This is why home solar power is creeping in and stealing market share from the utilities.

More and more families are switching to home solar power as the cost of installing solar panels continue to drop to levels people can easily afford. The cost of solar panels has dropped by 100 times since 1977 and today solar panels are half the price that they were in 2008. That’s a huge change.

Home solar power is increasingly appealing when you consider that in some households it can account for 80 percent of energy used. That’s a savings of $20,080 off a family’s net electricity costs over 20 years. This huge cost savings along with the environmental benefits of avoiding dirty coal power generation is helping residents to turn toward solar at a rate like never before. But as the use of solar power steadily increases, utility companies are starting to notice.

Utility companies are getting hit harder in states like California and Colorado where residential solar power is a real threat to their bottom line. And it presents a double whammy: it cuts into the amount of traditional power taken from the grid and additionally, the utilities have to repay residents that put additional power into the grid through the generation of solar power.

In Northern California, a part of the country that accounts for one quarter of the solar panel installation in the country, the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric wants to add a fixed monthly charge of $10 per month to offset this cost. But the solar industry contends that it’s a direct attack by an industry that for too long has depended on a monopoly to do business.

Home solar power is finally becoming a disruptive technology in the same way that cell phones were to the phone companies and it’s a problem that will continue to get worse for the big utility companies because as they lose money to solar power they’ll have to raise prices which will make solar power even more appealing.

But of course the popularity of solar varies from state to state based on the laws in place to support it. I wrote a while back that some states were doing a lot to make residential solar power appealing.

The top ten states: New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, New Jersey, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont, and New Mexico include a slew of rebates and tax incentives for those that install solar panels on their homes which motivates residents to participate. New York governor Andrew Cuomo has made a commitment to solar energy, allowing his state to perform the best. It’s strange that some of the states with the least usable power have the best incentives.

What do you think? Is solar on your radar? Are you considering installing solar panels on your home and if so, what’s the biggest draw for you as a power consumer?

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Image: Peter Blanchard

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The first aerial flight to circumnavigate the globe was conducted in 1924 by a team of aviators from the U.S. Air Service (now known as the Air Force). It took 175 days and covered 27,553 miles. Ninety years later, the first solar powered flight around the world will take place aboard Solar Impulse 2. 

In March of 2015, pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg are planning to make it around the world on the Solar Impulse 2, a 100 percent solar powered airplane. It will take off from Abu Dhabi, the capitol of the United Arab Emirates.

“We have chosen [Abu Dhabi] as being the best and most suitable departure point for the round-the-world tour, due to its climate, infrastructure and commitment to clean technologies,” Borschberg, Solar Impulse co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

But the flight will most definitely have its challenges. The team will accumulate a total of 500 flight hours in a tiny cockpit with weather conditions from 40 below to 104 degrees F. There’s no pressurization system and just six oxygen bottles aboard.

“What is really special, is that it is the first and only airplane in the world which has unlimited endurance. We have an airplane which is fully sustainable in terms of energy, and our challenge now is to make the pilot sustainable as well,” says Borschberg.

The route will start at the Arabian Gulf, flying over India, Myanmar, and China, followed by two ocean crossings, and the U.S., before making their way back around. The pilots will stopover in India, Myanmar, China, the U.S., and Southern Europe or Northern Africa. Although the exact cities will be chosen based on operational considerations.

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Image: Charles Barilleaux

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Last weekend’s Portland Fashion Week endeavored for the title of most cohesive runway show on the West Coast and demonstrated the area’s evident talent pool with four former Project Runway competitors showing. Reiterating the event’s green consciousness was last season’s winner, Seth Aaron‘s debut of a dramatic Gaga-esque solar energy-inspired collection.

While Aaron’s collection and the headlining unique, solar-powered catwalk construction were a blazing argument for the need for new collaboration between the energy and fashion industries, the most radical thing to see was legendary Oregon textilist Pendleton‘s collaboration with Opening Ceremony and local luxury knitwear line Souchi – demonstrating that local companies can produce eco-wool clothing successfully.

Perhaps it’s timing. With chunky knits ruling the AW 2010 runways from Prada to Chloé, and the trend for heritage looks, the use of wool for clothing seems exciting again. As a natural, renewable, and fully recyclable fiber, wool’s green credentials are obvious. Are the knitters on to something?

