You can add the Pershing County School District in Nevada to the long list of districts across the country that have installed solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems atop their schools to save money on utility bills and promote environmental consciousness.

As the latest district to join the group, Pershing County has installed systems atop three schools in Lovelock, Nevada. The school district was able to finance the installations after receiving a $1.49 million rebate from the NV Energy’s Solar Generation Program for investing in these solar energy systems. NV Energy is one of Nevada’s largest utility companies. Its Solar Generations Program is designed to offer incentives to those who install solar energy systems atop Nevada homes, small businesses, public buildings and schools. Since being implemented in 2004, the program has helped install six megawatts (MW) worth of solar energy spread out over 750 different solar PV projects, and dished out about $23 million in rebates.

The school district began its venture into solar in 2009 when it installed 70 kilowatts (kW) worth of solar capacity at the Lovelock Elementary School. These three most recent systems were installed atop a walkway at Pershing County Middle School and atop shaded parking lots at Pershing County High School and, again, Lovelock Elementary school.

Combined, the three systems should produce roughly 600,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of solar energy each year and save the district $72,000 annually while reducing the district’s carbon footprint by 420 tons every year. Both benefits of the solar projects, along with the ability to teach students about clean energy, are not lost on Pershing County School District Superintendent Dan Fox:

We viewed this as a potential money saver for the district, as well as saving part of Mother Nature’s environment…These projects will benefit the district financially and allow a more ‘hands-on’ opportunity for students and community members to witness alternative energy solutions and savings.”

Check out other school districts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware and New Jersey and Pennsylvania that have installed solar energy systems for a trio of benefits: a reduced carbon footprint, financial savings and a teaching tool.

A new law in Maryland scheduled to take effect on January 1st will require state utility companies to purchase more electricity generated from solar energy resources sooner than originally scheduled.

Customers will at first pay a bit more each month on their utility bills. Homeowners can expect to see a 5 cent per month increase. Bigger consumers of power, meanwhile, will see an increase of about 66 cents each month.

The law will also help create jobs within the state. After all, more solar power to the utility companies means more solar facilities in the state. And those facilities will need workers in order to function smoothly.

The added solar energy to the state’s utility grid will also help lay the foundation for a cleaner energy future, as electricity consumption is growing in Maryland at 2.7 percent each year — 25 percent higher than the national average. Of the 50 states, Maryland ranks 41st in total energy consumption per capita and 30th in the average annual increase in total energy consumption.

Because of the new law, Maryland’s timetable for meeting its renewable energy standard will be moved up. In April 2008, Maryland required 20 percent of its total electricity to come from renewable sources by 2022, with two percent of that amount coming from solar energy sources.

Earlier this month, Ron Kamen, president of the New York Solar Energy Industries Associaton (NYSEIA), spoke about the group’s future goals at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Buffalo. Here are some of the main projects the group will be working on in 2011 and beyond:

1. Establish a fully funded program aimed at installing 5,000 megawatts (MW) of solar energy capacity within the state by 2025: New York solar energy industry leaders would like to be in the same bracket with California and New Jersey in terms of solar energy capacity. In order to do this, the state will have to secure funding to help alleviate some of the cost of solar energy for New Yorkers.

2. Generate 2,000 MW of solar thermal to replace oil and natural gas by 2020: This would make a huge difference because New York has one of the highest energy consumption rates out of all states in the country.

3. Establish New York’s first solar thermal incentive program to promote water heating using solar energy: New York currently has no state incentive program to help home and business owners with the cost of installing a solar thermal system. The goal here is to fund a program with $25 million in incentive funds to spread out over the course of five years.

4. Pass the New York Solar Jobs Act: The New York Solar Jobs Act would create over 22,000 jobs over the next 15 years and, according to the Central New York Business Journal, would generate around $20 billion in economic return over that same period. The Act is also intended to help meet the state’s 5,000 MW by 2025 goal, including benchmarks of 500 MW by 2015 and 1,500 MW by 2020.

