DoE Announces CSP Improvement Fund
The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a $25 million fund to drive advancement in concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies, part of the Obama administration’s Climate Action Plan target of doubling renewable energy generation in America by the end of the decade. The grant builds on the DOE’s Sunshot initiative, which provides a pool of […]
C-Enduro Commences New Ocean Mission
The wind and solar powered ASV C-Enduro recently commenced an oceanic robotics mission along with six other unmanned marine vessels off the southwest coast of England. The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) project will see the craft travelling up to 480 kilometres over 20 days, collecting scientific data about ocean processes and marine life along the […]
EV ARC – Electric Vehicle Autonomous Renewable Charger
The USA’s Envision Solar has developed a relocatable solar powered electric car charging station that can be deployed in minutes. Designed to fit comfortably inside a standard parking space, its 2.3kW solar panel array generates approximately 16kWhrs per day and features 22kWhr battery storage. The EV ARC solar power system incorporates a tracker, enabling the […]
US Solar School Census Report Published
More than 3,700 solar power systems are installed at public and private K-12 schools in the USA according to a report from The Solar Foundation. Nearly 2.7 million students are attending schools gaining some of their electricity by harvesting the power of the sun. The report states electricity generated in one year by all 3,727 […]
ATA’s Solar For Timor Project A Google Finalist
Australia’s Alternative Technology Association (ATA) is a finalist in the $500,000 Google Impact Challenge with its Solar for Timor initiative. An estimated 20% of all homes in East Timor won’t ever be connected to mains grid electricity. The Solar for Timor project would see the installation of 2000 solar lighting systems that would bring solar […]
RET Review Uncertainty Stalls Large Scale Renewables
Australia’s Federal Government has apparently succeeded in its mission to rein in the rollout of large scale renewables – even before its position on the Renewable Energy Target review has been announced. According to figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reported on The Guardian, the nation’s investment in renewable energy projects has dropped to […]
Giant Solar Powered Clams
Giant clams have been shown to use solar power – and mimicking how they do it could result in better solar panels. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California discovered the iridescent colourings of the giant clam’s mantle margin are used to nurture the growth of symbiotic algae that the clams […]
London’s Iconic Phone Boxes Go Green – Solarbox
The familiar red phone boxes of London have taken a bit of a battering in recent decades, but some will be given new life with a little help from solar power. Originally introduced in 1926, the red phone boxes numbered 73,000 throughout the United Kingdom at their peak in 1980. The rise of the mobile […]
Council Makes Wind/Solar Power Compulsory On New Homes
In a first for Australia, a council has voted to make on-site clean power generation on all new homes and some commercial buildings compulsory. The City of Nedlands in Perth has led the way in turning more of the vast ocean of under-utilised rooftops in Australia’s towns and cities into power generators. In the minutes of […]
SunEdison To Produce Polysilicon At ‘Lowest Cost In The World’
Solar power giant SunEdison, Inc. (NYSE: SUNE), has announced its most advanced polysilicon technology was now in production; which it says will reduce the cost of solar panel polysilicon to less than USD $0.05 per watt peak by 2016. The technology being used is called “high pressure fluidized bed reactor” (HP-FBR) and creates high purity […]