All About Solar | Green Energy News

January 8, 2006 – Vol.10 No.42

All ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news...

In what is billed as being one of the most extensive solar energy projects in the U.S., Walgreens will install solar electric systems on 96 stores and 2 distribution centers in California and 16 stores in New Jersey, the two states most active in supporting solar energy.

Power from the systems will provide 20 - 50 percent of each store’s needs. Storewide the solar systems should generate more than 13.8 million kilowatt hours per year.

Clean energy solutions company Imaginit will be responsible for the installation of the solar systems. Visit Walgreens at http://www.walgreens.com/ , Imaginit at http://www.imaginit.cc/

The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) gave the final go ahead for a 10-year $2.9 billion rebate program to increase the number of residential solar systems in the state. The PUC believes the expanded California Solar Initiative will build 3000 megawatts of solar-electric capacity, or a million 3-kilowatt residential solar systems. It will be funded by a fee tacked on to electric and gas bills of customers of investor-owned utilities,

Highlights of the program include:

-- Encouragement for new home builders as well as owners of existing homes and commercial buildings to install solar systems under the existing $300 million California Solar Initiative, which the PUC will now manage.

-- Solar heating, cooling and hot water systems will be added to the program at a later date.

-- Ten percent of the funding will be set aside for low income / affordable housing situations. Low-income loans will also be considered.

-- Five percent of the funds will be for solar energy R&D.

-- Solar incentive payments will be made for installed capacity and solar electric output.

-- Incentives will also be available to encourage energy efficiency audits to determine the best overall energy solutions.

Visit the PUC at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/ .

Prism Solar Technologies (PST) is working on its second-generation Holographic Element Bifacial Photovoltaic (HEPV (b) (TM) module technology and, with additional investment, will continue to do so.

The company has received $500,000 from Rudd-Klein Energy Ventures that will be used to help commercialize the technology. The funding follows a previous round from Counterpoint Ventures.

Prism's core Holographic Planar Concentrator spectrally selects a desired portion of sunlight and concentrates it on solar cells. The technology too, can grab sunlight at low angles in the sky. The technology is geared to provide better output from conventional solar cells thus decrease the number of cells needed for a given output. Visit Prism Solar at http://www.prismsolar.com/ .