So how do all these fancy acts and solar capacity benchmarks relate to you, the New York property owner? You’ll likely see more incentive programs designed to help you pay for a solar energy system. You can find a list of current incentives here. And for a full review of the NYSEIA’s goals for 2011 and beyond, visit their site here.

Less than four months after proposing the construction of a solar farm to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation, Solarflair Energy and Westboro 21 South Street Inc. are jut about finished building the Milk Street solar farm — a 240-kilowatt (KW) photovoltaic (PV) solar energy installation in Westboro Massachusetts.

A group of residents in the Westboro area led by business owner Bruce Forrestall, Westboro 21 South Street Inc. is the organization credited with helping make the project a reality. The plant is located near two main routes in the Westboro area — 9 and 135 — so the group needed to gain approval from the Massachusetts transportation division to go ahead with the project. That approval came after a public hearing in early September.

Forrestall was in many ways the brains behind the operation, having got the idea after installing solar panels atop his car wash in 2008. He noticed the payoffs immediately — clean energy and savings on utility bills — and decided to expand his rooftop solar system. So Forrestall got in contact with Solarflair — a solar installation firm based in Framingham, Mass. — to see what they could do. Three months later, Solarflair had helped Forrestall install a two acre, 860-panel system.

Following that success, Forrestall and Solarflair agreed to team up on the $2 million Milk Street Solar Farm, which is eligible for the federal government’s 1603 Treasury Grant. The grant will help pay for 30 percent of the project’s cost within 60 days of the farm’s completion. The Massachusetts renewable incentives program also allows the project to generate revenue via solar renewable energy credits (SCRECs).

According to a SolarFlair spokesperson, SREC revenue is substantial and key to making projects viable:

“Over the next 10 years, the SREC market projects to add between 30 cents and 60 cents to the value of each kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by solar. Such PV incentives are helping to reduce the payback time of installing the system. The system will generate over $5,000,000 in savings and revenue over its 30 year expected life.”

Forrestall will sell the energy from the solar farm to National Grid, one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the country.

Solar Energy Initiatives — a clean energy manufacturing company — has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to build a 300-kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic (PV) solar energy system atop a charter school in Delaware.

The LOI doesn’t mean that the project plans are set in stone. But it does means that Solar Energy Initiatives will work with the school to determine how feasible the project is. As you know, there are many elements that factor in to the final determination of whether or not a location is fit to host a PV system: shading, orientation and condition of the roof, cost, etc. The LOI means that all of these factors will be looked into and a determination to go through with the project or not will be made later on.

If the two sides do follow through with the project, Solar Energy Initiatives will be the project developer. The company would oversee the construction and provide all of the equipment needed. In return, Solar Energy Initiatives would get paid for managing the sale of the clean energy produced by the PV system. According to MarketWire, the PV system is expected to generate about $1.2 million in revenue per year. David Fann, CEO of Solar Energy Initiatives, spoke about the LOI shortly after it was announced:

“This agreement is yet another example of Solar Energy’s ability to expand its market presence into new geographic regions due in large part to the universal appeal our solar energy solutions offer for schools.”

The school is not expected to pay for the installation itself, so Solar Energy Initiatives is looking to bring a funding source into the partnership. The company is also vetting  local installation companies to see which one is best suited to handle the labor work. If things go according to plan, the system will consist of over 1,300 solar PV panels and will be up and running sometime during the fall of 2011.

One of the major reasons California is a leader in solar energy is its initiatives aimed at encouraging homeowners to install solar panels. Under the state’s flagship program, the California Solar Initiative (CSI), solar rebates are made available to qualified home and business owners looking to install solar.

Beyond this general initiative, California has included special provisions to ensure that solar energy systems are accessible to low-income communities. Look no further than Grid Alternatives to see how the CSI is being put to great use in under-privileged communities.

But while Grid Alternatives operates mostly in northern California, similar work is being done in the southern portion of the Golden State. This week, Everyday Energy and the San Diego Community Housing Corporation (SDCHC) teamed up to install a solar energy system atop Hacienda Townhomes, an affordable housing complex in San Diego. Residents will see a much needed payoff right away, as the clean energy will cut part of their monthly utility bills and save them thousands of dollars each year. The residential solar panel system is expected to generate roughly 86,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity a year — roughly equal to the needs of seven or eight typical American homes.

