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The world’s first solar road in Normandy, northern France, which opened in 2016, has failed to meet expectations.
The 2.8 square km of solar panels is in part damaged beyond repair and the 1km road did not produce the power the manufacturer Wattway had promised.
Panels were worn out by traffic and joints between the panels were shattered.
— Energy Reporters
After less than three years in operation, the high-profile 1-kilometer trial stretch of the world's first photovoltaic road in northern France has failed to meet expectations. Instead of delivering the promised 790kWh per day, the first year's actual daily power output was only half that amount... View full entry
Abu Dhabi is claiming the title of the world's largest single-site solar project, having hit the go-button on the Noor Abu Dhabi project this week, with a reported capacity of 1.177 gigawatts, eclipsing Dubai's Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park – for now at least. The United Arab Emirates doesn't have a great record when it comes to per-capita carbon footprint, but projects like this show that it's serious about addressing the issue head-on. — New Atlas
"According to the Abu Dhabi media office, the project has sufficient capacity to supply 90,000 people and is expected to reduce Abu Dhabi's CO2 emissions by one million metric tons, or the equivalent of removing 200,000 cars from the road," reports New Atlas. View full entry
As noted in a recently published patent application, Tesla is developing a system that would allow the company to improve the aesthetics of the solar shingles even further. [...]
Tesla notes that in prior art BIPV roofing systems, the active solar portions of a roofing module end up being visibly different in appearance compared to inactive parts of the roof.
— Teslarati
Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduced the glass solar tiles as part of the automaker's growing range of energy products back in October 2016. Let's get technical: image from Tesla's patent application to improve the aesthetic performance of its solar roof tiles."Various embodiments provide a new and... View full entry
Their cell generated a current stronger than any previously recorded from such a device, and worked as efficiently in dim light as in bright light.
This innovation could be a step toward wider adoption of solar power in places like British Columbia and parts of northern Europe where overcast skies are common. With further development, these solar cells—called “biogenic” because they are made of living organisms—could become as efficient as the synthetic cells used in conventional solar panels.
— University of British Columbia
While this isn't the first effort to build biogenic, bacteria-powered solar cells, scientists at the University of British Columbia claim to have discovered a novel, highly cost-effective, and much more sustainable way to use the photosynthesis capabilities of certain bacteria to convert light... View full entry
Photovoltaic (PV) concrete cladding is set to outperform rooftop solar, according to LafargeHolcim, which has developed a façade system with partner Heliatek.
The team said that the photovoltaic energy-generating concrete facade has the capability to double the energy generation traditionally achieved by roof-based solar systems.
— The Construction Index
"A prototype of this new photovoltaic facade system will be presented at Batimat, the French construction fair in November, and a pilot project is planned in 2018," LafargeHolcim writes in a recent announcement. View full entry
In March, Tesla cut the ribbon on this groundbreaking grid-scale battery installation, a key test of the viability of energy storage in making renewable energy a more reliable part of the grid. With 50,000 solar panels and 272 batteries, the combined solar-and-storage plant provides enough energy to power 4,500 homes for four hours.
If Tesla can help keep Kauai solar-powered around the clock with its batteries, then it can apply what it has learned elsewhere in the country, and around the world
— grist.org
In her Longreads/Grist piece, author Amelia Urry explains the changing nature of solar power challenges that off-grid dwellers as well as smaller, geographically isolated microgrids face now that battery storage on an industrial scale is becoming more lucrative. The article tells the story of a... View full entry
Tesla revealed today that it created what it calls the ‘Tesla Tiny House’ to feature its energy products, like solar panels and Powerwall.
The company is bringing the house on tour using a Model X “to educate the public on how to generate, store and use renewable energy for their home.”
The tiny house contains a Tesla mobile design studio and configurator to help home owners configure a solar plus energy storage system for their home.
