Tag Archives: roof
SunRun Wants Utilities to Innovate Rooftop Solar
As the cost of distributed solar, like rooftop solar, continues to become cheaper for home and business owners, utilities are getting wary, worried that distributed solar will hurt their bottom line. Sunrun CEO Ed Fenster says that to thrive such utilities should take a page from telecom companies, which changed their business model from entrenched [...]
5 Insane American Eco Rooftops
As we move further into the early years of the 21st century, there is a growing consciousness of the need to create more sustainable systems to maintain our society. Natural resources have for too long been exploited and utilized with little regard for posterity. Our cities and towns require large amounts of outside support, but [...]
How To: Build A Solar Roof
A green roof is a roof which can either be partially or fully covered by plants. It generally constitutes a waterproof covering where vegetation is planted over. The green roof is different from a rooftop garden in the sense that the latter uses containers for the plants while the waterproof covering of a green roof [...]
Facebook Slaps Massive Green Roof on New HQ
Facebook has the green light from Menlo Park’s city council to build a huge second campus that connects to its headquarters in Silicon Valley. The company says its new 433,555-square-foot building will blend into the landscape, thanks to an extensive green roof that covers most of the very long building. Designed by award-winning architect Frank Gehry, the goal for the white stucco [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Heliostats On Buildings
You never know when one technology can be used for something else. In this case, heliostats, those mirrors used in concentrating solar plants, might prove just as useful attached to buildings. They maximize solar efficiency by moving along with the sun and smaller versions could be used to heat buildings as well as increase daylighting inside. In [...]
Solar Freedom Now: On A Mission to Lower Cost of Rooftop Solar
The recently formed solar advocacy organization Solar Freedom Now (SFN) is on a mission to reduce the cost of rooftop solar. This week it released a new white paper, ‘A Roadmap for Reducing Rooftop Solar Costs by 50%’. The white paper is aimed at how the organization plans to reduce the soft costs of solar [...]
The Commercial Rooftop Solar Revolution
The United States has over 4,000 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaics (PV) connected to the grid, with the pace of new installations accelerating as the price continues to fall. There has never been a better opportunity for Americans to generate their own electricity on-site nor such a challenge to the electricity system paradigm and for [...]
RE-volv: Crowdfunding Community Solar Installations
Andreas Karelas founded RE-volv in 2011. He started the organization, he says, “out of a sense of frustration felt by many of us working for clean energy. The change isn’t happening fast enough and if it’s going to happen now, we’ll have to do it ourselves. There’s a huge opportunity here to mobilize people who [...]
Solar Panel Recalls or Repairs? Look to Centex
Recalls can be messy – but they are made worse when the company performing the repairs insists upon a release of all possible claims before starting work. But just such a mess is what some homeowners have found themselves facing as they try to find a fix for their Centex “solar homes” that are no [...]
Top 5 Homeowner Mistakes When Buying Solar
There is something undeniably appealing about having solar panels installed on your roof. They bring a sense of modernism, of independence and of environmentalism. The decision to go solar is an exciting one, but it should be done with the foresight of the pitfalls that others have made before you. If you go about the [...]
The Biggest Solar Myths and Lies
Earlier this month our sister site, solarfinancing.com, revealed some of the oil, coal, and gas industry’s rhetoric for what it is: enormous lies designed to keep solar power from becoming a serious threat to their livelihood. This article, 4 1/2 Big Lies About Solar Power brought these huge fibs to our attention: 1. Solar is only for [...]
The Future of Eco Building Materials
Designing and building an eco house, or renovating your property to make it more energy efficient is a great way to cut down on bills, and not to mention great fun! More and more people are looking to build their own property today, and the number renovating in an effort to save in the long term is [...]