On this topic, EchoFirst may be onto something. In addition to using sunlight to generate electrical power, as conventional PV panels do, the company’s energy system captures the sun’s thermal energy, which may then be used for heating water and home air conditioning.

The result, according to the company, is a system that operates at around 50 percent efficiency. Here’s more on how it works:

Basic PV panels draw energy only from a narrow spectrum of the sun’s energy to create electricity. The remaining energy, which is mostly in the form of heat, remains unused. The simple but powerful idea behind Echo is to capture a much wider spectrum of the sun’s energy — to utilize those same PV panels to generate both electricity and heat. Because Echo uses the same PV panel to generate both electrical and thermal (heat) energy, it’s more efficient.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? Cooler still is the fact that Echo’s product may be added to conventional solar PV panels (though I haven’t been able to determine whether retrofits are feasible).

While EchoFirst is still a relatively new company, several U.S. homebuilders — Meritage Homes, Wathen Castanos Hybrid Homes and ZETA – are intrigued enough to give the systems a try. It was announced today that the solar technology will be powering several new home communities in California, Arizona and Nevada. Mike Nimon, President of Wathen Castanos Hybrid Homes, had the following to say:

A net zero energy home — a home that generates as much energy as it uses —  has long been the dream of homeowners seeking energy independence and financial security. Echo provides the technology to deliver — affordably and efficiently — a zero energy home at a more attractive cost basis than the basic solar electric systems seen in the market.

>> Related: Net-Zero Home to Feature Solar Panels, $0 Electric Bill

Formerly of SunPower Corp., EchoFirst’s CEO, Vikas Desai, offered the following sound bite:

Echo is an affordable, practical solution for homebuilders and homeowners who want a complete solution to their energy problem. With Echo, a net zero energy home is no longer ‘the home of the future’ — it’s a practical available option today. Echo delivers zero energy home performance — and the beautiful roof-integrated aesthetics and curb appeal demanded by builders and homebuyers alike.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that EchoFirst recently changed its name from PVT Solar, which presumably stood for “photovoltaic thermal” solar. I’ll be the first to say that “Echo Solar” has a much nicer ring to it…

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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.

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One is the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, whose developers earlier today earned federal approval for construction. The plant will be built by SolarReserve — a Santa Monica, California-based solar construction company that last week received approval to build a 150-megawatt (MW) Rice Solar Energy Project in southern California.

At 110-MW, the Crescent Dunes project is a bit smaller, but will still have a large impact on the surrounding economy. Beyond producing enough energy at peak output to meet the energy requirements of roughly 75,000 average American homes each year, Crescent Dunes will also create about 450 construction jobs.

The second major announcement included another California solar power project developer, Sustainable Energy Capital Partners (SECP), which revealed its plan to partner with POSCO Power to build a 300-MW solar installation in Boulder City, Nevada. Following completion, the Boulder City solar plant will be able to power about 135,000 average American homes each year. If all goes well, the plant should be up and running by the middle of 2011.

While POSCO Power and SECP are touting the venture as the biggest solar power plant in the world, it probably won’t be for long. If all goes according to plan, the Blythe Solar Power Plant in Riverside County, California, will have a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts — or one gigawatt.

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The plant was constructed on behalf of Sempra Generation — a San Diego, California power provider to wholesale electricity markets — as part of Sempra’s plan to install over 1,000 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity in California, Arizona and Nevada combined. In order to reach that goal, Sempra already has plans to build a 600-MW PV plant in Arizona and a 200-MW PV facility in Ken County, California.

Construction of the  Copper Mountain Plant began in January of this year, just one month after Sempra received approval to build the plant from California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). It required 350 workers to complete in one year.

All told, the 380-acre, 48-MW power plant consists of approximately 775,000 PV panels and is expected to produce enough energy to power 14,000 average American homes each year. Combined with Sempra’s adjacent 10-MW El Dorado solar plant, completed just last year, the two solar facilities will be using over 1 million PV panels to harness the sun’s energy.

Power generated by both plants will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), one of California’s three major investor owned utilities (IOU’s), through a pair of 20-year power purchasing agreements (PPA’s). PG&E signed the PPA to buy power from the Copper Facility back in July 2009. The utility signed a separate 20-year PPA to purchase the El Dorado power in 2008.

Both plants will play a major role in California’s attempt to meet the statewide renewable energy requirement of 20 percent of the state’s energy coming from renewable sources by the end of 2010 and 33 percent from renewable sources by 2030.

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Shorty after approving the Nevada project, Secretary Salazar commented on the recent slew of approvals.

“Our commitment to the development of clean, renewable energy is creating new jobs that will aid in our economic recovery, protect our environment and transform the way our nation gets our energy.”

According to the Solar Home and Business Journal, the new Nevada solar complex alone will create approximately 1,300 construction jobs and 180 permanent jobs. Overall, the eight approved projects will develop 6,000 construction jobs and 700 permanent jobs.

The Amargosa project will be developed by Solar Millennium, a Germany-based developer and producer of parabolic-shaped collectors that concentrate sunlight using mirrors to make steam and turn electric engines. Solar Millennium will go after federal tax credits and a federal loan guarantee in order to fund the solar power plant, which will be made of smaller solar systems of 250 MW each. A portion of the generated power will help light the billboards and hotel signs along the Las Vegas strip — one of the most electricity-intensive areas  in the world.

The hope is that the Amargosa solar plant will become a model of how to construct future solar thermal plants of similar size. In order for that occur, the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Parks Service are all working together on a plan in which the solar plant will have zero effect on the surrounding plants and animals.

