solar power

photo courtesy of General Motors

You may have read how General Motors recently announced that its Zaragosa, Spain factory would be hosting the world's largest rooftop solar array. This Thursday you can get your chance to ask GM Green Power Initiatives Manager Rob Threlkeld all about the plant, solar energy in general, and GM’s use of renewable energy. The chat will take place at the GMnext website, from 3-4 PM, EDT. You’ll have to register to participate prior to the event.

photo: Getty Images

The various renewable energy incentive packages introduced into the U.S. Congress, or stalled in the Senate have been a running post topic in the last month or so on TreeHugger. Now comes word, through GreenTechMedia, that legislative inaction may result in at least one company abandoning two U.S. solar projects.
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photo by James Gordon

Baghdad may not be able to provide city residents enough electricity from the grid to keep the lights on in people’s homes and businesses for more than half the day, but the streetlights may soon may have a more reliable source of power. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Iraqi Electricity Ministry and the U.S. military are in the process of installing solar-powered street lighting throughout the capital.

Security Impetus For Solar Lighting
The Electricity m...

Eastern elevation rendering courtesy of BAPS Shree Swaminarayan Mandir

Recently I wrote about how Hindu temples in India have been making efforts to green their energy usage and commented that, given the core belief of the interconnectedness of all life in Sanatana Dharma, it wasn’t surprising that Hindu temples would embrace cleaner energy. Now comes word, via Inhabitat, that a new mandir (temple) and cultural center in Chino Hills, Calif...

The beauty of "largest" records is that they just keep on growing. Florida Power & Light Company announces the selection of SunPower to build the largest solar photovoltaic power plant in the United States, a 25-megawatt power plant in DeSoto County, Florida, expected to go on-line in 2009, contingent on approval of the Florida Public Service Commission. SunPower's reputation rests on the high-efficiency (22 percent efficient) Gen 2 technology photovoltaic chips, which have been in mass production since 2007....

photo by laurenatclemson via flickr

Rising oil prices may be making wind power cost-competitive in Spain, but the key to Spain’s rapidly growing solar industry has been generous government subsidies creating market stability. Although nothing is definite yet, simply the mention of reducing the level at which subsidies are capped has created waves in the Iberian solar industry.
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Imagine if every window in a skyscraper was a solar concentrator.

MIT Solar Concentrator Innovation: More Bang for your Buck
Solar concentrators do what you might expect, concentrate solar light. Usually they are large mirrors or other devices, but the goal of any solar concentrator is to concentrate the light that falls on a large area to a smaller one. The idea is that the (usually cheap) solar concentrator increases the efficiency of the (usually expensive) solar cell, getting more energy for input of money. Recent advances in this technology have focused around better performance of the solar cell, like the IBM's

Sulfurcell Headquarters photo courtesy of Sulfurcell.

It was only a few weeks ago when we learned that Intel was getting into solar hrough its Intel Capital division. Well, their solar investments continue once more. This time with a €24 million investment in Sulfurcell, a German thin-film solar developer and manufacturer using

Intel was the leading single investor in the €85 million total equity round, with an additional €38 million coming from a mix of European investors—Climate Change Capital Private Equity, AIG, Demeter Partners, Zouk Ventures and BankInvest. The balance of the...

Tirumala temple photo by SJ Jagadeesh

I’ve often thought that way for ego-consciousness to really become ingrained in people’s lives is for it to be truly adopted by the major faiths of the world—for the interconnectedness of all life to be impressed upon everyone from a young age. Such a belief is already the foundation of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism so when Time recently ran an article about how India’s Hindu temples are increasingly embracing green ethics, it seemed a perfectly natural match.

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photo courtesy of General Motors

Yet another “world’s largest” in solar power: General Motors has partnered with Clairvoyant Energy, Veolia Environmental and the Government of Aragon to install what will be the world’s largest rooftop solar array on its Zaragosa, Spain assembly plant.

According to GM the array will be 12 MW in size and cover two million square feet and consist of approximately 85,000 panels. Installation is expected to be completed this fall. The space for the project will be leased from General Motors by Veolia Environment and Clairvoyant Energy, who will operate and maintain the installation. According to GM the project will help the corporation reduce cost...