“I’m not sure it’s necessarily cheaper to produce than cut and sew – it’s actually a bit more expensive especially locally,” says designer Casey Larkin, whose knitwear line, Adie + George, produced 100 percent in California, launched last year. “Looking at the big picture of the manufacturing process, knit wear is probably a good place to start in this recession because a knit house is usually a vertical program that handles the entire process from start to finish – making the process more efficient and therefore less expensive in the end.”

Larkin’s partner, textile artist and designer Sasha Duerr, outlines the many benefits to keeping production in America, “Just as with regaining our local food system, the initial cost for quality ingredients in our collection is higher – just like with organic and local food – but the exchange is that we are able to participate closely in the process of where our yarn comes from, where it is spun, where it is knitted, and finally dyed.” Duerr, who founded the Permacouture Institute and is devoted to reviving organic and natural dying processes, continues, “There is a true storytelling that comes with choosing local materials, working with local farms, reviving fiber mills, and domestic knitwear houses, and supporting other facets that support true economic recovery. Our vision for Adie + George is aligned with how we would like local and domestic fashion production to be in the near future. The whole process is hands-on and extremely satisfying.”

Above image Pendleton for Opening Ceremony

The post Still Made in America: The Purl of Portland’s Fashion Week appeared first on EcoSalon.

Since we’ve been on a bit of sun kick lately (hey, it’s August), here’s a solar-powered gadget that’s going to multi-task today. First, it’s going to thrill you with its ingenuity and get you thinking about how quickly personal solar-powered charging is coming along. It’s going make you think about all the times you looked down at your laptop, saw the “7 percent charged” note blinking on menu bar and thought, “Wouldn’t be nice if I could just plug this thing into something and keeping working?”

Yes, the Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger is a solar-powered carrying case powerful enough to charge a laptop. We first showed it to you a few month’s ago in a solar-powered gadget round-up, but here are some details on what’s in the bag:

The case does its thing with high-efficiency monocrystalline cells and a battery pack that stores and converts electricity generated by a 15-watt, 20-volt panel. It’s being billed as more of a “mobile office” deal, as the case will also charge cell phones and most other handheld electronics.

The Lilon (lithium ion) battery has a capacity similar to a typical small laptop battery and is stored inside the bag, so it’s good to go whenever you need it (as in, “Hello! Hello! Still there?! Damn!”). When the bags not in the sun (with direct sun, a full charge takes five hours), the battery can be juiced using an AC travel charger. An Indicator light inside the handle shows it working.

The bag itself (shell, webbing, mesh and lining) is comprised of fabrics made from recycled PET (soda bottles). It’s strong. It’s water-resistant. It has an aluminum frame and a silicon handle, and weighs in at 4.5 pounds, including the solar panel and battery. It’ll hold something as large as a 17-inch MacBook Pro and comes in four colors.

Cost for packing sunshine: about 500 bucks.

And now, this case is going to serve its second solar-related purpose of the day. Writing about the Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger requires no more from me. Nope, no 1,000-word tome today on Darwin, global warming or the evils of The Man. I’m outta here. It’s gonna be a scorcher and I’m hitting the chaise lounge that’s screaming at me from my balcony. Lates.

The post Case on Point: Laptop Carrier Bags Solar Battery Charger appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Street…

The question will no longer be, “Who shot J.R.” but “Where’d J.R. get those photovoltaic panels for his roof?” Which is almost as catchy.

Larry Hagman is reprising his role as J.R. Ewing from the soap opera Dallas on behalf of the solar industry. The dastardly Texas oilman who famously spent a summer nursing a bullet wound (while audiences spent it thinking about his fate with bated breath) has become disillusioned with Texas tea. Here he is in an advertising campaign to promote solar energy and SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker.

“In the past it was always about the oil,” Hagman says in a TV commercial that debuted yesterday at the Intersolar conference in San Francisco.

“The oil was flowing and so was the money. Too dirty, I quit it years ago,” he says in a voice so gravelly you could walk across it. A portrait of a beaming, much younger J.R. from his wilder days in the 80s fades out of focus, with the subtlety of the Picture of Dorian Gray. Images of an offshore oil rig and blackened waters flash against the backdrop of his sullied memories.

“Shine, baby shine,” he guffaws. The line is a direct jab at Sarah Palin’s “Drill, baby, drill” campaign slogan.

