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Technology Stocks : Energy Conversion Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WALT REISCH who wrote (3289)	3/4/1999 10:46:00 AM
From: Don Devlin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

Dow Jones Newswires -- March 4, 1999 Shell Opens First Solar Service Stations; More Planned Dow Jones Newswires LONDON -- Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD) said Thursday it has officially opened its first solar service stations, two in Germany and two in the Netherlands, and will open eight more in Germany later this year. The company declined to reveal the investment involved. At the new stations in Hamburg, Germany, drivers of electric vehicles will be able to charge them up with solar electricity at a price of 42 pfennigs a killowatt hour. The rest of the solar power generated at the site will go into the local grid. The project is being managed in cooperation with Hamburgische Electriciteits-Werke AG (G.HEW) with which Shell set up a 'green' electricity venture in February. A Shell spokeswoman said that at least initially, the bulk of the power generated at the two German sites would go into the grid, given that the number of electric vehicles is still limited. The HEW fleet is electrically powered, however, and those vehicles will use the stations, she added. At Meerkerk and Wezep in the Netherlands, the stations will use the power generated themselves and will top up their requirements by renewable electricity from the Dutch company Nuon NV (N.NUN) provided over the regional grid. The four sites, each of which has an energy yield of 3,500 kilowatts a year, will use different solar energy systems in order to test various techniques for environmentally friendly power generation at industrial locations, Shell said. One of the German sites is fitted with a 'solar tracker', which is a 'collector' surface that moves round to track the position of the sun. This increases the energy yield by about 30% compared to conventional systems using the same number of solar cells, the company said. All the panels used at the stations are made at Shell's photovoltaic manufacturing site at Helmond, the Netherlands. Capacity there is being increased to 10 megawatts this year. Shell's German PV manufacturing site, in Gelsenkirchen, is scheduled to start up in the third quarter of this year. It will also have a 10 MW capacity, eventually rising to 20-25 MW. Shell said the linkup between its downstream and retail businesses and Shell Renewables is part of an ongoing drive "to find and develop new business through new energy solutions."