Parking Lots Capture Solar Energy

By adding a "second story" (solar panel overhang), parking lots are being turned into energy producers (more like capturers).

From WPIX Parking Lots Into Solar Ports

Suffolk would build solar panel carports at seven of its largest parking areas, Suffolk Executive Steve Levy said. "It's a win-win for everybody, as not only do solar carports generate clean energy, but they provide a convenient shelter from hot sun or inclement weather for drivers," said Levy.




Have a product you want marketed? We Invest In Great Ideas

Installation Cost Is Now A Bigger Factor With Solar

 From Reuters,  Solar Companies focus on nuts and bots to cut costs.

That decline has put a spotlight on installation, which now makes up a greater share of the total cost, and has prompted installers, developers and even panel makers to look for low-tech tricks, like quick fasteners and predrilled holes.

What CleanTech Industries Benefit From New Tax Incentives?

From IBD New Tax Incentives Highlight Big Winners In CleanTech

As part of the $700 billion economic rescue package, solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cells and other clean-energy firms received tax incentives that help them compete with traditional forms of energy

Incentives are key for clean energy, which usually costs more to produce than traditional sources of power such as natural gas, coal and nuclear plants.

The clear winners: solar and emerging fuel-cell technology for providing electricity for industrial and commercial buildings.

Even more important, power utilities can now access the tax credit under the new bill. That will help create demand for larger-scale projects that deep-pocketed utilities can roll out, analysts say.

Analysts also point out that wind is closer to becoming competitive with traditional power sources

I've compiled a list of:

Solar Stocks

Wind Energy Stocks

Rent A Solar Panel For Your Home

What a great idea.

From CNN Money Solar power your home, for cheap

A Silicon Valley startup rents solar panels to homeowners - a strategy that is both cost-effective for customers and, thanks to generous tax breaks, a boon to its bottom line.

"The biggest barrier for solar is the upfront cost," said Lyndon Rive, CEO of Foster City, Calif.-based SolarCity.

Rive's company may have hit on a solution. Instead of selling solar panels to homeowners, SolarCity's main business is leasing the panels. The consumer pays SolarCity a monthly lease payment - about $75 for a 2.8 kilowatt system - which, when combined with his newly-lowered electric bill, typically adds up to a savings of 10% to 15%.

SolarCity does all the installation work, and there's little risk for the consumer since SolarCity guarantees a minimum level of power production.

Plastic Solar Cells Move Into Large-Scale Production

From Technology Review:
Mass Production of Plastic Solar Cells

In a significant milestone in the deployment of flexible, printed photovoltaics, Konarka, a solar-cell startup based in Lowell, MA, has opened a commercial-scale factory, with the capacity to produce enough organic solar cells every year to generate one gigawatt of electricity, the equivalent of a large nuclear reactor.


Organic solar cells could cut the cost of solar power by making use of inexpensive organic polymers rather than the expensive crystalline silicon used in most solar cells.

The technology has several drawbacks that will initially limit its applications. The solar cells only last a couple of years, unlike the decades that conventional solar cells last. What's more, the solar cells are relatively inefficient.

Window tinting becomes energy producing.

Because the solar cells can be made transparent, Konarka is also developing a version of its solar cells that could be laminated to windows to generate electricity and serve as a window tinting.


Publicly Traded Solar Stocks

Texas And Pickens Plan Making Wind Energy Progress

A billionaire oilman and the 'Lone Star State' of Texas are driving wind to new heights of acceptance and growth in the United States.

Pickens Plan blog has a great story titled High Winds For Texas

Some highlights I found.

Or as put by Paul Sadler, executive director of The Wind Coalition, the decision solves the infamous ‘chicken and egg’ issue that stymies wind energy growth.

The resource needs transmission to grow, but transmission owners do not want to build unless they know for sure that wind generators will come on line.

At the same time, wind developers do not want to commit to projects unless they know the transmission will exist.

Oil fields have a decline curve, a finite supply.

Pickens said that the development of wind power is critical as oil supplies decline. ‘You find an oilfield, it peaks and starts declining, and you’ve got to find another one to replace it’, Pickens said. ‘It can drive you crazy. With wind, there’s no decline curve.’

Pickens, and others pushing for an expanded transmission system, miss another key point, according to Kurt Yeager, former president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and now executive director of the Galvin Electricity Initiative.

Yeager says it is not enough to make the grid bigger, it needs to be better, specifically upgraded from a ‘dumb’ 1950s mechanical switch-based system to a digital technology befitting the times.

To that end, Yeager and former Motorola chief Robert Galvin are attempting to convince industry thought-leaders and policymakers that as a first step they need to pursue a smart grid, particularly on the distribution level.

In today’s power system, the ability to accommodate that kind of intermittency is not possible unless we have large quantities of back-up power or storage.

In a smart grid, I can use silicon as my back up energy source’, Yeager said.

Up-to-date digital controls and communications technology allows the grid to anticipate the natural fluctuations in wind and solar power and keep power supply in step with consumer demand, according to Yeager.

If such a system is developed, the US would find it could use the existing transmission system more, ‘rather than stretch new wires that nobody wants in their backyard’, Yeager said in an interview.

Publicly Traded Solar Stocks

Clean Energy's Dirty Little Secret

Experts say that without a solution to the grid problem, effective use of wind power on a wide scale is likely to remain a dream.

From NY Times Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid's Limits

Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

What is the problem?

The basic problem is that many transmission lines, and the connections between them, are simply too small for the amount of power companies would like to squeeze through them. The difficulty is most acute for long-distance transmission, but shows up at times even over distances of a few hundred miles

How can it be solved?

“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The windiest sites have not been built, because there is no way to move that electricity from there to the load centers,” Gabriel Alonso said.

In Texas, T. Boone Pickens, the oilman building the world’s largest wind farm, plans to tackle the grid problem by using a right of way he is developing for water pipelines for a 250-mile transmission line from the Panhandle to the Dallas market

Mayor Bloomberg Wants New York City To Go Green

Cleantech
Mayor Bloomberg has a green energy plan for the City of New York.

Bloomberg proposed putting windmills on top of city bridges, and skyscrapers, and turbines in the Hudson and East Rivers.

In terms of offshore locations, aides to the mayor told CBS 2's Magee Hickey, the city is looking at the generally windy coast off of Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island for the turbines, which could provide 10 percent of the city's electricity in just 10 years.

The plan also includes the use of solar panels, possibly on the roofs of public and private buildings:

To show how serious he is, the mayor had lunch with T. Boone Pickens - the oil baron trying to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas - to talk about possibilities for such technology in New York City. Bloomberg gave companies until September 19 to submit innovative proposals to make the city "greener" by 2030.

More info on the The T Boone Pickens Plan