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The largest solar power plant of its type in the world - once promoted as a turning point in green energy - isn't producing as much energy as planned. One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn't shining as much as expected.

Although our array was designed to generate 30% of our electricity requirements, we are pleased to report that in reality it generates more than that and on very sunny days, we become a net exporter of clean green electricity.

... heated fight for a seat on Louisiana's Public Service Commission (PSC) is still going strong. December runoff between PSC chairman Eric Skrmetta and alternative energy advocate Forest Bradley-Wright.

The $2.73 million project started Oct. 2 with a site layout and installation of panel frames. Dozens of panels had been installed by Wednesday — a total of 2,629 will be installed. Each panel, made by Suniva, is 3 feet by 6 feet, said Jim Gleisberg, spokesman for the VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System. Topeka’s project is funded by the VA Central Office and will save the VA in Topeka more than $300,000 in electrical utility costs yearly, Gleisberg said. The solar panels will produce about 700 kilowatts per day, or roughly 8 percent of the power on the...

NEW ORLEANS – A joint federal-state investigation continued Friday into the shocking firebombing Thursday at the Uptown home of a well-known political strategist. On Wednesday, we told you about the surprising results in the Public Service Commission race and how the high-stakes, expensive runoff between incumbent Eric Skrmetta and alternative energy advocate Forest Bradley-Wright could affect the future of energy regulation in Louisiana. Just a few short hours later, everything changed. Bradley-Wright's finance director and chief fundraiser, Mario Zervigon, had his two cars and Uptown home destroyed in a shocking firebombing. Investigators are checking with ProjectNOLA for crime camera footage...

After already receiving a controversial $1.6 billion construction loan from U.S. taxpayers, the wealthy investors of a California solar power plant now want a $539 million federal grant to pay off their federal loan. "This is an attempt by very large cash generating companies that have billions on their balance sheet to get a federal bailout, i.e. a bailout from us - the taxpayer for their pet project," said Reason Foundation VP of Research Julian Morris. "It's actually rather obscene." The Ivanpah solar electric generating plant is owned by Google and renewable energy giant NRG, which are responsible for paying...

During the past 48 hours, monster sunspot AR2192 has unleashed seven M-class solar flares. The most powerful of the bunch (Oct 22nd at 0159 UT) was an M9-class eruption that almost crossed the threshold into X-territory. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash. UV radiation from the flare ionized Earth's upper atmosphere, causing a brief blackout of HF radio communications on the dayside of Earth (e.g., parts of Asia and Australia). In addition, the explosion might have hurled a CME into space. Confirmation awaits the arrival of coronagraph data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Stay tuned...

Demonstrators gathered outside the Public Service Commission to protest against a requested rate structure change by the local utility company, Madison Gas and Electric (MG&E). During the protest, they decried the use of "dirty coal" and called for more renewable energy. To make their point, they had a blow-up coal power plant that was running on a fan powered by wind and solar charged batteries. Before the protest was over, however, the batteries died and their solar panel could not produce enough energy to keep the power plant standing upright.

A new kind of solar cell could store electrical energy without any help from traditional batteries, according to a new study. Researchers at Ohio State University, in Columbus, have developed what they're calling the world's first solar battery — a hybrid device that combines the energy-capturing abilities of a solar cell with the energy-storing capabilities of a battery. The new cell could lower the cost of harvesting renewable energy from the sun by as much as 25 percent, according to the researchers. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas] The key to the device's success is a mesh solar panel that allows...

A new financing offering could make home solar cheaper and more attractive to homeowners, and keep the adoption of home solar growing. The offer, announced by SolarCity this week, is a loan that allows homeowners to install their own solar system on their roof for little or no money down, and pay less for electricity. Previous plans, while popular, turned off some because the solar company owned the system. "The value proposition is becoming clearer and less complicated for consumers," says Patrick Jobin, an analyst at Credit Suisse. "Solar is going mainstream." SolarCity's new loan deal and current similar deals...

