Free Republic

Bruce Blakeman of Sustainable Technology, Inc. provides insight

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted early Wednesday that ordering would begin later in the day. Musk said the tiles will be sold worldwide. They’ll go to U.S. customers first this year and to other countries next year. He gave no other details. Palo Alto-based Tesla, which makes electric cars, announced last fall that it would produce the tiles with solar power company SolarCity Corp. Tesla and SolarCity completed a merger in November. The glass tiles are designed to look like a traditional roof, with options that replicate slate or terracotta tiles. They contain photovoltaic cells that Tesla says are invisible...

In keeping with his habit of appointing people who want to destroy the agencies they head, the president appointed outspoken renewables critic Daniel Simmons to Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

Scientists have just discovered massive amounts of a rare metal called tellurium, a key element in cutting-edge solar technology. As a solar expert who specialises in exactly this, I should be delighted. But here’s the catch: the deposit is found at the bottom of the sea, in an undisturbed part of the ocean. People often have an idealised view of solar as the perfect clean energy source. Direct conversion of sunlight to electricity, no emissions, no oil spills or contamination, perfectly clean. This however overlooks the messy reality of how solar panels are produced. While the energy produced is indeed...

The filing, signed by HelioPower President Maurice Russo, says that despite borrowing nearly $3 million from its parent company Sierra Nevada Solar (SNS) over a period of years, its current revenues are not enough to keep up with its debt obligations. In fact, HelioPower has borrowed $182,218 from SNS so far in 2017 just to meet its payroll obligations.

Conservative groups wrote a letter to Congress Tuesday asking lawmakers on the appropriations committee to eliminate a solar subsidy program worth $270 million. Conservatives want Congress to pull funding from the Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative, citing recent investigations that found the program provided subsidies for rooftop solar power. The letter calls SunShot the “ground zero of the solar subsidy machine,” arguing that it gives out millions of dollars in subsidies through net metering programs. Such programs force utilities to buy the electricity from rooftop solar panels at up to six times the market price, effectively forcing non-solar residents to pay...

Solar company Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday after receiving millions in government subsidies to manufacture solar panels. Suniva blamed its bankruptcy on competition from cheap Chinese-made solar panels, but the company received about $20 million in support from federal and state taxpayers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “For many years, Chinese manufacturers of solar cells have benefited from favorable, state-sponsored financing and lower labor costs, allowing them to flood the United States market for solar cells and modules with cheap imports,” David Baker, the company’s restructuring officer, said in a statement. “This has negatively impacted manufacturers based in the...

After being rescued from bankruptcy earlier this week, [Sungevity] fired more employees with no formal notice – and changed its name to Spectrum Solar.

Sungevity’s sudden and startling fall from grace came to a quiet end yesterday after a Delaware bankruptcy court approved the sale of its assets to Northern Pacific Group for $50 million.

Two weeks after laying off 131 employees without notice and closing its module plant in Michigan, one of the largest U.S. solar manufacturers has filed for bankruptcy.

On Friday, the former fossil-fuel favoring governor ordered a study to see whether solar and wind development is making the electricity grid less stable.

An expensive solar road project in Idaho can’t even power a microwave most days, according to the project’s energy data. The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day. On March 29th, the solar road panels generated 0.26 kWh, or less electricity than a single plasma television consumes. On March 31st, the panels generated 1.06 kWh, enough to barely power a single microwave. The panels...

With its own cult following, Solar Roadways still captures the imaginations of people who live in an alternative universe where these “roads” will power the world’s future. But first, they will have to stop the infernal thing from catching on fire.

A shockingly low price for energy from solar panels was recently bid during an auction for a solar farm near the city of Abu Dhabi, according to a report in solar trade publication PV Magazine. A consortium of the Chinese solar panel maker and project builder JinkoSolar (JKS, -1.34%) and the Japanese developer Marubeni put in a bid to build a large solar panel farm near the sun-rich city for a jaw-dropping 2.42 cents per kilowatt hour. That's by far the lowest solar panel farm bid out there. A few ultra low-cost large solar panel farms have recently achieved around...

On Aug. 21, 2017, American skywatchers will be treated to a rare and spectacular celestial show — the first total solar eclipse visible from the continental United States in nearly four decades. Next year's "Great American Total Solar Eclipse" will darken skies all the way from Oregon to South Carolina, along a stretch of land about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wide. People who descend upon this "path of totality" for the big event are in for an unforgettable experience, said eclipse expert Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College in Massachusetts. "It's a tremendous opportunity," Pasachoff told Space.com. "It's a...

"The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO) are investigating an experimental propulsion system on the X-37B on Mission 4," Capt. Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesman, told Space.com via email. "AFRCO will also host a number of advance materials onboard the X-37B for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to study the durability of various materials in the space environment," Hoyler added ... The Air Force owns two X-37B space planes, both of which were built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. The solar-powered spacecraft are about...

The BrightSource Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Facility, which uses 320,000 mirrors to create thermal energy, still qualifies under state rules as an alternative energy source, despite using about 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year, according to a report by the Press Telegram.

Solar cells made from an inexpensive and increasingly popular material called perovskite can more efficiently turn sunlight into electricity using a new technique to sandwich two types of perovskite into a single photovoltaic cell. Perovskite solar cells are made of a mix of organic molecules and inorganic elements that together capture light and convert it into electricity, just like today’s more common silicon-based solar cells. Perovskite photovoltaic devices, however, can be made more easily and cheaply than silicon and on a flexible rather than rigid substrate. The first perovskite solar cells could go on the market next year, and some...

The state of New York is spending $750 million on the Buffalo plant as part of an economic revitalization project called the Buffalo Billion initiative spearheaded by Governor Andrew Cuomo. SolarCity pledged $150 million toward the plant... Tesla and Panasonic will manufacture and produce solar cells at the Buffalo plant as part of Tesla's new solar aspirations since it acquired SolarCity on November 17 in a deal worth roughly $2 billion. Initial production at the plant will center around Tesla's solar roof product. Louis Ciminelli, CEO of LPCiminelli, is known as a generous supporter of Cuomo. Ciminelli, along with his...

THERE is a one in eight chance that the Earth will be hit by a huge solar storm by 2020 which could potentially leave the world without Internet, phone service and many more services that modern-day humans rely on. Researchers have warned that there is roughly a 12 per cent chance that a solar storm could smash into Earth by the end of the decade.(emphasis mine) The powerful event would likely be as huge as the Carrington Event, which occurred on 1859. The solar storm which hit 150 years ago was so powerful that its southern auroras could be seen...