or as part of the structure of the building. As the relative costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules has dropped, the costs of the racks have become more important and for small PV systems can be the most expensive material cost. Due to these trends, there has been an explosion of new racking trends. These include non-optimal orientations and tilt angles, new types of roof-mounts, ground mounts, canopies, building integrated, shading, vertical mounted and fencing systems.
Italy's solar power generation capacity is one of the largest in the world, with its 22.56 GW putting it sixth, just ahead of Australia. In 2019, Italy set a national goal of reaching 50 GW by 2030. In 2022, Italy is anticipating more than 3 GW of new capacity, which will be the largest addition to solar generation since 2012.
As of the end of 2014, solar power in Austria amounted to 766 megawatt (MW) of cumulative photovoltaic (PV) capacity, of which more than three quarters were installed within the last four years. Solar PV generated 766 gigawatt-hours, or about 1.4% of the country's final electricity consumption. As with most other European countries, 99.5 percent of all solar power systems are connected to the electrical grid. The nation's installed PV capacity by inhabitant stood at 91 watts, still below the European Union's 2014-average of 172 watts.
Solar power in Belgium reached an installed capacity of 4,254 MW of power generating 3,563 GWh of electricity in 2018. In 2015 PV solar power accounted for around 4% of Belgium's total electricity demand, the 4th highest penetration figure in the world, although the country is some way behind the leaders Germany, Italy and Greece at between 7% and 8% of electricity demand.
Harmony of the Seas is an Oasis-class cruise ship built by STX France at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, for Royal Caribbean International. With a gross tonnage of 226,963 GT, she is the third largest passenger ship in the world, larger than her older sisters Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, but surpassed by her newer sisters Symphony of the Seas and Wonder of the Seas. In length, however, Harmony of the Seas is the longest cruise ship in the world.