A U.S.-based company that will soon finish construction of one of the world’s largest solar thermal power plants in the Mojave Desert, is now looking to build an even larger plant in Southern California.

BrightSource Energy, which is expected to begin producing up to 370 megawatts of electricity per day (more…)

Here’s a video that shows where I spent my afternoon: on a tour of the (currently) 2 megawatt solar photovoltaics facility at Fort Hunter Liggett in Central California, now the largest solar array on a military base in the U.S. – and soon to be a microgrid. As I took a tour with some colleagues, work was underway for Phase Two, which will add two more MW, and enough battery (more…)

Google loves talking about world before analytics — when web owners knew almost nothing about their sites.

Nothing useful, anyway.

That all changed when a new technology came along that allowed web owners to monitor their sites as (more…)

I was reading an article recently about mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining and got to thinking….

How many square miles have been cleared in Kentucky for MTR?

And, if we covered all that space with photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, how much electricity in (more…)

Installing solar panels is like hoisting $50,000 on your roof and leaving it there for all the world to see. A new security brings peace of mind to those worried about theft and vandalism.

Every time fuel prices start pushing $4 per gallon in the U.S., there are smattering of stories about people (more…)

Ground-mounted systems are probably the simplest way to install solar on a larger scale compared to other types of installations such as roofs or parking structures. These systems can be held down by a variety of foundations, including concrete footings, pile driven posts, piers, metal earth screws (more…)

At least, Campbell’s Soup USA (creator of the slogan above) must think so, because they are adding a solar power system to their facility in Napoleon, Ohio.

The solar array will provide about 15 percent of the plant’s energy needs, and allow Campbell’s to save $4 million in energy costs, based on U.S. Department of (more…)

The first step to any green building or renewable energy project of any size is finding the financing to make it possible.  Since the bottom fell out of the economy, finding investors and financial institutions willing to finance building projects of any sort has been close to impossible.  Real estate finance prognosticators, however, indicate that (more…)

Good news out of Los Angeles, where the completion of a 1-megawatt (MW) solar power system covering 71,500 square feet will now allow ships docked between cruises to access some 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable solar power instead of using their diesel generators for shore-side energy needs.

(more…)

While some U.S. cities have made substantial gains in clean energy, it’ll be hard to compete with San Francisco’s recently announced goal. Believe it or not, the City by the Bay plans to be 100% green-energy-powered by 2020.

The announcement was made earlier this month by Mayor Gavin Newsom at the (more…)