“For the last 15 years, SELF has always believed and said that energy is essential for life,” says Bob Freling, Executive Director, SELF. “Access to energy is foundational to achieving a broad range of basic human rights and all of the Millennium Development Goals. Without it, life is very, very difficult as I’m sure 1.5 billion people can attest to.”

Through its Whole Village development model, SELF works hand-in-hand with communities to create and implement innovative solar energy solutions to improve people’s health and education, ensure food and water security, and spur economic development. Recently, it made a commitment to the United Nation’s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative to continue scaling up this model in Benin, West Africa by installing solar systems to power water systems, schools, health clinics, community centers, and street and household lighting systems. Mr. Freling is also co-chairing the initiative’s Working Group on Energy and Health, which will be examining ways to provide access to renewable energy sources for hospitals and health care clinics to support medical services.

“We proudly support the U.N. initiative and look forward to closely working with them to provide universal access to energy to those in need,” says Freling. “Our hope in launching this human rights campaign is to call attention to the critical role energy can play in helping people lift themselves out of poverty and create a better life.”

About SELF
The Solar Electric Light Fund is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit whose mission is to implement solar energy solutions in developing countries to assist rural communities with economic, education, health and agricultural development.  Its “Whole Village” development model takes an innovative approach in using integrated solar systems to improve the lives of the 1.5 billion people living in energy poverty throughout the world. Since 1990, SELF has completed projects in more than 20 countries, pioneering unique applications of solar power for drip irrigation in Benin, health care in Haiti, telemedicine in the Amazon rainforest, online learning in South Africa, and microenterprise development in Nigeria. Connect with SELF on the web at www.SELF.org; on Twitter @solarfund; and at www.Facebook.com/solarelectriclightfund.

“We founded our company on a commitment to respect the sanctity of the earth and to contribute to a healthy lifestyle.  Our investment in solar energy is an important part of that commitment” said Morty Cohen, President and CEO of SunRidge Farms. “We are excited because this expansion will allow us to continue delivering the high quality foods that our consumers love and deserve, at a reduced environmental cost.”

The addition of 1,960 new solar panels brings the company’s solar panel system from 99,000 Kilowatt hours to 785,000 Kilowatt hours of annual production. This enables the system to supply 35-40 percent of the company’s energy needs. In addition, the system will keep an estimated 1.3-million pounds of CO2 from entering the earth’s atmosphere each year. That’s the equivalent of planting 1,800 acres of trees.

The expanded solar panel system is just the latest living green effort implemented by SunRidge Farms. In fact, this year the company celebrates 30 years of green practices, including the following:

~ Offering a bike-to-work program that pays employees $5 a day to bike to and from work.

~ Using biodiesel delivery trucks and hybrid cars for its sales team.

~ Providing staff with a 24 hour work and recreation center with state of the art equipment, onsite yoga classes, recycling education classes, and more.

~ Installing full spectrum lighting in office workspaces, low voltage/low energy lighting in the warehouses, and optimal, clean, filtered air system for its staff.

~ Installing low-flow water-saving devices and making use of recycling programs throughout its facilities.

“We are delighted to be operating on clean energy,” said Mark Devencenzi, national sales director and company spokesman for SunRidge Farms. “We are always looking for opportunities to expand and improve our vision.  Our new solar panels are a huge help towards that end.”

SunRidge Farms has worked diligently over the past several years and is now certified as a Green Business by the Monterey County Green Business Program. The initial installation of solar panels in 2007 was a key component in achieving its green business certificate in September of 2010.

ABOUT SUNRIDGE FARMS
Based in Pajaro, California, SunRidge Farms is a family-owned and operated manufacturer and distributor of the finest certified organic and natural foods, both bulk and packaged. Founded in 1982 with a mission of promoting healthy living through the quality, integrity, and environmental sensibility of the products they create, SunRidge Farms offers a diverse array of more than 1,000 organic and natural trail and snack mixes, confections, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, granolas and cereals, grains, beans, teas, coffees, and spices. All products are made sustainably in a manufacturing plant powered with solar energy. They are available throughout the U.S.A., Canada, parts of Asia, and online at www.sunridgefarms.com.

By Rob Hayes, KABC7 Eyewitness News

A ribbon-cutting was held Tuesday for a unique solar-powered house designed and built by students from two local schools.

Anyone who takes a look at the home’s roof, siding, doors and windows won’t see a hint of green. But the people who designed and built it will point out it is one of the greenest houses to be found – with a monthly power bill of zero.

“And if you are in a municipality where they take energy back, it would be positive. They would actually pay you for the energy,” said Reed Finley, project manager for the Southern California Institute of Architecture and the California Institute of Technology solar decathlon team, which built the home.