— electrek.co
Needless to add that the Tesla Tiny House itself gains all its electricity via a solar installation on the tiny roof. The exhibition tour is limited to four major Australian cities for now, but the economic gain could be far from tiny — as the world's leader in capita penetration of rooftop... View full entry
Ikea is now offering solar panels and home batteries to its customers in the UK. The Scandinavian furniture chain is partnering with solar firm Solarcentury for the venture, with prices for solar battery storage starting at £3,000 (about $3,970 USD).
The home batteries are designed to work with existing solar panels, or as part of a new combined home solar panel / battery storage system that Ikea is selling.
— theverge.com
The Swedish furniture retail giant first starting solar panels in the UK back in 2013 to grow on a (then) heavily subsidized green energy market but ceased sales in 2015 when the British government announced its plans of cutting solar subsidies by up to 90%. Just a few months later, IKEA returned... View full entry
President Donald Trump floated putting solar panels on his planned Mexican border wall in a meeting with legislative leaders Tuesday afternoon, according to White House and Capitol Hill officials.
It was unclear why Trump brought up the topic, but he presented the panels as a way to fund the wall, which is expected to cost billions of dollars, according to three people familiar with the conversation.
— Politico
Of course, this comes on the heels of intense criticism of the President's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. View full entry
Founded at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Sistine creates custom solar panels designed to mimic home facades and other environments, with aims of enticing more homeowners to install photovoltaic systems.
Sistine’s novel technology, SolarSkin, is a layer that can be imprinted with any image and embedded into a solar panel without interfering with the panel’s efficacy. Homeowners can match their rooftop or a grassy lawn.
— MIT News
The product caters to the growing "aesthetic solar" market which tries to attract homeowners that are considering going solar but fear the aesthetic impact of the traditional, bleak-looking dark solar panels on their home's appearance. Just last fall, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a line of glass... View full entry
Designed by Johan Karlsson, Dennis Kanter, Christian Gustafsson, John van Leer, Tim de Haas, Nicolò Barlera, the IKEA Foundation and UNHCR, the photovoltaic panel-powered refugee shelter "Better Shelter" has been named the Beazley Design of the Year, beating out the five other category winners to... View full entry
While solar panels have been subsidized in many cities for a while now, the blocky, rectangular panels aren’t heavily implemented in part because they tend to appear as, well, an addition, rather than a constitutive element of home design. That's about to change, as Tesla has announced a... View full entry
Dr. Orr revealed that Denver won the bid to host this biennial event, in which student teams compete to design, build, and operate cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive solar-powered houses. [...]
The competition is planned to be staged near a new development close to Denver International Airport. The area around the 61st and Peña Commuter Rail Station is positioned to become a national model for sustainable, transit-oriented, greenfield development [...].
— solardecathlon.gov
Archinect coverage of previous Solar Decathlons:2015 Solar Decathlon winner Stevens Institute of Technology addresses post-Sandy resiliency with the SURE HOUSEStudents endure the final home stretch at the U.S. Solar Decathlon 2015Archinect Field Trip: Solar Decathlon 2013, Basking in Arrays of... View full entry
When production begins, SolarCity, already the leading installer of residential solar panels in the [U.S.] will become a vertically integrated manufacturer and provider...At a time when conventional silicon-based solar panels from China have never been cheaper, investing in a new type of solar technology is a risky undertaking. However, the potential benefits are huge. The new factory...could transform both SolarCity’s business...and the economics of residential solar power. — MIT Technology Review
The MIT Technology Review profiles the upcoming Buffalo-based SolarCity factory and their ambitious plans that could potentially make solar power technology more widely available to consumers.More news about alternative energy:Cloud-harvesting skyscraper: renderings of proposed new sustainable... View full entry
While wind may be one of the most economical power sources out there, photovoltaic solar energy has a big advantage: it can go small.
While wind gets cheaper as turbines grow larger, the PV hardware scales down to fit wherever we have infrastructure. In fact, simply throwing solar on our existing building stock could generate a very large amount of carbon-free electricity.
— Ars Technica
But, as many homeowners already know, installing solar panels can be quite cost-prohibitive. New research might just have solved that problem by incorporating solar hardware into the most basic light filter used in architecture: the window.According to a study, solar windows could filter out a... View full entry