Copper Nanorods Reduce Energy Needed by an Order of Magnitude
After super-efficient solar panels that are "hairy" on the nanoscale, here come "hairy" pots & pans, as well as computer chip heatsinks and other heat-transferring devices. Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute made the "unexpected" discovery: "by adding an invisible layer of the nanomaterials to the bottom of a metal vessel, an order of magnitude increase in efficiency is achieved in bringing water to boil. [...] The potential applications for this discovery are vast and exci...

Airship design circa 1817

Why do I feel like what I’m about the present isn’t real—that’s it’ll come out that it’s really just a big sociology experiment on the gullibility of bloggers?

We covered Darren Campbell’s Turtle Airships about eight months ago, but Mr Campbell has just issued another pronouncement about the great turtle airship future that is so (cough) enthusiastic that I am compelled to share it. I’ll let the original text work its magic.
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photo by Petor Smit

Even though it was announced over a month ago now, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s decision to put a moratorium on all new applications for solar energy development on the lands it controls in six western states only managed to make it onto the collective media radar last week. If the comments Treehugger has received about this development are representative of the green community as a whole, no one’s too pleased by this Federal decision. That includes the solar industry itself:

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image source: United Technologies

The perennial complaint by renewable energy skeptics about wind and solar power is, that despite the fact that they produce clean power, they are intermittent in nature and require some sort of storage technology to fully exploit the power generated. A recent article at Renewable Energy World spotlights one solution to this very real issue: Molten Salt.

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Read the tech schtick below, but basically stick it to a flat surface and plug in. Dope.

Power-Ply 380 Roof Integrated Photovoltaic (RIPV) module is designed for flat roof applications and is easily installed over TPO, PVC, EPDM, Modified, and Built-Up roof systems. Its unique design combines high-efficiency cell technology with direct roof application to maximize energy generation for a given roof area. In addition, it eliminates the need for racking systems or other mounting structures that penetrate the roof, resulting in faster installations and less distractions for building owners.

A new manufacturing process could mean improved efficiency for solar cells. The technique, which is being pioneered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, results in “hairy” solar cells.

The hairs are visible only on the microscopic level. They’re actually nanowires: tiny silicon or metallic structures used to complete very small circuits.

So we know what it takes to live off grid and how you generate off grid power, but what does living off grid look like? It might be a surprise to some, but some off-grid homes are totally indistinguishable from other houses in the neighborhood (except for the lack of power lines and electricity meters).

Above is the Van Geet Off-Grid Home [pdf], sponsored by the U.S. De...

As we reported before, many solar power farms are planned in the province of Ontario, Canada. Major players include SunEdison of Baltimore and Skypower of Toronto, who just broke ground on a solar project, and OptiSolar, a California manufacturer of thin-film silicon solar cells (the composite image above is of their Sarnia project).

The Toronto Star reports that the province now has contracts for 407 megawatts, while it initially predicted that it would get 88. We suppose that's enough to call their progr...

In Minnesota, Great River Energy is seeking LEED Platinum certification for their newly constructed headquarters, which will open tomorrow on Earth Day. Solar cells on the building's roof will generate power, as will a 160-foot-tall wind turbine, that will generate 225 kilowatts of electricity. The headquarters will have a geothermal heating and cooling system that utilizes an adjacent lake. Rainwater will be captured in cisterns, and be used to flush toilets, and irrigate the restored native-plant gardens on 12.5-acre site.
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We may not need futurist and inventor Raymond Kurzweil to tell us that solar energy is going to rule in 20 years or the fact that nanotechnology could give global warming a big chill (pdf link), but it’s always a good thing to be reassured. He is one of the distinguished futurists that predicted the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the explosive growth of the Internet and wireless systems.

“We also see an exponential progression in the use of solar energy,” he said. “It is doubling now every two years. Doubling every two years means multiplying by 1,000 in 20 years. At that rate we’ll meet 100 percent of our energy needs in 20 years.”

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French-Canadian designer Alexandre Verdier is aiming to revive the spirit of the original Volkswagen Microbus camper vans.

As with the original Westfalia and the hippy culture, the new Westfalia Verdier Solar Power is part of a new culture with its own rituals. It is based on green energy and the pleasure to be self-sufficient. This new culture also believes that technology should allow people to understand nature and its power... or something.

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