Shortly after the installation, Kmberly Paul, vice president of community development with the SDCHC, discussed the importance of such a project and how it all came together:

“At our organization, we had been wanting to move toward trying to build a sustainable environment for our residents and it just so happened that CSI had the MASH program available…In these economically difficult times, this definitely helps offset the costs residents would normally incur. They don’t have to spend every dime on utilities; they don’t have to choose between keeping the lights on and buying their children shoes.”

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) — the utility company servicing the San Diego area — has chipped in with a virtual metering tool that allows residents to monitor their solar energy production. This specific project is part of the larger Multi-Family Affordable Housing program (MASH) that funds similar projects throughout the San Diego area. According to Everyday Energy CEO Scott Sarem, MASH should help complete 458 such projects throughout San Diego in the coming year.

Such a project is a prime example of how California is making solar energy a widespread phenomenon throughout the state. It can also serve as an example to other states trying to climb the charts in terms of solar energy capacity. High-end home solar and commercial solar installations are a great start. But California’s efforts to ensure solar energy is adopted by individuals of all income levels will clearly help increase the number of solar panels installed statewide.

Southern California Edison (SCE) — one of California’s three major investor owned utilities (IOUs) — is just about finished with construction of a 29,000-panel solar energy plant in Porterville, California that, when completed, should produce enough energy to power 4,300 homes in Porterville each year.

Construction of the plant began in October of this year and, according to ABC News, SCE will have the plant finished before the new year. It will take a bit longer than that for customers to receive energy from the plant, as SCE will run tests on the panels throughout the beginning of January before fully flipping the switch and feeding all of the plant’s energy into the utility’s grid.

At 6.7 megawatts (MW) in capacity, the Porterville plant is one of the largest privately owned solar power plants in the entire state, and it’s the largest ground-mounted solar plant that SCE has created to date. During construction, SCE created jobs in an area where they are sorely needed. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, California’s unemployment rate was just a hair over 12 percent as of October 2010 — higher than the national average. SCE was also able to temporarily employ 125 workers to hammer in the clean energy plant and is renting land from the city at $70,000 per year.

There’s still a few issues to take care of before testing of the plant begins, including cleanup of working materials and inspection of the plant. A ground-breaking ceremony to fully integrate the Porterville facility into the utility grid will be held in late January or early February of 2011.

Since the inauguration of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2007, the state has installed 29.8 megawatts (MW) of solar energy capacity, ranking it behind only California and New Jersey when it comes to states with the most installed solar capacity. With such an increase in solar capacity during his first term, it would have been easy for the state’s governor, Deval Patrick, to call it a job well done, satisfied for at least a few years with the state’s progress.

But as Patrick begins his second term as Governor, he has made it clear that the state’s energy goals have yet to be fully realized. He and his administration have set a new goal of installing 250 MW of solar energy capacity by 2017. That’s enough clean power to fully account for the energy use of at least 37,500 average Massachusetts homes each year. The state has a long way to go meet that goal; currently, Massachusetts has 33.3 MW of installed solar capacity.

So can Massachusetts reach this fairly ambitious goal? The state certainly has legislation and a number of programs in place to help it along.

Since 2003, Massachusetts has provided funding for energy-related initiatives via the Massachusetts Energy Trust (MET). In January 2007 — shortly after beginning his first term as Governor — Patrick introduced the Commonwealth Solar program to offer solar rebates to home and business owners who install solar energy. The state funded the program with $68 million of MET money. The program turned out to be a huge success, as the funds were wiped clean by October 2009. In fact, the program was such a hit that Massachusetts legislature had almost no choice but to pass the Commonwealth Solar II program for installations of 5 kilowatts (kW) or fewer.

There appears to be something for everyone in Massachusetts who wants to install solar. The 2008 Green Communities Act allows homeowners who install solar to save anywhere from $300 to $600, and the state’s Commonwealth Solar Stimulus is an $8 million program to help business owners pay for some of the cost of a rooftop solar installation.

