Southern California Edison (SCE) awarded 36 contracts to independent power producers for a total of nearly 60 megawatts from photovoltaic solar panels that will produce emission-free energy for SCE customers. The panels will be installed on 31 unused rooftops and five ground-mount sites in SCE’s service territory.

The solar rooftop project, approved by the California Public Utilities Commission in June 2009, calls for a total of 500 megawatts of  solar generating capacity, most of it on otherwise unused large warehouse rooftops. Half of the 500 megawatts will be from independent power producers who respond to SCE’s request for offers under competitive solicitations; the remaining 250 megawatts will be owned and operated by SCE. It is expected that this project will create about 1,200 jobs for Southern Californians.

“These contracts make significant strides toward distributed renewable generation for one of the most innovative solar programs in the country,” said Marc Ulrich, SCE vice president, Renewable and Alternative Power. “We’re working to help California meet its Million Solar Roofs goal and supply even more renewable energy to our customers where and when it’s most needed, without the added time and expense to construct major new transmission facilities.” The contracts awarded today are the first executed under the competitive solicitations for independent power producers.

SCE believes that its solar rooftop project will be a boon for the solar industry and consumers alike, with the resulting cost per unit significantly more cost effective than more common residential photovoltaic installations in California. Eventually, this could help drive down installation costs of photovoltaic generation for everyone. When complete, the solar panels will cover an area totaling 4 square miles on about 250 otherwise unused warehouse roofs. The total power production will rival a utility-scale power plant, enough electricity to serve 325,000 average homes at a point in time. SCE has already installed panels on three rooftop warehouses in California’s Inland Empire that are delivering – or are in line to deliver – electricity to the grid.

SCE is the nation’s leading utility for renewable energy. In 2009, SCE delivered 13.6 billion kilowatt hours of renewable power to its customers, about 17 percent of its total power portfolio.

After an intensive selection process, 1BOG has selected REC Solar as partner to conduct the group’s solar system installations. Homeowners who join the 1BOG community are eligible for online and offline support, information and fixed discounted pricing. With zero down financing options, homeowners can install systems for free and save money from day one.[1]

After a month-long process of vetting local installers, 1BOG selected REC for their excellent group pricing, proven record of successful installations nationwide, premium products and long-term warranties.

“Colorado is one of the country’s leading solar states, so we are excited to bolster local solar adoption with a group program that makes going solar easy and affordable for homeowners,” said Dave Llorens, CEO of 1BOG. “Our 2009 Denver 1BOG campaign with REC Solar was a huge success. We are confident that this one will make a significant dent on the state’s goal of 100,000 solar rooftops by 2020.[2]”

“We are thrilled to have been selected as 1BOG’s partner for the upcoming Denver program,” said Cary Hayes, Senior Regional Manager at REC Solar. “We have worked with 1BOG in several markets around the country and have found the group model to be great for our business and our customers.”

The 1BOG Denver solar program is available now to local homeowners from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs including the cities surrounding the Denver area through October 14, 2010. For more information, details about pricing and products or to sign up, visit the 1BOG Denver homepage at www.SolarDenver.1BOG.org.

About One Block Off the Grid

One Block Off the Grid (1BOG) helps you buy solar panels for your home by researching local solar installers, negotiating group discounts and managing the entire solar buying process from beginning to end—at no cost. 1BOG membership is free and gives homeowners access to exclusive, pre-arranged group discounts, educational tools and advice from an experienced team of solar advisors. Homeowner members are confident that 1BOG’s installation partners have been carefully vetted on products, install practices, long-term stability as a company, as well as a great group discount rate. 1BOG was founded in 2008 in San Francisco, California and has active solar programs in 15 markets across the United States. For more information, visit www.SolarDenver.1BOG.org.

About REC Solar

REC Solar, Inc. specializes in grid-tied solar electric design and installation, offering affordable solar solutions for all residential, commercial, government and utility customers. With a local presence in all major solar markets in the USA and millions of watts installed, REC Solar is committed to lowering the cost of solar power through efficient processes, innovative products and outstanding customer service. REC Solar has installed more residential solar electric systems in the US than any other company. REC Solar is among the nation’s largest solar integrators and currently has over a dozen offices throughout five states (AZ, CA, CO, HI, and OR). For more information, visit www.RECsolar.com.

[1] Financing subject to credit approval
[2] http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/GovRitter/GOVR/1251575069016

Using the most cutting-edge and efficient solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, Envision Solar’s LifeVillage offers clean energy and durable steel-framed buildings where traditional electrical power generation and the associated transmission and distribution infrastructure cannot go. At 3,500 square feet of habitable area, the LifeVillage has the unique potential to provide a solar powered clinic and/or schoolhouse, residences, purified water, refrigeration and modern communications facilities.

