Category: solar

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June 04th, 2013

EPA Tool Determines Viability of Solar Projects on Contaminated Sites

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy have jointly created a tool to make it easier to judge the viability of contaminated land for use in solar and wind energy projects. Designed for energy developers, the “decision trees” (solar_decision_tree.pdf) enable state and local governments, landowners, and clean-up project managers to evaluate the 11,000 [...]

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May 22nd, 2013

Solar Powered Picnic Tables Coming to College Campuses

They may look like picnic tables, but these aren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill wood tables sold at your local home store. Maryville College in Tennessee has become the latest college campus to install “Solar Doks”, off-grid solar powered picnic tables made from recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and equipped with three 45-watt solar panels per side and [...]

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April 01st, 2013

What Are Solar Roof Shingles?

Q: I’m getting my roof redone and have heard about solar roof shingles. Are they available—and are they practical for the Northeast? Solar shingles are photovoltaic cells designed to look like and integrate with conventional asphalt roof shingles. First commercially available in 2005, solar shingles were much more costly than traditional “bolt-on” photovoltaic panels, and [...]

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February 21st, 2013

Nanocrystal ‘Solar Paint’ Could Replace Panels and be Applied to Any Surface

If the thought of installing an array of solar panels on your roof in order to harvest solar energy doesn’t appeal to you, fret not; you could soon be applying “solar paint” to all the exterior surfaces of your home instead. By adapting existing technology already in use to generate electricity, scientists at USC and [...]

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February 14th, 2013

Sharp’s See-Through Solar Panels Used as Architectural Glass

In a move that could soon make solar panels on homes and buildings the norm rather than the exception, Sharp has introduced new see-through solar panels that can be integrated invisibly as architectural glass. According to a press release from Sharp, the new panels can be used in a conventional manner mounted on the roof [...]

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January 30th, 2013

IKEA Plugs-In South Florida’s Largest Solar Energy System

IKEA today officially plugged-in the solar energy system installed at its South Florida City of Sunrise store – which will be the largest solar installation in South Florida and, when combined with IKEA projects already completed atop stores in Orlando and Tampa, will make IKEA the state’s largest non-utility solar owner. It takes a lot [...]

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January 15th, 2013

Peel-and-Stick Solar Cells Can Be Placed Nearly Anywhere

Researchers at Stanford University and the United States Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have co-developed solar cells that most anyone would be happy to buy: they can be put on nearly any surface. Stanford’s Xiaolin Zheng and NREL principal scientist Qi Wang were the leaders of the project. While Stanford researchers had [...]

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