August 13, 2010
This week’s news is a bit California-centric, but it’s been an exciting week for clean energy in California!
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has created a new interactive map highlighting California’s fast growing green economy. You can search the map by different types of green businesses – green buildings, energy generation, energy efficiency, transportation, green practices, academic/government/non-profit, and carbon markets. You can even filter your results by county, senate district, or assembly district. Check out the green economic growth in your district! Here’s SunRun:
According to The New York Times, Southern California is poised to become the world’s solar power capital as Tessera Solar and BrightSource Energy Inc received their final environmental impact statements (EISs) from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for their solar plants, planned to be built in eastern San Bernardino County. These final EISs represent the removal of the last major regulatory hurdle to getting their solar plans off the ground. Tessera Solar’s two plants and BrightSource Energy’s plants are projected to produce more than triple the amount of solar currently produced in the country. Three more plants are expected to receive their EISs by the end of August, and another three by the end of 2010. These nine California solar plants would cover 41,229 acres of federal land and be able to produce 4,580 MW of solar electricity – enough to power 3.8 million businesses and homes.
San Diego schools are going solar with power purchase agreements! The San Diego Unified School District just signed a 22 year solar power purchase agreement with Amsolar, similar to last week’s story about Arizona public schools going solar with the SRP Community solar program. 20 San Diego schools will pay Amsolar for the electricity generated by the 23,000 solar panels placed throughout 80 rooftops and 1,500 solar carports. Amsolar will own, operate, and maintain the solar systems. Each school will get 64% of their energy from solar power.
Blast from the past? Back in the 1990s, NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) scientists developed a “transpired air” solar collector that allows commercial and industrial buildings to bring in warmed air, increasing energy efficiency during the colder, winter months. A transpired solar collector is a dark, perforated metal plate on the south side of buildings that gets heated by the sun. A fan added to a ventilation system already in place brings in pre-heated air into the building through the warmed plate. The hot plate warms the air flowing through it. Pretty simple idea, but according to Earth Techling, one that “can efficiently preheat the air going into a building by as much as 40 degrees F.”
Why talk about this now? Because NREL is putting this technology in action for a new Research Support Facility and there’s reason to believe that it is a simple and affordable enough design to prove important to commercial/industrial buildings across the country.