The LifeVillage can also be tailored to an extensive array of applications, depending upon the situation and need. At up to 50kW of generation capacity, the LifeVillage can provide electricity to the surrounding community, offering power for such needs as charging cell phones, solar lanterns, and batteries for hundreds of families.

Integrated with large battery systems, the LifeVillage provides clean and reliable power at any hour of the day or night which is especially beneficial in times of crisis. These solar integrated buildings can be rapidly installed on site in just a few days by unskilled workers.

In an effort to build the best possible product that could be shipped to remote locations, Envision Solar partnered with Nuconsteel to frame each LifeVillage using light gauge steal. Envision Solar’s partnership with Nuconsteel includes access to the Mobile Framing Solution, roll former and light gauge steel technology, all of which offer a distinct and easily-deployable feature for the LifeVillage product.

By assembling the LifeVillage onsite, Envision Solar can cut down on the need for a manufacturing plant, costs, time, and labor significantly. Fabricating onsite also considerably reduces costs associated with shipping, and allows commoditized steel to be sourced in-country, if available.

“In light of the recent earthquake activity and rebuilding efforts in countries like Haiti, it is crucial for under-developed nations to have a quick, reliable energy solution, like the LifeVillage, in times of crises,” said Robert Noble, CEO of Envision Solar. “The LifeVillage is comprised of very simple, moderately-sized buildings that can do very big jobs – like provide purified water, refrigeration, medical facilities and transmission capabilities for cell phones, Internet, radio and television – in a time when recovering communities need help the most.”

For more information on the LifeVillage or other solar parking arrays created by Envision Solar, visit envisionsolar.com

Most homeowners have a limited amount of space in which to place large solar panels. Your roof is a likely location. The solar panels must be installed in an area or areas of your roof that attract the most possible sunshine. There are many web sites that provide the amount of sunlight
received in any area of the world. They allow you to effectively track the sun’s position through the year.

Your solar panels must be placed where they will receive direct sunlight. An ideal spot is one that receives the sun’s rays at noon, typically the time at which your solar panels will operate with the greatest efficiency. Check to see if there are tree branches, satellite dishes or any other objects that might obstruct the path of the sun on your solar panels.

If you are installing solar panels on your roof, you will probably use a flush mount or a roof-ground mount. Flush mounts are typically used for smaller homes. Roof-ground mounts are somewhat more expensive and occupy more space, but they can be adjusted to follow the path of the sun during
the year. Roof mounts are often supported by your roof’s rafters, so use a stud finder to ascertain the position of your rafters.

When you have determined the best location for your panels, draw an outline of their position on your roof. Drill small holes in your roof/rafters before placement of the mounts to allow for easier drilling later. When you have placed the mounts in their exact locations, drill holes in the mounts and secure them with lag bolts. Secure metal rails to the roof. Attach the solar panels. Connect the panels to the electrical inverter with a conduit.

About the Author
Shannon Bell writes for Residentialsolarpanels.org a non commercial blog focused on her Photovoltaic experiences to help people understand how and why they should save energy investing in solar power. She writes on Solar Panels for Homes to help people learn how to start save energy from the scratch and then apply those experience to the next level.

From Time.com

Taiwan has unveiled what government officials are calling Asia’s biggest solar power plant. Officials say that currently Taiwan imports almost all of its energy and is seeking to tap into more renewable energy sources.

The two-hectare solar power plant began operations on Tuesday. It is located in Kaohsiung County, an area in southern Taiwan that enjoys year-round sunshine. Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council says the plant is equipped with 141 solar panels, enough to power a thousand homes. Officials say that the plant would cut Taiwan’s carbon emissions by up to 700 tons every year.

Right now about 6 percent of Taiwan’s energy comes from renewable sources. A bill passed in June would boost the amount of energy coming from renewable sources in order to power 6.5 to 10 million homes over the next 20 years.

A new gold rush in China is actually a green rush — an urgent drive to develop green technologies. One group of Western companies, the Cleantech Initiative, suggests China’s market for renewable energy could eventually be worth as much as $500 billion to $1 trillion a year.

Now, Obama administration officials are warning that the U.S. could risk losing the race in green technologies.

“The future of sustainable energy is here.” The words are emblazoned on a wall at the world’s largest nongovernmental solar research center. It was built by an American company, Applied Materials, in the central Chinese city of Xian.

The cost of solar panels has dropped dramatically — 30 percent in the past year alone. One major reason is the “China price,” or the competitive advantages offered by Chinese manufacturing, with its cheap labor and economies of scale. China is now the world’s biggest producer of photovoltaic solar panels, making about 40 percent of all panels, according to the China Daily, mostly for export.

