28Dec

Tiny Island Nation Switches on Solar at its International Airport

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments

Email, RSS Follow

From taking high-polluting nations to task for climate change to setting up a Mongolia-sized sanctuary for marine mammals, the tiny island nation of Palau, located roughly 500 miles east of the Philippines, has long been punching above its weight when it comes to environmental issues.

It’s latest venture is sending a clear message to the world—working with solar panel manufacturer Kyocera, Palau International Airport has just installed the nation’s largest solar array. Sure, its size (226.8kW) is not huge compared to the multi-hundred megawatt solar projects we see appearing around the world with increasing frequency, but it is still an important step forward.

(more…)

Share

Tags:
28Dec

India’s Tata Power to Divorce BP Solar

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments
India's Tata Power to Divorce BP Solar

Email, RSS Follow

BP Solar is suffering a slow death that is hard to watch and reflects the cutthroat competition that marks an industry that used to be a lot more Pollyanna. The company is closing down and on Tuesday its joint venture partner, Tata Power, said it will buy out BP’s share in their enterprise.

Tata said it will purchase the 51 percent BP had in their Tata BP Solar joint venture, which was formed in 1989 and makes silicon solar panels and offers solar system design services. Tata didn’t disclose the purchase price. The joint venture is among the top three solar cell and panel makers in India, according to GTM Research.

The deal gives Tata total control of an operation that could benefit from India’s emergence as a sizable solar market. India’s central government wants to see 20 gigawatts of grid-tied solar energy and 2 gigawatts of off-grid uses by 2022, and it launched an incentive program in January 2010 that has auctioned off projects. A few states in India also run solar incentive programs. All these efforts are recent, so whether India can hit its goals still remains a big question.

(more…)

Share

Tags:
27Dec

The Good, the bad and the ugly: Solar thermal energy

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments
The Good, the bad and the ugly Solar thermal energy

Email, RSS Follow

The technology for harnessing solar energy to generate heat or thermal energy is called solar thermal energy (STE). The US Energy Information Administration has classified the solar thermal collectors as low, medium, or high temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are used to heat swimming pools, while medium-temperature collectors can be used to heat water or air for private or commercial purposes.

Share

Tags:
27Dec

Stunning Origami Solarcell Lamps Are Made From Folded Photovoltaic Panels!

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments
Stunning Origami Solarcell Lamps Are Made From Folded Photovoltaic Panels!

Email, RSS Follow

Korea-born, Eindhoven-based Joon & Jung‘s Origami Solarcell is a polygonal low-energy LED lamp that is completely powered by the sun’s energy. The pendant lights are made from a flexible photovoltaic material that is folded into a 3D lamp using origami techniques. The flat-pack multi-faceted lights are still in the prototype stage, but we hope to see these innovative, energy-efficient designs hit store shelves in the near future.

Share

Tags:
26Dec

Solar Power Year in Review 2011

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments

Email, RSS Follow

Please forgive us the journalistic conceit of collecting these year-end trends — it’s a necessary evil we all put ourselves through. In solar, this year is a bit more nerve-wracking than last. Here are ten trends in a particularly dynamic and pivotal year that will echo into 2012.

(more…)

Share

Tags:
22Dec

A solar hot water collector that makes electricity, too

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments
A solar hot water collector that makes electricity, too

Email, RSS Follow

The company today announced it raised $14 million in series C funding to commercialize a product that will draw electricity from solar hot water collectors. It will also make small chips able to convert heat from car exhaust pipes and industrial machines into electricity.

GMZ Energy, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College in 2008, has created an improved material for converting the energy in heat into electric power. The process works in reverse so an electric current will produce heat.

Thermoelectric materials have been used for years in a few applications, such as heated seats in cars and portable coolers. Now a number of companies are trying to make them less expensive and more efficient at the heat-to-electric power conversion.

(more…)

Share

Tags:
21Dec

Google Ends 2011 With a $94 Million Investment in Solar Power

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments
Google Ends 2011 With a $94 Million Investment in Solar Power

Email, RSS Follow

Google’s Renewable Energy Portfolion: $915m

Google has announced yet one more investment in clean energy (just following Warren Buffett’s two big solar power acquisitions). This time, they are investing $94 million into 4 different solar photovoltaic (PV) projects being built by Recurrent Energynear Sacramento, California. The combined PV projects have a capacity of 88 megawatts and will provide their electricity straight to the grid, unlike Google’s previous investments in rooftop solar PV. They should generate enough electricity to power about 13,000 US homes.

(more…)

Share

Tags:
21Dec

5 States with Most Solar & Wind Energy Had Smallest Increase in Electricity Prices 2005-2010

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments
5 States with Most Solar & Wind Energy Had Smallest Increase in Electricity Prices 2005-2010

Email, RSS Follow

This is, clearly, not a definitive analysis showing that renewable energy such as wind and solar lower electricity rates (or make them increase more slowly), but it is a pretty darn good argument in their favor! And it is also a great piece to share with anyone who thinks renewable energy raises the cost of electricity. Add in the health benefits, job creation benefits, grid security benefits, and environmental benefits and my hunch is that any analysis on the matter would tell us, “Hey, it’s about time we put the Big money into renewable energy!” (More on wind costs and solar costs (.. and solar costs) you might want to take a look at.)

(more…)

Share

Tags:
20Dec

Google still showers money on solar

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments

Email, RSS Follow

Despite dropping its internal solar technology development, Google continues to put money into solar power.

Assistant treasurer Axel Martinez said today that Google will invest $94 million into four commercial solar photovoltaic projects alongside private equity firm KKR. Google is investing equity in SunTap Energy, an entity created by KKR for solar investing.

The projects themselves are operated by Recurrent Energy, a company which specializes in commercial and utility solar photovoltaic projects. With a generating capacity of 88 megawatts, they will produce about 160 megawatt-hours per year, or enough to power 13,000 homes.

(more…)

Share

Tags:
19Dec

Two for one: Quantum dot solar cells boost power

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
No comments

Email, RSS Follow

Scientists designing the next generation of solar cells are trying to do away with waste heat.

Two research groups this week reported advances in a technique to capture a portion of the sunlight’s energy that’s normally lost as heat. The advances are aiming toward a breakthrough in how much light can be converted to electricity on a solar cell.

In a paper published in Science, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reported developing tiny crystals a few nanometers in size, called quantum dots, that are able to capture high-energy photons that today’s solar cells don’t.

(more…)

Share

Tags: