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The Soulra sound system for iPods and iPhones relies on a high-efficiency solar panel to power the speakers and recharge the music player.
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| Photovoltaics Come of Age | |
| Solar panels are cheap enough to become a major component of green energy.
The United States has supported research into photovoltaics for almost 40 years, recently with a 30 percent investment tax credit. Japan instituted incentives in the 1990s, when photovoltaics cost at least five times as much as residential electricity. In the new millennium, Germany instituted incentives an order of magnitude larger.
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| The German Experiment | |
| The government sets a premium price on solar and other alternative power sources. The policy offers lessons in ways to encourage the use of renewable energy.
A decade ago, Germany launched a renewable-energy plan on an unprecedented scale. Its parliament, the Bundestag, enacted a law obligating the nation`s electric utilities to purchase green power at sky-high rates--as much as 60 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar--under fixed contracts lasting up to 20 years. (German market prices for electricity, largely produced by coal and nuclear plants, were about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.) The idea behind this "feed-in tariff" was that anyone would be able to build a renewable-power plant--or install rooftop solar panels--and be guaranteed predictable profits by feeding energy into the grid, where utilities would buy it at premium prices. The higher costs would be passed on as monthly surcharges to ratepayers, spread out among all homes and businesses in a country of about 80 million people. Fossil and nuclear fuels amount to "global pyromania," said Hermann Scheer, the German politician who championed the policy. "Renewable energy is the fire extinguisher."
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| Solar`s Great Leap Forward | |
| Suntech CEO Zhengrong Shi made China a powerhouse in photovoltaic technology--and became a billionaire in the process. His next ambition: to make solar power as cheap as conventional electricity.
To see the future of solar power, take an hour-long train ride inland from Shanghai and then a horn-blaring cab trek through the smog of Wuxi, a fast-growing Chinese city of five million. After winding through an industrial park, you will arrive at the front door of Suntech Power, a company that in the few years since its founding has become the world`s largest maker of crystalline-silicon solar panels.
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| The House of the Day After Tomorrow | |
| A 1948 solar house designed by (gasp!) women
Decades before the term "carbon footprint" came into vogue, MIT held a symposium titled "Space Heating with Solar Energy."
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| PG&E teams up to offer solar power | |
| PG&E announced Monday that it has teamed up with SunRun to create a $100 million fund to finance rooftop solar installations. |
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| Going Green: Power generating wind turbine | |
| Very soon, a new power generating wind turbine will sit atop this building as a demonstration project to bring this renewable energy resource into urban use. |
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| IREC Announces Call for Presentations for 2011 Clean Energy Workforce Education Conference | |
| A strong and well-trained workforce is essential for the rapidly growing clean energy markets. This fourth national conference for educators and trainers will offer the most current information on instructional strategies, curricula development, career pathways, and best practices for training in the renewable energy and energy efficiency fields. |
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| Largest Ground-Mount Solar Installation in Georgia uses PV Powered Commercial Inverters | |
| PV Powered, Inc., an Advanced Energy company, announces that its commercial inverters have been selected for use in the largest ground-mounted photovoltaic solar installation in the state of Georgia. The one-acre 200kW project, on a pecan farm near Arlington, Georgia, will generate over 310,000 kWh`s of clean, affordable, sustainable energy per year, avoiding 223 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, and helping Georgia meet its renewable energy goals. The plant was engineered, constructed and commissioned by ESA Renewables, LLC, a Florida-based alternative energy provider, who is delivering all the energy from the site to Georgia Power under a five-year power purchase agreement (PPA). |
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| Europe To Import Sahara Solar Power Within 5 Years | |
| An anonymous reader writes "If just 1% of the Sahara Desert were covered in concentrating solar panels it would create enough energy to power the entire world. That`s a powerful number, and the European Union has decided to jump on its proximity to the Sahara in order to reap some benefits from the untapped solar energy beaming down on Northern Africa. Yesterday, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced that Europe will start importing solar energy from the Sahara within the next five years. It is estimated that the initiative will cost €400 billion ($495 billion). It`s part of an EU goal to derive 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020. From the article: `The EU is backing the construction of new electricity cables, known as inter-connectors, under the Mediterranean Sea to carry this renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. Some environmental groups have warned these cables could be used instead to import non-renewable electricity from coal- and gas-fired power stations in north Africa.` To this the energy minister replied, essentially, `Good question, we`ll get back to you on that.`"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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| Investor interest in wind firms slowing | |
| Investors` interest in Chinese wind companies may be slowing after Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co, China`s second-largest wind turbine maker, shelved a share sale in Hong Kong, analysts said on Monday. |
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| Second Wind adds Windographer integration to help energy companies see the wind | |
| Second Wind and Mistaya Engineering today announced a partnership to seamlessly integrate Mistaya`s Windographer analysis software and Second Wind`s wind data collection technology into a solution to help energy companies evaluate and select the most productive sites for their wind turbines. |
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| Dow Jones & SunPower To Build 4-MW PV System | |
| Dow Jones & Company has selected SunPower to install a solar power system with 4.1 megawatts (MW) of capacity at Dow Jones` corporate offices in central New Jersey. The system will include 3.6 MW of elevated solar panels above parking areas and a 522-kilowatt rooftop installation. |
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