How to install solar panels on the roof of your home

The roof: A sunny, flat expanse topping a two-story limestone townhouse on Maple Street in the Lefferts Manor Historic District in Brooklyn. The home was built in 1909, but its current owner wanted to bring the building’s energy system into the 21st century.

The bid: The building’s owner teamed up with eight other homeowners in the neighborhood, brought together by pro-solar nonprofit Here Comes Solar. The group asked for bids to outfit all their homes with solar panel systems and were able to get a base price of $5.50 per watt from the winning bidder, Brooklyn SolarWorks.

The math: After winning the bid, Brooklyn SolarWorks looked at the energy bill for the home on Maple Street to determine how much power a panel system would need to produce to both meet the home’s requirements and make financial sense for the homeowner.

Get a quote for a Solar rooftop system

Read More…

How to install solar panels on the roof of your home

The $8 Trillion Fight Over How to Rid America of Fossil Fuel

For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist, and they’re both wrong.

Like many jokes, this one is funny (to economists, anyway) because it’s true. What isn’t so funny is its application to the biggest challenge of the 21st century: How to shed a fossil-fuel energy infrastructure that seems hell-bent on destroying us. There are several camps trying to decide how much we must spend to avoid environmental disaster. Consensus on a grand total is a matter of degree, with estimates varying by as much as $8 trillion.

Geoffrey Heal, an economist at Columbia Business School, recently published a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that asks what would it take—over the next three-and-a-half decades—to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below their 2005 level? That’s not a made-up target: It’s the goal the Obama administration submitted (PDF) to the UN. It’s also the long-term goal the U.S. will bring to G20 negotiations next week. And it shows up in the 2016 Democratic Party Platform (PDF) upon which Hillary Clinton is running for president. (Republican candidate Donald Trump has rejected the science of global warming. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson recognizes climate change and is “open to” a carbon tax.)

Get a quote for a Solar rooftop system

The $8 Trillion Fight Over How to Rid America of Fossil Fuel

10 Solar Energy Facts & Charts You (& Everyone) Should Know

I sometimes forget that not everyone has the time to read all 9,190 solar energy articles we’ve published here on CleanTechnica — or even 10% of them, or 1% of them. Okay, who am I kidding — most people haven’t read a single solar energy article published on CleanTechnica.

Our goal isn’t just to be a cheerleader for the people who have gone solar and who have switched to electric cars, and it isn’t just to help keep industry insiders informed. Our goal is to help society help itself by inspiring more people to switch to cleantech. Part of that is sharing useful information that most people aren’t aware of about solar costs & incentives. Part of that is trying to persuade people to cut the death toll. Part of that is covering new solar tech that may interest you. Part of that is debunking media and fossil/utility misinformation.

It hit me after writing that last piece linked above, though, that there are really a handful of solar energy facts that few people know but that I think should be common knowledge in a healthy, democratic, free-market society. That’s how I got to writing this article. Read more…

10 Solar Energy Facts & Charts You (& Everyone) Should Know

SolarCity to develop roofs made of solar cells

Five million roofs are replaced each year in the U.S., so instead of simply swapping out old shingles with new ones, why not turn the whole roof into a solar power generator that’s integrated with your home’s electrical utility?

That is SolarCity’s plan for a new product it expects to begin producing next year, according to statements made during the company’s second-quarter earnings calllast week.

During the call, SolarCity Chief Technology Officer Peter Rive alluded to a new product that would be produced at the soon to open Buffalo, N.Y., solar panel manufacturing facility. Then SolarCity co-founder and Chairman Elon Musk interjected and said the product would be a solar roof, “as opposed to a [solar] module on a roof.”

Get a quote for a Solar rooftop system

SolarCity to develop roofs made of solar cells

Africa Battles to Get Big Solar Projects on Grid

In an expanse of sand 60 miles (100 km) north of Senegal’s capital, two men set to work digging up tree stumps to clear space for what could soon be the biggest solar plant in West Africa.

