Tag Archives: deals
SolarCity Raises $500M
SolarCity (Nasdaq: SCTY), a provider of distributed energy, just announced a $500 million lease financing agreement with Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). That translates to more than 100 megawatts of solar power. The combined lease is the largest of its kind for U.S. residential rooftops. SolarCity allows consumers to get electricity from grid-tied solar rooftops at [...]
In Focus: The Chemicals in Chicago’s Air
Scientists have found that Chicago’s air is infested with chemicals courtesy of airborne compounds that are traveling as far as the Arctic. The chemicals, called cyclic siloxanes, are toxic to aquatic life. Where do they come from? From chemicals in deodorants, lotions and conditioners. “These chemicals are just everywhere,” said Keri Hornbuckle, an engineering professor at the [...]
Lanai: Future Solar Eco Lab
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison purchased close to 98 percent of the 141 square-mile Hawaiian island of Lanai for $500 million four months ago from billionaire David Murdock in June for an undisclosed price. On the island, Ellison owns “two resorts and golf courses, a variety of commercial and residential structures and vast acres of [...]
NREL Achieves 18.2% Efficient Nano Solar Cell
Using a chemical nano-porous etching process, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was able to create an antireflective surface on silicon PV cells without using additional antireflection coating. The method could reduce the cost of adding anti-reflective layers to crystalline silicon-based photovoltaics. Researchers at the laboratory, including Jihun Oh, Hao-Chih Yuan, and Howard Branz developed [...]
Mexican President Felipe Calderon Inaugurates Large Scale Solar Plant
Mexican President Felipe Calderon inaugurated a large-scale solar power plant that he touted as the region’s first, a pilot facility in the northwestern state of Baja California that features 4,000 photovoltaic panels and 1 MW in generating capacity. The current president of Mexico Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has inaugurated a large-scale solar power plant in the [...]
Boulder Colorado Schools Go Solar
Solar panels installed on the roofs of 14 schools in Colorado’s Boulder Valley school district are now generating 1.4 megawatts of electricity while saving money for education. In one of the biggest solar projects for a school district, half the schools now run on solar – 30 in total. SolarCity installed (and owns) the 5,000 solar panels on the 14 roofs [...]
CleanTech PatentEdge Launches First Online Green Patent Database
For over a year now I’ve had the pleasure of using a beta version of CleanTech PatentEdge, a powerful database of green technology patents and published applications. Now you can use it too! IP Checkups, the Berkeley patent analytics firm that created CleanTech PatentEdge, recently announced the official launch of the database. The only comprehensive online [...]
Suntech Power Gets Much Needed Loan
The world’s largest solar panel maker, China’s Suntech Power (NYSE: STP) is getting an emergency $31.7 million loan from the local government to help it weather its financial troubles. The lifeline comes from the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, where the company is based. The mayor created a task force to help Suntech. He offered a package [...]
Europe Accounts for 70% of Global PV
The solar power sector is a topsy-turvy one, with companies, subsidies and technologies rising and falling. But there’s no question about what region has been driving a market that, overall, continues to grow: It’s Europe. As of the end of 2011, the European Union accounted for 70 percent of the cumulative solar photovoltaic capacity installed [...]