Tag Archives: clean energy news

Solar Power Takes The Form Of A Sunflower

Smartflower supplies solar power

  Smartflower POP+ enables anyone to start their own personal energy revolution. The integrated power storage unit makes this all-in-one solar power system – the only one of its kind in the world – up to 100% independent of the grid day and night. How does smartflower work? With the first rays of the sun,…

First US Power-to-Gas Plants Open in California and Colorado

The first power-to-gas plant in the US opened in California

Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) is bringing science fiction to life, launching two demonstration projects to create and test a carbon-free, power-to-gas system for the first time ever in the U.S. The technology converts electricity into gaseous energy and could provide North America with a large-scale, cost-effective solution for storing excess energy produced from renewable…

Wind Tree Provides Silent Wind Power Beautifully

Wind Tree turbine

A new French start-up, NewWind, is making wind power beautiful!  Their new Wind Tree offers almost a hundred mini-windmills on an apparatus designed to look like a tree. Due to the light construction of the “leaves,” the Wind Tree generates power at wind speeds as low as 4.4 miles per hour!  This translates into sustained…

Your Solar Panels Are Facing the Wrong Way

Conventional wisdom says that panels should be installed facing south to get the most solar exposure (in the northern hemisphere). South-facing panels create the most power in the morning and mid-day, but peak demand for electricity typically occurs in the late afternoon. Because of that, a number of solar experts have begun to say that…

Amazon Heats Building With Data Center Waste Heat

Old tech- in the form of hydronic heating– meets new in nearby data centers, creating ‘green heating’ in Amazon’s latest new buildings in Seattle, WA. The offices and work areas of the new Amazon buildings will be heated by utilizing the waste heat of a nearby data center, and Amazon’s not stopping there. Heat from the…

Composite Material Reduces Cost of Solar Panels

Yingli Solar

Yingli Green Energy, the largest vertically integrated photovoltaic module manufacturer in the world, known as “Yingli Solar,” announced that they have successfully completed trial production of monocrystalline ingots for solar panels using new material technology. Instead of using traditional graphite crucibles when pulling monocrystalline ingots, Yingli experimented with crucibles made from a carbon-carbon (C-C) composite…

Tallest German Residential High-Rise Will Also Be Solar Aktivhaus

Award-winning proposed Aktivhaus apartment tower at Skyline Plaza complex in Frankfurt (skyscrapercity.com) The European residential high-rise boom has a green twist these days. Magnus Kaminiarz & Cie unanimously won this spring’s design award for…

Do-It-Yourself Solar Power Kits Available on Amazon

Andalay Solar has just announced that it is making its do-it-yourself solar power kits available for sale on Amazon.  Now potential solar customers all over the US have an easy way to access the equipment necessary to get free electricity. Andalay’s AC (alternating current) solar system allows homeowners to install their own photovoltaic system, and…

First Solar Releases 92.5-Watt Thin-Film PV Module

“This increase in module efficiency, coupled with our thin-film technology’s real-world yield advantage when compared to crystalline silicon PV, results in higher energy density and lower levelized cost of energy (LCOE).”

SunWize Partners with Clean Power Finance to Expand Portfolio of Residential Solar Financing Solutions

Solar finance products such as leases and power purchase agreements (PPAs) are crucial tools for solar professionals who want to expand their business. Clean Power Finance’s financing solutions offer solar professionals and distributors a variety of solar leases and PPAs, driving competitive prices and allowing installers to tailor options to homeowner preferences.