Solar Power
« Previous EntriesUS Interior Department sets aside twenty four federal solar zones for study
Friday, July 3rd, 2009The US Department of Interior (DOI) announced this week that they have identified twenty four sites in the western United States to be considered for utility scale solar plants. The sites are all on Federal land administered by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). What’s interesting about this announcement is that all [...]
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ABC News highlights 7 solar sensations
Thursday, June 25th, 2009If you’re interested, head on over to abcnews.com and check out 7 new “solar sensations” that they’re highlighting. The 7 sensations range from a solar powered aircraft expected to go on its first test flight shortly, to a solar powered bus station scheduled to be deployed in Italy in October, to a thin-film [...]
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Is molten salt the “secret sauce” for solar?
Saturday, May 30th, 2009A couple of companies in California, SolarReserve and Rocketdyne, are gearing up to use molten salt as the key ingredient in a new solar plant that’s expected to power 100,000 homes. While it sounds like a weird idea, the concept has actually been proven before, in a shuttered concentrated solar power (CSP) pilot plant near [...]
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NY Times interview with Daniel Nocera - Professor of Energy and MIT
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009This New York Times interview is very interesting. Daniel G. Nocera is a Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry at MIT, and he’s currently working on an artificial photosynthesis system that will use sunlight to generate hydrogen that can be used to power a fuel cell. One of the benefits of this [...]
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Sanyo hits new world record for solar cell efficiency, claims lower cost too
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009Sanyo has just announced that it has broken its own world record for crystalline silicon solar cell efficiency, with its new cells achieving an efficiency of 23%. On top of that, Sanyo also claims that its new process will lower the production cost of its solar cells and reduces the amount of silicon [...]
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Solyndra adds to its contracts with a $189m SunConnex deal
Sunday, May 10th, 2009Solyndra, which recently had gotten a $535 million Federal load guarantee from the Department of Energy, has just signed a new $189m multiyear contract with Amsterdam based solar intergrator SunConnex. The contract, which calls for Solyndra to sell an undisclosed number of its tubular thin film solar panels to SunConnex, is scheduled to [...]
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World’s largest solar power tower now operating in Spain
Monday, May 4th, 2009A new solar power tower, built by Abengoa Solar in Spain, has started up operations. The PS20 is made up of a solar field consisting of 1255 mirrored heliostats with a surface area of 1291 square feet each. These mirrors reflect the sun onto the receiver, which is at the top of [...]
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ZenithSolar’s rotating dishes helping to power Israel
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009ZenithSolar, an Israeli startup, has just turned on a new solar farm that consists of a system of rotating dishes to produce electricity and thermal energy. The dishes, which are made up of mirrors and concentrated photovoltaic solar cells, track the sun to harness up to 75% of the incoming light to generate electricity, [...]
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Exelon and SunPower unite to develop urban solar power plant
Friday, April 24th, 2009In a press release on April 22, Exelon and SunPower Corp announced that they had entered into an agreement to develop the largest urban solar power plant in the US. The new plant will be placed on 39 acres of a former industrial site on Chicago’s South Side. The brownfield site will generate [...]
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Solyndra snags $535 million federal loan guarantee and boosts performance of its panels
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009Solyndra, the Fremont based company that makes cylindrical thin film solar panels and has been engaged in a bit of a war of words with Nanosolar (see Thin Film Smackdown!), has just been awarded a Department of Energy $535 million loan guarantee. Solyndra plans to use the money to build a new plant in Fremont, [...]
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