Apple’s New Headquarters Looks Like A Spaceship and Its Covered With Solar Panels

Two drone operators in Cupertino, California stalk Apple’s ‘spaceship’ campus every month and they happened to catch some progress surrounding the secret Apple headquarters.

Mathew Roberts, a documentary filmmaker, takes people on tours surrounding Apple’s campus and they happened to come across the solar panels that are being installed in the building. The solar panels are going to be one of the key sources of energy for Apple and according to him around 40% of installation is complete.  75 percent of the renewable energy will come from solar power which means almost every roof on that building will be covered with solar panels.

According to Roberts, construction on the new Apple HQ is on its way to being completed. This spaceship shaped building was Steve Job’s last gift to Apple and he made sure it embodied Apple’s culture of openness and collaboration.  Apple employees are expected to move into the mega-office by early next year.  Read more….

Apple’s New Headquarters Looks Like A Spaceship and Its Covered With Solar Panels

How One School Used Solar Power to Go from Being an Electricity Consumer to Electricity Producer

In the small coastal town of Pondicherry, south of Chennai, there is a school that is not only self-reliant in terms of energy but is also sharing the excess it produces with other buildings in the area.

The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE) in Pondicherry has been operating on green energy since September 2014.

Many schools encourage their students to switch off the fans and lights after use, plant trees and take other initiatives to save energy. However, very few go beyond just asking them to take precautions and save energy. SAICE is different.
This educational institute is self-reliant in terms of energy; it meets all its energy requirements through solar power. Moreover, it produces three times the electricity it consumes and lights up many other buildings with the excess energy. Read more…

How One School Used Solar Power to Go from Being an Electricity Consumer to Electricity Producer

Solar Energy Has Big Apple Potential But New York Real Estate Entrepreneurs Haven’t Seen the Light

New York developers have been reluctant to embrace solar, despite big cost savings and beautiful new designs. That creates opportunity for the bold.

I love New York. I can walk outside, look up and get a lesson in history just from looking at its buildings. Not only is it the birthplace of the American dream, its skyline is an icon of industry, capitalism and our intention to always go bigger and do better. As a local contributor to that skyline, it’s personal, but this home of mine is slower in keeping up with the sustainability Joneses than a city of 8.4 million people should. Meanwhile, smaller cities in California and Arizona are saving money big time by installing solar panels on large commercial buildings — something that NYC lacks.

Don’t get me wrong, New York State is one of the top 10 “solar states”, but when you break it down per city, per capita, medium-sized cities like Phoenix and Denver are ahead of NYC, and you can’t blame it on sunlight either. Indianapolis, which gets less sun than New York, ranks higher. In larger cities like NYC, the arguments against solar panels are starting to fall short, especially because solar panel installations have become “ridiculously cheap” according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and the price continues to decrease. Read more…

Solar Energy Has Big Apple Potential But New York Real Estate Entrepreneurs Haven’t Seen the Light

Ballot Win in Florida Emboldens the Solar Industry: ‘Voters Have Spoken Very Loudly’

Florida’s utility industry steered more than $20 million of its profits into a failed constitutional amendment to impose new barriers to the expansion of rooftop solar energy generation, but developers say that as the cost of installing solar panels drops, the state could quickly become a leader in private solar energy expansion no matter what the energy giants do.

The Florida Solar Energy Industry Association estimates that over the next five years, Florida homeowners, businesses and utilities are projected to take advantage of the falling prices and install 2,315 megawatts of solar electric capacity — 19 times more than the amount of solar installed in the last five years.

“Solar prices are in free-fall, and no one knows where the bottom is,” said Chris Delp, an attorney with the Tampa law office of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick. Read more…

Ballot Win in Florida Emboldens the Solar Industry: ‘Voters Have Spoken Very Loudly’

Poor implementation of net-metering policies poses major challenge for rooftop solar: Bridge to India

Grid interconnection regulations and processes remain challenging in most parts of the country despite almost all states announcing net- and/or gross-metering policies for rooftop solar, solar sector research firm Bridge to India today said.

India’s rooftop solar market is growing rapidly with the country adding more capacity in the past 12 months than all previous years put together.

Bridge to India said according to a survey of industry participants, overall implementation of net metering policy remains patch across the country.

“The policy framework needs an urgent overhaul to make it more consumer friendly and to make it suitable for evolving technologies and business models. International examples show that effective net-metering implementation can increase rooftop solar adoption by as much as 50%,” Bridge to India said. Read more…

Poor implementation of net-metering policies poses major challenge for rooftop solar: Bridge to India

New Simulation Represents 100% Renewable Energy System

Researchers at the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland have developed the first ever model depicting a 100% global renewable energy system.