So why so many incentives in Massachusetts as opposed to other states? First of all, the state government is committed to a clean energy future. Second, there’s a demand for it. So as long as incentive programs are used up, the state is likely to continue to fund them, and Massachusetts is likely to continue trekking toward a solar future.

Today, Caltech Professor of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering Sossina Haile and a team of Swiss researchers are one step closer to developing liquid fuel from sunlight after discovering a commonly used element can do the trick. Earlier this week, Haile shared the findings of her research and her hope for the future with NPR. You can listen to it here, or read the details of the study that we’ve pulled out.

Cerium — found mostly in glass polishing formulas and phosphors used for screens and fluorescent lamps — is a metal that oxidizes in air. Haile and her team have discovered that when the metal reaches nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit it can turn carbon dioxide and water into fuel. But if you use dirty energy to get the element up to that temperature, the process is counterproductive. That’s where solar comes in.

Scientists think cerium is the key in converting carbon dixoide and water into liquid fuel.

This past summer, the research team was able to use solar energy to heat a device to get the cerium up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At one percent, the efficiency rate is clearly far too low to hit the market, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction in terms of being able to capture solar energy to develop liquid fuel. What’s particularly interesting is that the same piece of cerium can be used many times over because it doesn’t lose its chemical properties through the reaction process.

Haile also has a partner in the Duke University chemistry department named Erik Toone, who wants to use his biology background to help Haile. As he puts it, they’re both trying to do the same thing: use solar photons to develop high-efficiency liquid fuel. Toone thinks the process is still between 10 and 15 years away from widespread use, but when it does catch on, it’s likely to be a major game-changer in the energy industry.

Haile hopes to get the efficiency level up around ten percent. And of course, the technology would have to be cost effective in order to really catch on with the general public.

Residential solar energy systems are, in most cases, installed in a distributed fashion atop the roofs of single-family homes. But what happens if your roof is no good for solar? Or you live in a multi-tenant building, which often posses challenges relating to roof access and ownership.

An alternative has emerged in recent years that enables groups of residents to band together to purchase and install a solar power system in a single, communal location. Commonly referred to as a solar garden or a solar community, the approach enables individuals to reap the benefits of solar power — namely lower electricity bills — without hosting the system on site.

It can be a difficult feat to pull off, however. If you’re trying to start a solar movement within your community but are stuck at the starting line, caught between deciding who to talk to and which roofs are suitable for solar, there’s a new guide that can help you get your solar revolution off the ground.

Called “A Guide to Community Solar: Utility,Private and Non-profit Development,” it was developed by a group called Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (SEED) — a non-profit organization dedicated to building a framework for clean and affordable energy systems throughout the Northwest. The guide is meant to answer many questions about building a community solar operation, which means many members of a single community own or receive energy from a single energy system.

The newly released guide also includes a set of best practices developed by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. Dubbed the Model Community Renewables Program Rules, IREC’s documentation offers: examples of community solar projects from around the United States; a template that states and utilities can use to encourage community solar; and guidelines as far as taxes and other financial issues that come along with such a system.

One state in which we’ve already seen a community solar project in is Colorado, where in June 2010 Governor Bill Ritter signed the Community Solar Gardens Act into law. The act allows residents of 10 or more to each own a share of a solar energy system and get refunds on their utility bill. And just a few weeks ago, the Eagle County Board of County Commissioners amended Colorado’s ECO-Build Rebate Program to allow community-owned solar projects to apply for the rebate.

In 2008, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) found that only about a quarter of all roofs are good for solar. The rest are off limits because of structural, shading or ownership issues. So a community-based model may open up the possibility for many more people.

But it doesn’t come without drawbacks. One is that you have to find a proper location for the communally owned system, where as a rooftop typically has a single owner and offers existing infrastructure. Moreover, most solar rebate programs do not include a provision to community solar projects. So unless bands of community members are willing to fully pay for the system — which is unlikely — more amendments similar to the one made to Colorado’s ECO-Build program will have to be made around the country in order for the community model to really catch on.