We’ve always known that our institutions of higher learning are home to some of our brightest citizens. Galvanize them with the prestige of an award and the thrill of competition, and it’s likely that the results won’t disappoint. Perhaps this is precisely what the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency reasoned when they [...]

Hey guys,
Just wanted to share this pic of this PV installation just down the road from my apartment. It’s a project of the City of Geneva, cleverly designed to blend into open/public space. (Actually, just adjacent to it is a skate park–I’m always dodging teenagers on skateboards whenever I pass by here…).

(Sorry the output [...]

For a long time, solar has been finding itself on non-traditional surfaces in fresh, yet practical, ways. The presence of solar shingles and solar billboards attests to this. Now take, for example, a solar balloon project called Sunhope.
 
 This initiative, which is being developed by architect Joseph Cory and aerospace engineer Dr. Pini Gurfil, of [...]

Following up on Adam’s down-to-earth post about the basics of installing solar, there’s a great piece out today from The Star about the concrete benefits in using a solar water heater for a pool. For anyone with a pool that they need to worry about heating, getting solar has been a sensible and cost-effective solution [...]

Sometimes, I don’t really have answers. This case where the neighbors of a solar user were forced to cut down their trees is one of those times.
This story brings up all kinds of troublesome issues, and challenges a lot of assumptions about green living and being environmentally responsible. Most, or at least many, environmentalists would [...]

Fox Business reports that Prince Andrew is lending his name and presence to the launch of a solar energy system in California. The system installation is for the firm British Telecommunications. While his role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for the United Kingdom obviously leaves such appearances well within his job description [...]

As much as they may frustrate or infuriate us, traffic lights are an indispensable part of urban, and even suburban, transportation. Over the past few weeks, South Africa’s regular blackouts-and incapacitated traffic lights-have tormented motorists: in Johannesburg, for example, they have often prolonged daily commutes to up to three times their normal length. Byproducts of [...]

See: Mass Energy

In Boston last night, the Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance celebrated 25 years of bringing affordable energy solutions to Massachusetts. No, there was no dancing, but there was a pretty cut-throat silent auction (getsolar is trying not to be bitter about losing the guided tour of Deer Island).
Mass Energy is the kind of coalition [...]

Retractable floors, solar-paneled louvres surrounding the entire house, a home so efficient that passive heating and cooling could meet the needs of the occupants almost entirely without support from power sources, not to mention the nifty television that turns into a mirror when it’s not wanted. You have to hand it to the Technische Universitat [...]

Long lines, hot sun, and shrieking hordes of schoolchildren: this is not what getsolar expected of the DOE’s mid-October Solar Decathlon, being held this week on the Mall in Washington, DC, but that’s what we got. Getsolar sort of wished there had been cotton candy and skeeball, too, but we made do with with interactive [...]