solar panels
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How a city got real about solar energy
Photo courtesy of Gary ShaverWhen the city of Ellensburg asked the Washington State University energy program for help designing a community solar project, the state folks weren’t sure the city folks were serious. At the time, just a few years ago, solar projects were few and far between. But WSU energy consultant Gary Shaver jumped […]
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Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) makes partners of solar PV and energy efficiency
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) does not make energy efficiency the enemy of solar PV. Instead, it helps optimize the use of solar PV for participating property owners. PACE programs are a new tool for promoting residential (and commercial) energy efficiency improvements and on-site renewable energy. The municipality issues bonds to provide financing for voluntary […]
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Watching the green screens at the Environmental Film Festival in D.C.
HomegrownSpring and the Environmental Film Festival both burst into full bloom at the festival’s start in the Nation’s Capital last weekend. Eco-movie buffs, many having withstood record snowfalls in Washington, D.C., this winter, eschewed the beauty of the outdoors to watch the beauty of the outdoors indoors in the form of a wellspring of eco-conscious […]
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Community solar gardens
A new bill being considered in the Colorado legislature would create “solar gardens.” Solar gardens allow people to participate financially in owning part of a solar array even if they do not have a suitable site on their own property. My reading of the proposed legislation is that subscriptions in a solar garden would be […]
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A chat with Sen. Bernie Sanders on his new 10 million solar roofs bill
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)On On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill aimed at getting 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar hot water heating systems installed in the U.S. in the next 10 years. Cleverly titled the “10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act” […]
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Large-scale distributed energy is here: Recurrent Energy signs 50MW power purchase agreement
This morning, Recurrent Energy will announce that it has signed a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison (SCE) for 50MW of solar. This might not seem like a big deal — California utilities seem to sign solar agreements every week these days — but there’s something special about this one. Recurrent’s power will not […]
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Let the era of solar wholesale distributed generation begin
David Roberts wants to see distributed generation taken seriously. He’s getting his wish. Let the era of solar wholesale distributed generation begin. Last Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a resolution to implement the auction portion of Southern California Edison’s Distributed Generation PV program. This is a big deal–the door is now open for […]
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SolarReserve’s 24/7 solar power plant
Photo: SolarReserveAt Rocketdyne’s San Fernando Valley headquarters outside Los Angeles there’s a whiff of the right stuff — of crew-cut guys in short-sleeve white shirts and skinny black ties — in a vast room that holds the massive rocket engines that propelled John Glenn and the Apollo 11 crew into space. In one corner of […]
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‘SuperFreakonomics’ is ‘patent nonsense’
Any religion, meanwhile, has its heretics, and global warming is no exception. That staggeringly anti-scientific statement (page 170) is just one of many, many pieces of outright nonsense from SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. In fact, human-caused global warming is well-established science, far better established than any […]