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Dubbed the Silver State Solar Project, Nevada’s newest clean energy project will be built on over 600 acres in Ivanpah Valley. The 50-megawatt (MW) facility will use Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar’s thin film photovoltaic (PV) modules and supply solar energy for over 15,000 homes in southern Nevada’s Clark County.

There are two main factors that led to Salazar signing the solar project into play. One is job creation: according to Newswire, the solar projects that are currently approved for construction on public lands across the U.S. will add hundreds of clean energy jobs to the nation’s economy. Secondly, the Nevada solar project will help the state reach its goal of generating 25 percent of all its power from renewable sources by 2025.

In his remarks, Secretary Salazar noted the win-win of clean energy and jobs creation. “Silver State is one of several renewable energy projects in the pipeline that will help Nevada and the nation create jobs as we build a clean energy economy,” Salazar said.

After a long stretch during which approval of public land projects was up for contention, the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management have seemingly opened the flood gates for such projects to take place. Earlier this month, Salazar approved two public land projects in California, the first two public-lands solar projects in the country.

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The desert laboratory for testing new solar technologies is scheduled to be built on 25 square miles of the same test site used by the U.S. Government in the 1950′s to test the nation’s nuclear capabilities. The area stands approximately 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. According to several government officials, who spoke to the Las Vegas Sun, the majority of the testing will focus on developing new solar thermal technologies.

This type of solar power setup entails using mirrors to direct the sun’s rays onto a liquid-filled tube or tower. The heat boils the liquid, creating steam that turns a turbine. Much of the new technology developed will focus on creating better ways to store the heat and reduce water consumption.

The testing facility is expected to allow the U.S. to develop and market new solar technology at a faster rate, with the end goal being to drive prices down, which is a key igredient to the widespread adoption of renewable energy. And if solar is a large part of that renewable energy future, what better place to make the epicenter of it all, says Reid, than Nevada with its 300+ sunny days a year.

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The electric cooperative operates in both states, serving four counties from Sand Valley to Esmeralda County. VEA is doing all it can to promote solar hot water systems among homeowners: the co-op is selling the systems at face value, providing free certified installation and giving interest-free loans to further entice the public to go solar.

VEA undertook the plan — one of the largest domestic solar water heating programs in the United States — in early September 2009, aiming to install 5,000 solar water-heating systems by 2013.

“We are very confident that we will reach our goal,” said Staci Behnke, VEA’s Community and Governmental Relations Manager, adding that the response to the program has been “very positive.”

VEA has Installed over 100 solar water-heaters since the start of the initiative, cutting utility bills of VEA customers while slashing carbon and other emissions associated with burning coal and other fossil fuels.

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Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev), Mesquite Mayor Susan Holecheck and Tony James, President and CEO of Blackstone Group, yesterday announced the change. Instead of the 750-megawatt (mW) coal-powered Toquop Energy Project — which was slated for construction near Mesquite, Nevada. — Blackstone’s energy portfolio firm, Sithe Global Power, will instead move forward with a 700-mW gas plant and a 50- to 100-mW solar energy installation.

“This announcement means jobs for Nevada.  I thank Sithe Global for embracing our state’s role as a leader in developing clean energy and making an investment in our state that will help out Nevadans to work and lead us toward energy independence,” Reid said.  “Clean natural gas projects like this will help us use this clean energy source to strengthen our economy while protecting Nevada’s great outdoors.”

According to Reid’s office, the project will cost $1.4 billion and could create as many as 1,000 jobs.

As NYTimes.com relays, Blackstone spokesman Peter Rose said the planned coal plant’s environmental impacts was “probably the single most important factor” in the decision to switch to natural gas and solar. When burned, natural gas releases about half the amount of carbon-dioxide as does coal. It is also a cleaner burning fuel, releasing fewer particulates. After accounting for the energy used during their manufacture, solar panels are a zero-emissions technology.

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Where’s the solar love gone, you may rightly ask? Deciding exactly how to become less dependent on natural gas–the state’s major energy source–is a challenge for the state that’s so rich in some resources while so poor in others. The solar industry has hoisted Arizona as a poster child for utility scale solar precisely because of the limitless availability of sunlight. The state offers huge tracts of unpopulated land with some of the highest insolation values in the world. But desert solar development hits snags at the environmental level, where the scarcity of water and the delicacy of desert ecosystems come very much into play. Some solar technologies do require a hefty water supply–Concentrating Solar Power, or CSP, uses solar to make steam that powers turbines–but standard photovoltaics are in this way much lower impact than nuclear power. Brewer did also say she’s “committed to making Arizona the solar capital of the world”, a task that may get a bit trickier if new legislation comes on the scene.

The solar industry has been on the edge of its seat for months now with respect to the possibilities of far stricter regulation of desert solar development. Late in 2009, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D–CA) introduced a bill that strives to balance ecological considerations with solar growth in the desert. The bill would put a huge portion of the Mojave Desert off-limit to developers (to the tune of 1,000,000 acres), yet includes provisions to make the review and approval process for solar development faster and more accurately targeted at the best possible sites. This came not long after the “Solar Roadmap Bill”, introduced by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D–AZ), was approved in the House. The Roadmap is intended to facilitate solar growth with effective goal-making and communication across the industry, a good complement to legislation like Feinstein’s.

A thoughtful analysis in The New York Times today examines the degree to which Feinstein’s “California Desert Protection Act” would promote, rather than discourage, solar development. The bill addresses development concerns that will directly affect the solar industries in Arizona, California, and Nevada, and that will set a precedent for desert solar development across the country.

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