It’s called a CHIP solar house. CHIP stands for compact, hyper-insulated prototype.

Click link above for complete article

“This State Grid project demonstrates a solution and will be the model of development for China’s new energy resources.”

SGCC chose BYD’s Iron-Phosphate battery technology because of its superior service life (over 20 years) and also used BYD’s “peak shaving & load leveling” charge and discharge methodologies. BYD’s announcement September 30th, 2011, “China’s Largest and First Environmentally-friendly Battery Storage Station,” was the first of many MegaWatt-level cooperative projects with China’s Southern Power Grid (CSG). This new project with the State Grid has outpaced other grid projects in China and, though independently designed by SGCC, is part of the national “Golden Sun” program. The first phase investment with 100MW of Wind, 40MW of Solar and 36MWh of Battery is worth over $500M USD (~3.3 Billion RMB).

“The large-scale implementation of clean and green energy, such as wind and solar power, can only be realized when the technical difficulties of this new energy application in the utility system are resolved,” said Xiu Binglin, Deputy Director of the National Energy Administration. “This State Grid project demonstrates a solution and will be the model of development for China’s new energy resources.”

BYD’s battery energy storage system provides a solution for the realization of energy storage in the smart grid that improves renewable energy efficiency by 5%-10%.

He Long, Vice President of BYD, said, “BYD is honored to cooperate with China and SGCC to build this large energy storage station and to make a contribution in the utilization of renewable energy resources.”

For more information, visit BYD at www.facebook.com/bydcompany and www.byd.com

Catching a nasty virus certainly isn’t on anyone’s holiday wish list, but for solar power it might be just what the doctor ordered.

With the help of a genetically modified virus, materials researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to boost the efficiency of one type of thin-film photovoltaic cell by 30 percent.

For years, engineers have experimented with a variety of unique collection material for solar cells, including single-walled carbon nanotubes: tiny hollow cylinders only a few billionths of a meter wide but with diamond-like strength. These carbon nanotubes, however, have been unproductive.

Part of the problem, scientists suspected, was that the processes for making nanotubes yield mixtures with different electronic properties—some carbon nanotubes are semiconductors, some are metallic.

A genetically engineered virus called M13 can be used to help rearrange molecules—for example, to make batteries more efficient.

But in the June 2011 issue of Nature Nanotechnology, Angela M. Belcher’s Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT announced an intriguing solution.

INNOVATION OUTBREAK
Over the past decade, Belcher’s laboratory has been exploring how viruses—embodiments of nature’s own nanotechnology—can solve problems in materials science and microelectronics.

Previously, the group has shown that a genetically engineered virus called M13 can be used to help rearrange molecules—for example, to make batteries more efficient.

Hoping to solve the nanotube challenge, members of Belcher’s lab altered M13 so that pieces of proteins, or peptides, on its surface could bind to carbon nanotubes.

By grabbing onto the nanotubes, the viruses stopped them from clumping, which allowed scientists to verify that the difference in electronic properties alone affected the nanotubes’ function. Semiconducting ones raised efficiency, whereas metallic ones degraded it.

PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
The MIT group discovered that using the viruses with semiconducting nanotubes improved the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells by almost a third, from eight percent to 10.6 percent. That improvement isn’t gigantic in absolute terms, but it helps to make this variety of thin-film cell significantly more practical.

Because the virus-nanotube complexes can be treated simply as an additive to the normal solar-cell fabrication process, incorporating them into manufacturing should be relatively easy.

The researchers believe that this viral technique could be adapted to work with other types of solar cells. Dang, a PhD candidate in the lab, says that since submitting the Nature Nanotechnology paper for publication he has started a project to adapt the virus-nanotube technique for use in quantum dot solar cells and his colleagues have done the same with organic dye cells.

Moreover, according to Dang, several companies have already contacted them about acquiring the virus-nanotube technology. Because the virus-nanotube complexes can be treated simply as an additive to the normal solar-cell fabrication process, incorporating them into manufacturing should be relatively easy, he says.

AUTHOR BIO:
John Rennie is a science writer, editor and lecturer based in New York City. Between 2004 and 2009, he served as editor in chief of Scientific American. His writing has appeared in publications including The Economist, The New York Times and IEEE Spectrum. Since 2009, he has been an adjunct instructor in the graduate Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University. Currently, Rennie writes “The Gleaming Retort” for the PLoS Blogs science blogging network. He has been a frequent guest on television and radio programs appearing on PBS, NPR, the History Channel and Discovery.

