In 2007, Dow Chemical received $20 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop “building integrated” solar arrays for the residential and commercial markets. Which lead Dow to form the Solar Solutions business unit and invest more than $100 million in solar solutions.
This past October the company unveiled its product called Powerhouse Solar Shingles, which can be nailed to a roof like ordinary shingles by roofers without the help of specially trained solar installers or electricians. The solar shingles should cost 30% – 40% less than other solar-embedded building materials and 10% less than the combined costs of conventional roofing materials and rack-mounted solar panels, according to company officials.
The majority of solar technology today is built around silicon-based solar cells, Dow’s technology uses a much more cost-effective and durable PV material called CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide). The new thin-film technology is incorporated into the product by over-molding the cells with a proprietary Dow polymer formulation, resulting in a unique product design that has similar reveal, weight, and installation practices as an asphalt shingle.(more…)
Travelers on Germany’s A9 Autobahn are likely to do some double-takes this holiday. That giant light isn’t an alien–it’s the world’s largest spinning Christmas star.
Power giant Siemens contracted multimedia artist Michael Pendry for the massive project done in partnership with Munich City Utilities. A crew attached 3,000 tiny, colored LEDs on each of three turbine blades using special adhesives. The lights glow in different patterns as the blades rotate, putting on a show evenings and early mornings through January 6, 2010. Since the turbine is part of a local smart grid system, clean energy is powering the lights.
Hat tips to Jacob Gordon at TreeHugger and Bridgette Meinhold at Inhabitat for bringing this star story to light. Maybe next year power companies here in the States will see their turbines as canvases.
Do you know who the top ten countries are as far as wind farms is concerned?
1. Germany
2. United States
3. Spain
4. India
5. China
6. Denmark
7. Italy
8. France
9. United Kingdom
10. Portugal
My father lives in a little cabin on Junior’s (my niece – named after me), land. The cabin’s builders in what can only be described as a cranial-rectal infarction, put the 30 gallon hot water heater in the attic where it promptly burnt out after less than a years use. (more…)
Currently underway on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., twenty teams are competing in the U.S. Department of Energy‘s (DOE) Solar Decathlon 2009. Also sponsored and managed by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Solar Decathlon is an international event in which DOE challenges university teams to design and build homes that run entirely on solar energy. Each team received $100,000 from DOE to uniquely design, build and operate an energy efficient, fully solar-powered home for this unique competition. The teams ship their partially constructed homes to the National Mall. Then they assemble (more…)
Way down yonder in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a few blocks east of the Industrial Canal that links the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, something wonderful happened yesterday. Where multiple breaches along the levees of the Industrial Canal and the Intracoastal Waterway resulted in devastating flooding and damage in the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a public unveiling, ribbon cutting ceremony and celebration of another completed house in New Orleans. But Sugar, this ain’t no ordinary house ………… (more…)
In 2007, Dow Chemical received $20 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop “building integrated” solar arrays for the residential and commercial markets. Which lead Dow to form the Solar Solutions business unit and invest more than $100 million in solar solutions.
(more…)
Currently underway on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., twenty teams are competing in the U.S. 
Way down yonder in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a few blocks east of the Industrial Canal that links the Mississippi River to ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d2422845-959f-4426-8f60-962f9e617b06)