In a first of its kind-type simulation researchers from the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland have modeled a 100% global renewable energy system covering the entire planet, structured into 145 separate regions as part of 9 major world regions. The global Internet of Energy Model puts into effect the targets set by the Paris Agreement using only renewable energy generating sources. Specifically, the model is intended to find the most economical solution for a renewable electricity system, and show how renewable energy can provide electricity for every season, day, and hour of the year.

“With the simulation, anyone can explore what a renewable electricity system would look like,” said Christian Breyer, LUT Solar Economy Professor and a leading scientist behind the model. “This is the first time scientists have been able to do this on a global scale.” Read more…

New Simulation Represents 100% Renewable Energy System

Tesla’s price shock: Solar + battery as cheap as grid power

Compared to Powerwall 1.0, peak power has increased by 40 per cent, continuous power by 50 per cent, storage capacity by 100 per cent (to 14 kWh) and an inverter is included. And all this for US$5,500 ($A8,800) – about the same price as Powerwall 1.0.

In other words, the price per kWh stored and re-used has halved in less than a year. Indicative installed prices in Australia are a little over $10,000. The commonly accepted wisdom was that battery costs would decline more gradually than the precipitate decline seen in solar PV costs. This has been proved wrong.

Let’s do a solar PV+battery+grid versus grid-only price comparison.

First, let’s assume a 4,800kWh per year household in Adelaide and that its electricity bill is either the average of all 77 market offers after all conditional discounts, or the average of all 77 Market Offers before all conditional discounts, from the 16 retailers operating in Adelaide (data from MarkIntell). Read more…

Tesla’s price shock: Solar + battery as cheap as grid power

Amazing off-grid Tiny Solar House travels across the U.S.

The Tiny Solar House is a 210-square-foot off-grid home on wheels that’s powered by six 280-watt photovoltaic panels. The owner, an advocate of clean energy, has taken his tiny house on a journey across the U.S. to visit national parks and educate people about the advantages of smart, solar-powered design.

The tiny mobile home measures approximately 18 feet long and 9 feet wide and it was constructed with a cedar exterior using vertical tongue-and-groove siding and long walls. It features a living room / office space; a kitchen with a fridge, double sink and a four-burner stove; a bathroom with shower and compost toilet; a sleeping loft with a queen-sized mattress and storage space.

The solar panels installed on the roof generate enough clean energy to keep the house powered throughout the day. These are connected to maintenance-free deep cycle AGM batteries and a MidNite Solar charge controller and Xantrex inverter that keep the system running throughout the night. Read more…

Amazing off-grid Tiny Solar House travels across the U.S.

How solar energy can (finally) create value

(McKinsey&Company) The market for solar power is growing faster than ever, but profitability has been lagging. The keys to improvement are better capital and operational efficiency.

Solar energy is becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Last year, China and the United States installed a record 15 and 7.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar, respectively. This year, the world could install as much as 66 GW.¹In 2015, investors poured $161 billion of capital into solar, the largest amount for any single power source.²In China, 43 GW of capacity have been installed, more than in any other nation; India aspires to build 100 GW of solar capacity by 2017. Across the sun-drenched Middle East, investment rose from $160 million in 2010 to about $3.5 billion in 2015.³

The world is building more solar-power plants because they are getting cheaper. Since 2009, the total installed costs of solar have fallen by as much as 70 percent around the world. New power-purchase agreements frequently fall below $100 per megawatt-hour, with some reaching less than $30.⁴That price puts solar at or below the cost of a new natural-gas plant.

Regulatory measures, such as the Investment Tax Credit in the United States, further support the economics of solar. In many instances, solar is often “in the money”—that is, less costly than the next cheapest alternative. A number of leading multinationals are signing solar deals not only to gain green credentials but also to lower their energy costs and diversify their sources of supply. Read more….

How solar energy can (finally) create value

Elon Musk wants to sell people solar roofs that look great. Here’s his much anticipated design

After hinting for weeks about a groundbreaking design to lure more customers to solar energy, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Friday showcased a line of high-design roof tiles that generate power from the sun without the clunky panels sold by most companies.

“The key is to make solar look good,” Musk said during the product introduction staged on the old set of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” series at the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot. “We want you to call your neighbors over and say, ‘Check out this sweet roof.’ ”

Musk, chief executive of Tesla and chairman of SolarCity, intends to build a personal alternative energy ecosystem connected by software and harmonious design, all under the Tesla brand name. The idea is that green-minded homeowners will mix with performance-oriented automotive geeks at Tesla retail stores to shop for electric cars, charging stations, solar rooftops and wall-mounted batteries for energy storage — all available separately but designed to work best as a system. Read more…

Elon Musk wants to sell people solar roofs that look great. Here’s his much anticipated design