Before the rolling of eyes ensues, it’s worth noting that Hagman lives on an estate in the Southern California town of Ojai which he outfitted with an elaborate 94-kilowatt solar system, thought to be the largest residential solar panel installation in the world, several years ago. He also serves on the board of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a non-profit that builds solar systems in poverty-stricken areas of the world and was awarded additional funding by the ExxonMobil and Ashoka’s Changemakers Women | Tools | Technology Challenge campaign on June 29.

SolarWorld donated solar panels for the group’s work in Haiti after the earthquake there in January. Yesterday the company said it would give an additional 100 kilowatts worth of panels to provide electricity for at least five health clinics.

The commercial will air nationally in August and can be found on SolarWorld’s site here.

SolarWorld, which is based in Germany but operates factories in California and Oregon, is just the latest of a number of solar companies to introduce a high-profile advertising campaign.

So what’s your opinion? Do you respond well to the idea of a fictional oil baron going rogue in favor of the green movement? Does it draw the right kind of attention to the cause? Is it a clever move or completely out of touch? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: AP

The post Recovered Shooting Victim and Reformed Oil Tycoon Goes Green appeared first on EcoSalon.

The World Cup finals are Sunday and, if you’re like me, you’ll think nothing of picking up the remote and tuning into the game. In fact, as usual, I probably won’t think much of flipping a lot of switches this weekend – my coffee-maker, laptop, electric lights; hell, my Prius, the electric wonder that will probably scoot me out to stock up on chips and guac before game time.

Which is why the following has me thinking. According to UN-Habitat, an estimated 560 million people live without electricity in sub-Saharan Africa (this year’s World Cup is taking place is in South Africa), including residents of Kenya’s Kibera, the largest slum settlement in the region. Situated in Nairobi, Kibera is “home” to almost one million people and only about 20 percent of people residing there have electricity.

In light of what it means to live without electricity, I know the tournament doesn’t even register as a footnote when seen in terms of life’s necessities. But there are lot of people residing in the Cup’s host continent, including a lot of kids no doubt, with a passion for the sport that I can’t even begin to fathom, who are cut off from witnessing sports’ – their sport’s – greatest spectacle.

A little ray of hope, however, comes from Solafrica.ch, a Swiss nonprofit organization that started the Kibera Youth Solar Project, which is training Kiberan kids to “assemble and repair solar technology.” To televise the games locally, Solafrica has worked with a couple dozen youth to help them hook up “open-air” television sets and projectors to a solar power-station with photovoltaic solar panels and batteries. At the end of the World Cup, the station (which can provide light and charge mobile phones and other small devices) will be installed in a nearby school to provide power for a number of local needs.

“The Kibera youths have now conquered the power of the sun,” said Solafrica Executive Director Joshiah Ramogi, who spun the group off from Greenpeace, which is also involved in supporting the effort. Quoted in Techworld, he added, “We want to show the residents of the slums the benefits of solar technology. We want to convince them to adopt new solar LED technology that will benefit them and their children.”

Image: Dundas Football Club

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It’s been said the rich are different, and that they have more money. More toys, too, I figure, like yachts and stuff. On a few of the rare occasions when I’ve been invited on the high seas with the higher class, I’ve ended a conversation (usually after a little too much rum) with the query: “How much fuel do you burn on a trip like this, mate? It must cost a ton, huh?” A raised eyebrow (for effect, let’s say from under the brim of one of those dopey captain hats) lets me know that not only is the conversation over, but that the answer is something like: “More than you make in a year, (ahem) sir.”

Well, there’s good news for the over-privileged! Conspicuous consumption of the finer things no longer necessitates conspicuous consumption of fossil fuel and its associated costs (not that the latter matters to these – okay, I’ll give it up). Yes, the world’s first solar-powered super yacht has launched and is currently prepping for an around-the-world tour.

The mammoth catamaran, called the PlanetSolar, is the largest solar-powered boat in the world. It was launched in the Baltic Sea off Kiel, Germany, March 31. And to be fair, its makers are more focused on their effort’s promise of promoting solar-power, clean energy and reducing carbon emissions than they are serving the nouveau and oldeau riche. Still, the ship is a behemoth: tipping the scales at 60-tons, the PlanetSolar measures 102-feet long, 50-feet wide, and 24-feet tall. The reason it’s so big is so that it can present Ra with 5,300 square feet of solar panels on its deck, which translates into 103-kilowatts of electricity. That’s way more than the boat needs to run at its average speed of nine miles per hour.