At Applied Materials’ $250 million research center in Xian, Elizabeth Mayo, a process engineer from Santa Clara, Calif., is working with local staff testing solar panels in the Sunfab panel reliability test lab. This simulates extreme weather conditions, and the company boasts that it is the world’s only laboratory capable of testing 61-square-feet solar panels.

Mayo is impressed by the facilities in Xian. “We don’t have facilities like this in the U.S. We don’t have anything of this magnitude,” Mayo says.

Catrina Ren, an enthusiastic English-speaking engineer, beams while showing a visitor another facility at the research center: vast empty hangars waiting for new pilot lines for crystalline silicon, and thin film solar technology to be installed. “I’m very proud I have chance to work here,” she says. “This is most advantaged tech center in world. I graduated from university only two years ago. I’m very proud.”

And Applied Materials is no doubt overjoyed to have Catrina and her former classmates on staff. Costs in China are much cheaper than in the U.S. An engineering graduate in Xian earns one-tenth of her American counterparts.

And the biggest draw is the eternal lure of China’s fabled market. Gang Zhou, general manager of Applied Materials Xian facility, says the company has decided to put its money where its customer base is.

“China is No. 1 producer of solar panels. That’s where our market is. The China new R&D center, that’s where we validate a lot of R&D work that is being carried out in U.S. and in Europe,” he says.

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“I seriously started doing the calculations,” said Dickinson, “and it finally financially made sense, especially with the tax changes.”

In the San Fernando Valley, homeowners like Dickinson and his wife, Sara, a jewelry designer, have become the unwitting faces of the solar energy movement – residents who didn’t set out to be green activists but for whom going green makes sense now more than ever.

The Dickinsons are getting a 23 percent discount on solar panel installation arranged by One Block Off the Grid, an Internet-driven group that in a year has become the nation’s largest solar-buying collective. In its short organizing campaign in Los Angeles, the firm has already assisted 102 clients.

“They were able to negotiate a much better price than anything I found on my own,” Dickinson said.

With David Dickinson’s exorbitant monthly electric bill to chill two wine cellars, run two refrigerator-freezers and heat a pool at his 2,000-square-foot ranch house, it long made sense to go solar.

“But the upfront cost was just too high,” said Dickinson, 57, a Canoga Park manufacturer’s controller.

That was even with a 30 percent federal tax credit offered this year, a California state rebate of 10 percent and additional city incentives.

Then Dickinson heard about a San Francisco-based firm that pools homeowners who want energy-saving solar panels on their roofs into large communities that can get better rates by buying in bulk. The company then brokers significantly lower prices from local installers. Substantially lower cost

This past week, workers began installing 34 photovoltaic panels to the roof of the Dickinsons’ 1960s style four-bedroom ranch house – and put the Dickinsons on the solar energy grid.

Dickinson said the deal negotiated with regionally based SolarCity by One Block Off the Grid will cost him about $6 per watt of power capacity. According to the California Energy Commission, the average total cost of a solar photovoltaic system is almost $8 per watt.

Even after customers like Dickinson pay for an inverter to convert the DC power the panels generate into the AC power appliances use, the deal negotiated by One Block Off the Grid is substantially lower than the average in Los Angeles.

“We wanted to create a group purchase program that makes it easier for people to get into solar energy – one that makes them more comfortable with the process,” said Dave Llorens, co-founder of One Block Off the Grid.

The group’s name comes from its goal of removing one average block’s worth of electrical usage each time it runs a community solar purchase campaign in a city.

One Block Off the Grid, according to a spokeswoman, makes its profit through finder’s fees paid by local installers.

Since its founding in June 2008, the company has mounted campaigns in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, New Orleans, Phoenix and Denver.

In its Los Angeles campaign, which began last week and runs into next year, the solar-buying collaborative has been assisting potential clients through its Internet site, www.solarlosangeles.1bog.org. The Web site uses an online tool allowing homeowners to call up a satellite-generated image of their roof and find an estimate of solar rates and costs.

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ARCADIA, Fla. – Greg Bove steps into his pickup truck and drives down a sandy path to where the future of Florida’s renewable energy plans begin: Acres of open land filled with solar panels that will soon power thousands of homes and business.

For nearly a year, construction workers and engineers in this sleepy Florida town of citrus trees and cattle farms have been building the nation’s largest solar panel energy plant. Testing will soon be complete, and the facility will begin directly converting sunlight into energy, giving Florida a momentary spot in the solar energy limelight.

The Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center will power a small fraction of Florida Power & Light’s 4-million plus customer base; nevertheless, at 25 megawatts, it will generate nearly twice as much energy as the second-largest photovoltaic facility in the U.S.

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