With an eye on Ontario, Conergy and Sustainable Energy Technologies have partnered up to supply Sunergy inverters to one of North America’s most active solar markets.  Over the next year, the two companies hope to produce 3MW of clean energy, spread across a number of different projects.  First on the list is a 75kW rooftop installation on Brampton’s Metex Heat Treating facility.

In high-tech industries, it is not uncommon for such partnerships to emerge, with each side enjoying greater access to knowledge and skills outside of its core expertise.  According to Conergy’s Managing Director (more…)

President Obama took the occasion of Independence Day to announce that the federal government will authorize $2 billion of Recovery Act funding to support the solar industry. Administered by the Department of Energy, the funds will target two companies: Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.

Abengoa – an international solar firm with its roots in Spain—plans to build the world’s largest concentrating solar power plant in Arizona. The company says the facility, dubbed the Solana Project, will produce enough energy to power 70,000 households.  The plant will use thermal storage equipment to parabolically recover energy for a 280 MW output capacity. The administration says the project will create 1,600 construction jobs. (more…)

Imagine that every car in America was an Electric Vehicle (EV) powered by a electric battery like the Tesla’s (Nasdaq: TSLA) Roadster.  Imagine also that each and every car was powered with solar energy. Here’s a question: what amount of land would you need to generate the solar energy to power every electric vehicle in America?  And how would that solar acreage compare with the land surface that the oil industry uses to drill today?

I did the numbers and the answer will surprise you. (more…)

As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announced nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies. Abengoa Solar has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in Arizona, which will create about 1,600 construction jobs with over 70 percent of the construction components and products manufactured here in the USA. When completed, this plant will provide enough clean energy to power 70,000 homes. (more…)

Investors Love Tesla: Observers were taken aback by the overwhelming success of Tesla’s IPO. But does $226 million amount to even a drop in the oil pan?

The Leaf Stampede: Nissan revealed that 90 percent of the U.S. presale orders for the all-electric Leaf are customers new to the Nissan brand. Perhaps there’s a lesson for other companies: Lead the way into green, and a whole new class of customers could follow.

Belkin Kills the Vampire: The company debuted a line of power (more…)

Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus was just awarded the grand prize at the Solar Decathlon Europe 2010 in Madrid, beating out the University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim by less than one point in the event’s inaugural year.  University of Florida’s RE:Focus also shined, bringing home the public choice award via public online voting.  In its first year to be hosted internationally, this was a great showing by American Universities and a promising sign for the future of the US design and engineering industry.

Virginia Tech’s ‘Lumenhaus’ is a flexible pavilion style home inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth house.  Large glass walls to the North and South are shaded by their custom designed ‘Eclipse System’ which has the ability to slide open with the glass allowing the occupant to become more in tune with nature.  Rainwater collection, radiant floor heating and sun tracking solar PV panels are just a few of the (more…)

Solar companies and the provincial government are working diligently to transform Ontario’s power grid into an environmentally friendly green system. Hay Solar and Mann Engineering recently announced that they are looking to offer farmers free barns, promising to furnish the sloped roofs with solar panels. Once operational, these photovoltaic panels will go to work, generating enough clean, free energy to pay for themselves in approximately 20 years. The companies believe (more…)

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (the “LADWP”) recently held a meeting to discuss its strategic plan. As the nation’s largest public utility, its actions will have an immediate economic impact and significant influence on other utilities.

The news stories of today focused more on the high profile elements of the strategic plan, including LADWP general manager, Austin Buetner’s intentions to sell and leaseback the utility’s iconic downtown headquarters (more…)

PACE financing is one of those issues that has sweeping implications for clean energy adoption, but can be just so darn difficult to understand (see: net metering). If you can you believe it, the current acronym (PACE stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy) is a major step toward intelligibility from what we were first calling it (Municipal Property Tax Financing . . . or MPTF?). Acronym alphabet soup aside, it’s a topic that mixes the intricacies of tax law and bond finance with mortgages and clean energy. Like we said, not easy. (more…)

Morgan Solar Inc. will receive a substantial financial contribution from the Ontario government to facilitate the launch of its commercial activities in the province. The young Toronto-based company has developed a unique photovoltaic (PV) panel characterized by its lightness, sturdiness, and unparalleled sunlight-concentrating capacity. With the $1.86 million in funding it received from the government, Morgan Solar will soon begin manufacturing its patented technology for market.

Construction of a new production facility will undoubtedly create many temporary employment opportunities, but (more…)