“Renewable” energy is unreliable, and can never replace secure base load sources like coal, natural gas, and hydro. And now a bunch of greenies have embarrassed themselves and proved the point. Attempting to show how wonderful solar power is, a band of self-righteous greenie demonstrators in Madison, WI, the Berkeley of the Midwest, instead demonstrated that reliance on renewables means brownouts and blackouts. Protesting a proposed rate increase by the local utility, Madison Gas & Electric, they made utter fools of themselves, and showed by reliable power from hydrocarbons is the only way to have secure energy supplies. The MacIver...

A new MIT study offers a way out of one of solar power's most vexing problems: the matter of efficiency, and the bare fact that much of the available sunlight in solar power schemes is wasted. The researchers appear to have found the key to perfect solar energy conversion efficiency—or at least something approaching it. It's a new material that can accept light from an very large number of angles and can withstand the very high temperatures needed for a maximally efficient scheme. Conventional solar cells, the silicon-based sheets used in most consumer-level applications, are far from perfect. Light from...

If you ask the people who run America's electric utilities what keeps them up at night, a surprising number will say solar power. Specifically, rooftop solar. That seems bizarre at first. Solar power provides just 0.4 percent of electricity in the United States — a minuscule amount. Why would anyone care? But utilities see things differently. As solar technology gets dramatically cheaper, tens of thousands of Americans are putting photovoltaic panels up on their roofs, generating their own power. At the same time, 43 states and Washington DC have "net metering" laws that allow solar-powered households to sell their excess...

NEW YORK — Environmentalists worship solar energy and wind power as Earth-friendly answers to their ecological prayers. Tortoises, bats, butterflies, and bald eagles beg to differ.Perhaps because solar panels and industrial wind farms lack emissions, they seem “clean.” Despite their pristine appearance, however, these “green” electricity sources hammer Mother Nature — often fatally. Consider the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California’s Mojave Desert. As Carolyn Lochhead wrote in September 7’s San Francisco Chronicle, Ivanpah occupies 3,500 previously untouched federal acres. It features 300,000 mirrors that focus sunlight on three 40-story towers of power. Inside, 900-degree temperatures yield steam, propel...

You can visit solar homes near you.

Besides the obvious advantage of a free heating source (as long as the sun continues to rise and set) we have discovered a few more advantages:

The U.S. is planning to train veterans to become solar panel installers in the next six years, the White House said Thursday. The jobs training program is among a host of initiatives the White House says will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300 million tons through 2030, plus save billions of dollars on energy bills for homeowners and businesses. It will launch this fall at one or more military bases and train a total of at least 50,000, including veterans. …

"The bottom line is solar works here," said Pete Wirth, whose 18 solar panels supply all of his Fayetteville home's electrical power. "It would probably work better if you had no cloudy days, but solar works perfectly fine in Central New York." The only way solar works here, or just about anywhere, is with heavy government subsidies. Wirth's system cost $24,000 when it was installed two years ago, but after tax credits and rebates, he paid about $6,200. That means taxpayers pick up about 75 percent of the cost of solar systems.

With billions of dollars in federal stimulus money in hand, the Obama administration set out five years ago on a grand experiment in the California desert. The goal: Open public lands to renewable-energy development to wean the nation from fossil fuels. The results haven't been pretty, a fact the administration has tacitly acknowledged by devising a new plan, expected to be released this month, to find better places to put industrial-scale solar farms in the California desert.

Wintershall's head of exploration and production warned Thursday that Germany's 'Energiewende' (or Energy Transition) dream of pursuing an economy powered by the wind and the sun is in danger of turning into a nightmare. Speaking to energy journalists at the ONS exhibition in Stavanger, Norway, Wintershall Executive Director Martin Bachmann said he was concerned about figures recently published by Statistics Norway that showed overall investment in Norway's petroleum sector will drop by EUR 6 billion ($7.9 billion) next year. "That is actually bad news for Europe's security of supply and I think Germany – as the biggest market in Europe...