via Psychics on the Moon and Incoming Sun Spit : Discovery News.

Get your panels on, increase the value of your home.

Homes with solar panels sold at a premium to comparable homes without solar systems over a nine-year time period in California, according to a new study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The average premium for a home with solar panels, also called a photovoltaic energy system, was approximately $17,000 for a relatively new, average-sized system capable of producing 3,100 watts.

The premium translates to an average of $5.50 per watt of solar power with the range of results stretching from $3.90 per watt up to $6.40 per watt.

California is approaching close to 100,000 individual solar systems installed. About 90 percent of them are residential.

The study examined data from more than 72,000 homes that sold in California from 2000 through mid-2009. Approximately 2,000 of the homes had solar panels at the time of sale.

via Solar panels increase a home’s value, study finds | MNN – Mother Nature Network.

“Each and every day I have to go out and do battle with the sun that comes up in the east until it sets in the west,” said Dave Tharp of Palouse, Wash.

“Every day, that blasted sun comes up and coats my solar electric panels with sunshine. That sunshine then makes electricity that I have to figure out a way to use up. One way or another, I have to use the electricity that the sun gives me or the energy that falls on my roof just goes to waste,” complained Tharp who, with wife Sharon, installed the solar panels recently. “I just can’t seem to keep the panels clear of the stuff,” Tharp said.

“It seems to come in waves,” Tharp said. “Sometimes it starts washing across my property as early as 5 in the morning and sometimes as late as 8, but you can pretty much count on it being there every day until the evening, then WHAM, next day, here it comes again. The mess seems to be somehow associated with light.”

According to Sharon Tharp, “The same sun that is wreaking havoc by reducing our energy bills also causes my plants to grow and even sometimes causes moisture to rise into the air and then rain on us so that the plants grow even more. Sometimes I have to go out and pick vegetables and trim flowers just to keep them under control. I really wish there was a way to make it stop. I just wish we could figure out a way to plug the solar leak that seems to reappear from the sky each and every morning.”

Both Tharps lament the damage the sun has done to their lives by making things grow, warming their south-facing home, and giving them electricity to use as they see fit.

Mike Carlton, a nearby neighbor, has a similar problem.

“Not only do I have the same problem as the Tharps, but I have an even bigger ecological disaster. Nearly every day the wind washes across my property and coats everything as far as the eye can see. Most of the time it’s pretty invisible, but then other times it bends over the wheat and barley stems, making them look like the entire planet is covered with this stuff. The wind blows so much up here that the trees are bent over in one direction” Carlton said.” I knew there was a problem when I bought the place, but I figured I could get a handle on the cleanup.”

In an effort to stem the tide of wind pollution, Mike put up a wind turbine (or a “wind containment boom” as he calls it) about three years ago.

“I hoped it would slow down the wind a bit, but it didn’t,” Carlton said. “The only thing it did was to start my electric meter spinning backwards. Go figure. I guess that’s the law of unintended consequences for you. Now, not only do I have wind pollution, but I’ve got an electricity spill to deal with as well. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and find that the spill overnight has covered my entire monthly electric bill. I’ve had such a huge electricity spill that for the last three years I’ve ended up putting a pretty large amount back into the utility’s power grid so they can help me get rid of the stuff. You’d think that someone would develop some sort of leak-proof 
cap that would stop this mess.”

“What really makes me mad,” said Carlton, “is having to look out on the horizon and see the damage the wind and the sun are doing to the planet. Both the Tharps and I are doing our best to clean up this mess that will eventually kill us all, but many people don’t seem to realize it’s there. It’s amazing. Sometimes I wish I could be like them and just send off a check every month and stop worrying about the spills so much. I know there are other people around who share our concerns — these spills seem to be washing onto nearly everyone’s property — but there are only a few people around involved in the cleanup.”
Both Carlton and the Tharps are a bit thankful when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing.

“It is a bit of a relief to have night occasionally and to have the wind stop,” sighed Dave Tharp.

news release courtesy of Mike Carlton; reproduced here with Mike’s permission. Thanks, man!

Archimede’s demonstration solar plant in Sicily becomes the first to use molten salts to store energy overnight.

This month, the Italian utility Enel unveiled “Archimede”, the first Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in the world to use molten salts for heat transfer and storage, and the first to be fully integrated to an existing combined-cycle gas power plant. Archimede is a 5 MW plant located in Priolo Gargallo (Sicily), within Europe’s largest petrochemical district.

read more at the source: The world’s first molten salt concentrating solar power plant | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

If there is anywhere that should be blazing the trail to a clean energy future, it is Hawaii. The islands are blessed with abundant sun, winds, and waves, yet today rely on imported fossil fuels for more than 96 percent of their energy. Hawaii consumers pay the highest electric rates in the nation. The state is trying to chart a new course, but the utility is resisting change and fighting to limit solar access to the local grid.

In so doing, the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) is holding back much more than just Hawaii. It is hindering an important experiment with solar energy that could provide valuable information to consumers, entrepreneurs, utility owners and policymakers throughout the United States.

via Solar Energy Foes Try to ‘Block’ Sun | unEARTHED, the Earthjustice blog.

Material scientists at the Nano/Bio Interface Center of the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit. The system, an array of nano-sized molecules of gold, respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons that induce and project electrical current across molecules, similar to that of photovoltaic solar cells.

The results may provide a technological approach for higher efficiency energy harvesting with a nano-sized circuit that can power itself, potentially through sunlight. Recently, surface plasmons have been engineered into a variety of light-activated devices such as biosensors.

It is also possible that the system could be used for computer data storage. While the traditional computer processor represents data in binary form, either on or off, a computer that used such photovoltaic circuits could store data corresponding to wavelengths of light.

via Scientists turn light into electrical current using a golden nanoscale system.

But city officials said Christine Stevens violated building codes, a health and safety concern because Avondale homes are required to have heating systems and a running refrigerator.

Stevens, 47, was trying to make ends meet by powering her home with solar panels and batteries for several months before Avondale code enforcement officials visited her on Dec. 10.

via Avondale condemns home: Solar, batteries insufficient.

EADS Astrium says the satellite system would collect the Sun’s energy and transmit it to Earth via an infrared laser, to provide electricity.

Space solar power has been talked about for more than 30 years. However, there have always been question marks over its cost, efficiency and safety.

But Astrium believes the technology is close to proving its maturity.

“Today we are not at an operational stage; it’s just a test,” said chief executive officer Francois Auque. “In order to implement a solution, of course, we would need to find partnerships and to invest, to develop operational systems,” he told BBC News.

Those partnerships could comprise space agencies, the EU or national governments and even power companies, he said.

via BBC News – EADS Astrium develops space power concept.

The Oregon Process Innovation Center for Sustainable Solar Cell Manufacturing has been set up at OSU with almost $2.7M in new funding. Participating researchers believe that technologies the center generates could lead to dramatic changes in the global solar energy industry.

“We’re reaching the limits of what can be done through incremental improvements in traditional, silicon-based solar cell technology,” said Greg Herman, associate professor of chemical engineering at OSU and associate director of the center. “We’re aiming for a revolution in solar cell processing and manufacturing that might drop costs by as much as 90% while being more environmentally sensitive.”

via Oregon State University Launches Solar Research Center – 2010-01-09 03:07:00 | PV Society.

The solar collectors lie along a biking and hiking path. At night, the energy collected during the day is used to illuminate blue LEDs, while extra energy collected is fed back into the grid.