In less than a year, says developer Senergy PV SA, this shrubby lot will be covered with 96,000 gleaming solar panels from China, injecting up to 30 megawatts into the grid.

It is an attractive prospect for a nation with a dire power deficit, and which currently meets most of its needs by burning imported oil in hugely inefficient diesel generators.

“The context is favorable,” Karim Ndiaye, investment director at French private equity firm Meridiam, which bought out the original Senergy company in 2014, told Reuters.

Get a quote for a Solar rooftop system

Africa Battles to Get Big Solar Projects on Grid

CITD becomes the first MSME institute to go solar

Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) goes solar with Hyderabad-based Central Institute of Tool Design (CITD) installing a 50 KWP roof-top solar energy power plant that generates close to 250 units per day. The plant is the first to be installed in all of the 300 institutes and centres that come under the MSME.

Installation of the power plant has resulted in the institute saving Rs. 2.91 lakh every six months. The CITD is expected to expand its solar power generation to 400 KWP in the coming years. Solar power, once the plant reaches its full capacity will cover about 10 to 12 per cent of energy requirements of the institute.

The next MSME institute in the city to go for solar power is expected to be National Institute of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (NIMSME), said Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner Ministry of MSME Surendranath Tripathi said at the inauguration of the plant here on Sunday.

Get a quote for a Solar rooftop system

Read More…

CITD becomes the first MSME institute to go solar

Solar Impulse 2 departs Egypt on final leg of fuel-free global trip

Solar Impulse 2, an aircraft powered by solar energy, has left Egypt on the final leg of the first ever global fuel-free journey. Its flight to the United Arab Emirates was delayed due to a heat wave in Saudi Arabia.

The single-seat plane took off from Cairo at 1:30 a.m. local time Sunday, en route to Abu Dhabi, its starting point in March 2015 and its final destination. The flight is expected to take between 48 and 72 hours.

Solar Impulse 2 arrived in Cairo after a two-day flight from Spain, finishing the 3,745-kilometer (2,327-mile) journey with an average speed of 76.7 kilometers per hour (47.7 miles per hour). On June 23, it became the first solar-powered aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean, flying 70 hours fromNew York to Seville, Spain. Read More…

Solar Impulse 2 departs Egypt on final leg of fuel-free global trip

Obama’s New Energy Initiative Another Win for Solar

The White House announced a truly groundbreaking initiative Tuesday called the Clean Energy Savings for All Americans. This program aims to increase access to solar energy across communities of all income levels and geographies, so that no matter where you live, if you have a sunny roof, you have the chance to go solar. And the administration did so by providing a bevy of options that move renewables and solar forward significantly.

The array of initiative components culminates in a goal of providing one gigawatt of solar for low to middle-income households by 2020. And chief among the announcements is the issuance of new guidance for property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing that will allow mortgage insurance to now be issued by the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration, rather than through the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association, which ran into roadblocks with PACE loans six years ago.

Cutting through the alphabet soup of federal agencies, the bottom line is that more Americans will now be able to choose solar and private industry can seize the opportunity to build more solar systems. Read More…

Obama’s New Energy Initiative Another Win for Solar

Las Vegas goes solar: good news for some, bad for others

Las Vegas this week became the home of the largest solar installation in the nation, with sun-harnessing panels stretching across 28 acres of rooftop space covering the sprawling Mandalay Bay Events Center.

The electricity produced by the 26,000 panels, which began to be installed in 2014, would cover the average annual energy usage of 1,340 US homes, according to MGM Resorts International, which operates the convention center. For the energy-intensive Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino complex, the solar system, at full production, will cover a quarter of its energy needs.

MGM is among several of Nevada’s largest casino companies to have committed to powering some of their operations with solar, a plentiful resource in sun-soaked Nevada. Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands also have announced plans to buy and produce more renewable energy for their hotels. Read More…

Las Vegas goes solar: good news for some, bad for others