After some “sea tests,” the next big step for PlanetSolar will be her world tour, which will rack up about 26,998 nautical miles, following an east to west equatorial route. (Yep, that’s where the sunshine is.) The 160-day voyage is scheduled to take place in 2011, and for those of you who’d like to visit big Miss Sunshine, the plan is to make several stopovers where the public will be able to get info on the project and visit an exhibition on renewable energy.

The post All Rays On Deck: The World’s First Solar-Powered Super Yacht appeared first on EcoSalon.

Flying close to the sun has always been viewed as, well, inadvisable. But a lot has changed since Icarus went down hard. Today, prying apart the human need and desire to take wing with our over-reliance on fossil fuel, poses a significant challenge to creating a greener blue yonder.

Enter the Solar Impulse HB-SIA – and take note of its recent maiden flights culminating in a pure-solar energy voyage last Friday. The solar-powered airplane has wings boasting 12,000 solar cells powering four 10-horsepower engines, and a span matching that of a 747 (about 200 feet). It took off for the first time in Switzerland on April 7th and flew for 87 minutes at heights reaching just under 4,000 feet. German Pilot Markus Scherdel took the aircraft (which weighs about the same as a mid-size sedan) on its first zero-emission spin, performing gentle maneuvers at speeds of about 30 miles per hour. Then on May 28th, André Borschberg took the plane on two more short flights, the second of which was powered only by the sun.

“Today the HB-SIA was sun-born,” said Borschberg, who activated the solar cells on his second flight, prompting the aircraft not only to produce electricity, but also to recharge its own batteries. “At this precise moment,” he said, “when the Solar Impulse produced more energy than it was currently consuming, the fulfillment of a dream – to fly solely on solar power, day and night – came one step closer to reality.”

The experimental aircraft is the brainchild of Solar Impulse co- founders Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard. Piccard says the $93-million-plus project is strictly for research purposes, but points to what might lie ahead in the arena of zero-emission aviation. “Solar impulse is intended to demonstrate what can be done already today by using these energies and applying new technologies that can save natural resources,” he said after the aircraft’s first test flight.

The practical goal of the Solar Impulse program, largely supported by private funding, is to use data from these initial flights to build a second aircraft that will complete a five-stage around-the-world flight by 2013. Obviously the leap from there to any commercial application is vast. But then again, how many years was it from Kitty Hawk to the jet engine?

The post The Wild Green Yonder: A Wright Approach to Solar Tech appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m just a wee bit crazy for all my electronic devices, but all the expensive power they use? Not so much. Solar-powered gadgets are the perfect answer, sucking energy from the sun instead of money from my pocketbook. Here are five of my favorites:

YAYA Power Solar Portable Charger

Perfect for charging cell phones, iPods, video games, and other electronic devices, this baby is definitely something you want to keep in your handbag for emergency charges. It has its own solar panel to draw juice from the sun, but on cloudy days you can can still recharge devices with it via your car’s cigarette lighter or a USB port on your computer.

Ripe Radish Solar Energy Lawn Lamp

How cool is this? Forget those boring black, plastic solar pathway lights. Nab a batch of these solar lamps that collect power during the day and glow red an night The center is a hollow flowerpot perfect for holding young radish plants. If there’s a cuter way to light your lawn, I haven’t seen it.

Solar LED Address Numbers

These nifty address numbers attach to the front of your home and glow for eight to ten hours each night after collecting energy from the sun. Two LED backlight the number cutouts so they’re easy to read, and the entire affair is made from weather-resistant anodized aluminum so it will last a long time. This gizmo beat numbers glued to a mailbox, hands down.

Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger Bag

I’m in love with this bag. Made from recycled soda bottles, this laptop charger doubles as a computer tote. Solar panels on the outside generate enough power to charge the custom-designed battery pack in only five hours. It includes adapters for laptops, phones and other handheld devices, and can even be configured to adapt to the unique MagSafe port on a MacBook. The charger bag may not be much to look at, but functionality, it is to die for.

Solar Bluetooth Car Speaker

Forget fiddling with those goofy-looking Bluetooth cell phone ear pieces, slap this puppy on your windshield and chat on speakerphone. This car kit features call waiting, voice dialing, redial, and more. It stores 200 phone numbers and has a built-in rechargeable battery that provides up to 14 hours of talk time – perfect for those extra long car trips.

Image: david.nikonvscanon

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