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+23 +1
New York just showed every other state how to do solar right
"This is as exciting as the Public Service Commission gets."
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+20 +1
Solar panel force fields are on their way
In our most hopeful visions of the future, giant swathes of unused land are covered with solar panels, we've figured out how to efficiently channel solar energy into the grid, and everything is wonderful. A major problem, though, is that the areas ideal for huge solar farms – open plains and deserts in hot countries – also tend to be arid, windy, and filled with sand or dust. These particles stick to the solar panels' surfaces, making them both less effective and more expensive...
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+14 +1
Apple in Big Solar Power Deal
Apple Inc will buy about $850 million of power from a new California solar farm to cut its energy bill.
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+11 +1
Another State Fights War on Solar and Energy Efficiency
Despite poll after poll showing that Americans want more clean energy, Indiana legislators are pushing bills that would reduce energy efficiency and make it harder for Hoosier state residents to go solar, just as the solar industry is getting on its feet in the state. Last week, Indiana’s Senate Utilities Committee heard from a packed room about its bill that would let utilities set energy efficiency goals. Last year the state decided to end the popular Energizing Indiana efficiency program.
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+15 +2
New Graphene 'Wonder Material' Breakthrough Enables Doubling of Solar Panel Efficiency
One of the major reasons that solar panels are facing such hurdles to replace conventional electricity sources is because they are very inefficient. The most efficient (and most expensive) panel is currently somewhere around 32 percent efficiency. However, scientists in Switzerland have figured out a way to utilize Graphene in solar panel design, raising its efficiency to an absolutely staggering 60% – a finally feasible amount.
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+16 +1
Indiana Solar Bill Crafted By Utilities Sparks Outrage, Raises Costs
A confusing bill making its way through the Legislature could hamper Indiana's nascent solar industry.
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+19 +1
Transmission Line That Could Bring Wind And Solar Power To Millions In West Gets Go-Ahead
The new transmission lines would span across New Mexico and Arizona, and add up to 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy to the grid.
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+13 +1
How the rise of a mega solar panel farm shows us the future of energy
After about an hour of weaving up and down the winding, mountainous, two-lane highway that is route 58, eastbound from San Luis Obispo, I honestly started to wonder where 9 million solar panels — one of the world’s largest operating solar panel farms that was built in this region — could be hiding. I passed a herd of ranch buffalo that stared lazily at my car from behind a barbed wire fence, then a tiny winery hidden amid a forest (unfortunately, not open for public tastings).
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+5 +1
Peru Is Now Giving Free Solar Power To Its 2 Million Poorest Citizens
The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program will cost about $200 million, which is basically nothing in the scheme of most international budgets.
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+20 +1
New technique offers spray-on solar power
Pretty soon, powering your tablet could be as simple as wrapping it in cling wrap. That’s Illan Kramer’s (ECE) hope. Kramer and colleagues have just invented a new way to spray solar cells onto flexible surfaces using miniscule light-sensitive materials known as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs)—a major step toward making spray-on solar cells easy and cheap to manufacture.
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+18 +1
The US Now Has More Solar Workers Than Coal Miners
There are now more people working in the solar industry than there are coal miners, according to Politifact. They cite the Solar Foundation, a nonprofit, which counted 142,698 employees in November of 2013 who spend "at least 50% of their time supporting solar-related activities." The foundation says they made 74,000 phone calls and sent 11,000 emails to produce their workforce census...
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+23 +1
World's largest solar farm is up and running in California
The world's largest solar plant is up and running in California, with the completion of Topaz, a 550 megawatt plant; the Topaz solar project completed its final 40-megawatt (AC) phase, reported Greentech Media, making history not only as the first 500-megawatt plus solar farm to come on-line in the ...
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+15 +1
A Much Cheaper Grid Battery Comes to Market
A new kind of battery that stores energy from solar and wind power cheaply and cleanly has hit the market. It is by far the cheapest of a new generation of large, long-lived batteries that could make it possible to rely heavily on intermittent, renewable energy sources. Aquion Energy, a company spun out of Carnegie Mellon University, recently delivered the first of its batteries to operators of small power grids, or “microgrids,” that can operate independently of the centralized grid
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+14 +1
Solar Plant Wants to Pay Off Massive Government Loan with Massive Government Grant
American taxpayers are on the hook for the Ivanpah solar project out in the California Mojave Desert close to the border of Nevada. The massive plant received $1.6 billion in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy to build it, out of a total cost of about $2.2 billion.
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+15 +1
Dutch Test SolaRoad Solar Panels on Bike Path
A project dubbed "SolaRoad" gets underway in the Netherlands this week, testing roadways as a potential canvas to collect solar energy. Fittingly for the cycle-crazy Dutch.
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+19 +1
Solar cheaper in India than imported Australian coal
Results of solar auction shows solar PV projects in India are cheaper than the electricity price needed to pay for imports of coal from Australia.
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+16 +1
In Two Years, Rooftop Solar Will Cost The Same As Grid Electricity
The price of rooftop solar power is falling fast. Just recently, the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory said solar energy prices dropped by up to 19% countrywide in 2013, and by 12% this year. Prices now are 59% lower than what people said they would be back in 2010, showing how rapid the advances have been.
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+17 +1
Netherlands unveils world's first solar bike lane
The world's first cycle lane made from solar cells produces enough energy to power three households. Installed in Krommenie, 25 kilometres from Amsterdam, the pilot project is 70 metres long, and will be extended to 100 metres by 2016.
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+14 +1
Netherlands unveils world's first solar bike lane
The world's first cycle lane made from solar cells produces enough energy to power three households. Installed in Krommenie, 25 kilometres from Amsterdam, the pilot project is 70 metres long, and will be extended to 100 metres by 2016. The bike path is made from rectangular concrete modules that contain solar cells, and is encased in a one-inch thick layer of glass strong enough to withstand a truck.
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+15 +1
'Self-sufficient' hydrogen site open
Honda's "self-sufficient" hydrogen refuelling station has officially opened at the company's Swindon plant. The company said it was the UK's first commercial-scale solar-powered hydrogen production and refuelling facility.
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