This story was orginally published on ecomagination .

Scottsdale, AZ – December 20, 2011—Today, Centrosolar America, a national solar energy manufacturing and services company, headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ and Scout Solar, LLC, a Tempe, Arizona-based solar installer, announce plans to activate solar PV projects at four ‘Valley of the Sun YMCA’ branches. The solar arrays will be installed at YMCA branches in the Tempe, Chris-Town, Ahwatukee, and Scottsdale/Paradise Valley communities.

With more than 1,500 Centrosolar America solar panels mounted on rooftops and shade canopies, the combined solar power systems at the four locations will generate more than 612,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually – an amount equal to the energy required to power 48 Arizona homes for one year.

“The YMCA’s commitment to sustainability includes finding more ways to promote the use of alternative energy. Utilizing the available space on our shaded canopies and rooftops for the installation of solar panels was an easy decision for us”, said George Scobas, President and CEO of the Valley of the Sun YMCA.

The Tempe branch will offset 21% of its energy costs with a 96.6 kWh shade canopy solar system. The Chris-Town location will offset 24% of its costs with a 98.7 kWh rooftop system. The Ahwatukee branch will offset 19% of its energy costs with a 98.7 kWh shade canopy. And, the Scottsdale/Paradise Valley branch will offset 12.5% of its energy costs with a rooftop solar system. All four project installations are planned for completion by March 2012.

The systems are being installed and financed by Scout Solar, who will also own and operate the systems and hold the rebates that are generated through the Arizona state solar rebate program.

“There were no out-of-pocket costs for the Valley of the Sun YMCA for this installation, “said Scout Solar Project Administrator, Michael Norris. They will make a set monthly lease payment on the system, an amount far less than what their savings on electricity will be. And they are protected from future spikes in energy prices with this arrangement.”

Bringing together best-in-class project partners, Scout Solar teamed with Centrosolar to provide the solar equipment, Solar Energy Group for system design, Wang Electric on the electrical installation and Skyline Steel to construct the shade canopies and racking.

All the solar projects will be equipped with Centrosolar America E-Series modules.
“Our E-Series panels utilize polycrystalline high-efficiency silicon cells in an optimal configuration to generate higher power output per module. This PV module configuration also meets the highest industry standards for resisting intense heat as is typical in the Arizona climate,” said Centrosolar Director of Sales, Chris Wood. Centrosolar America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrosolar Group AG in Munich, Germany, is one of the leading solar distributors nationally as well as in the Arizona market.

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About the Valley of the Sun YMCA
The Valley of the Sun YMCA is one of the largest human services non-profit organizations in Arizona. As the oldest non-profit in Arizona, the YMCA serves local communities in Maricopa County, Flagstaff and Yuma offering over 283 programs and 26 social services at 17 locations. Members are welcome regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, age or ability to pay. The YMCA aims to provide each member with every opportunity to reach farther and improve their lives and the lives of those around them. Through Youth Development, Healthy Living and Social Responsibility, the YMCA’s goal is to inspire positive and lasting social change. Visit www.valleyYMCA.org to learn more.

About Centrosolar America, Inc.
CENTROSOLAR America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CENTROSOLAR Group AG, one of the leading publicly traded solar companies in Europe, with revenues of EUR 403mn ($540mn) in 2010 and over 1000 employees in 21 locations. CENTROSOLAR has production facilities in Germany for its PV modules and components like solar glass. Centrosolar America, Inc. has a strong offering in the US market with complete CentroPack® PV kits – along with branded PV modules, PV rooftop racking solutions and other balance-of system components like switchgear and inverters. Centrosolar America has full-scale distribution facilities in Arizona, California and New Jersey and serves a national value-added integrator network for the residential and commercial channel. More information at www.centrosolaramerica.com

About Scout Solar, LLC
Scout Solar, LLC is a privately owned solar project integrator based in Tempe, Arizona, providing installation, project management and financing services. Having assisted both commercial and non-profit organizations in the Phoenix Metro area, the company has established a reputation for installing systems that rate well above market standards. Working closely with a range of equipment manufacturers and distributors, steel contractors and engineering consultants, as well as 3rd party financial institutions as needed, Scout Solar is able to provide quality systems under a financial model that works well for all parties involved. For more information, e-mail Scout Solar at info@scoutsolar.com

Innovative leasing programs are opening new markets for solar panels and new opportunities for generating clean electricity – and at a much lower cost to consumers.

Correspondent Patty Kim visits the Cincinnati Zoo to learn how a new financing model connects solar power investors and manufacturers with people who want to install solar arrays on their homes and businesses to lock in low prices for decades.