For now the only way to use solar electricity in your home is to equip your house with solar panes. They are usually mounted on platforms on your roof with the ability to change position in order to gather the sun rays for as long as possible. And as for now we have to mount solar panels additionally to our home, maybe in the near future we‘ll be able to buy our houses already equipped with them. And not in the way they are now, but as a simple cover to the roof. You’re probably imagining some shiny mirror like roof already, but actually for the past year the National Institute of Standards and Technology has tested photovoltaic roofing products on roofs in Maryland that look just like ordinary tiles, slates, and probably the most popular shingles. All those roofing materials have photo-voltaic cells on them, but those cells are surrounded by inactive area so they cane be secured the normal old fashioned way ““ with hammer and a nail. For that period, that the tests were conducted, the results are rather encouraging ““ the solar power efficiency varied from 6 to about 16 percent. There still are some things to be smoothened – the major one being that those shingle based solar energy collectors are positioned in one place and not moving like the normal solar power panels, which can cause loss of sunlight. But with the quick development of this industry we‘re thinking that the solution for this problem, and any other you can think of, will be found very soon. There‘s one sure thing ““ when that happens those solar roof materials will change the house building for good…+|+

We talk so much about solar powered cars that we sometimes loose ourselves in that subject, luckily there are people thinking about other type of solar powered transport ““ busses. Tindo is the first entirely solar powered bus. It is a proud achievement for the Adelaide city in Australia. The Tindo, which is the Kaurna name for Sun, is made by “Designline International”, a New Zealand company and made its first official appearance on December 13th 2007.

“Tindo” has an operational range of 200 kilometers between charges under typical urban conditions, and as it doesn‘t have a combustion engine, it operates quietly and effectively with zero tail pipe emissions. It uses 11 Swiss-made Zebra sodieum/nickel batteries, giving the bus unprecedented energy storage and operational range. The batteries are not affected by external temperatures.

It is indeed a pure EV. Its batteries will be recharged using a unique solar PV system installed on the roof of the new Adelaide Central Bus Station. This system generates 70,000 kilowatt hours of zero carbon emissions electricity per year – which makes it the largest grid-connected solar system in Adelaide city.

But with Tindo the benefits are not only for the environment, they are also for its passengers as they will be able to ride it for free. Hopefully the Adelaide City example will soon be followed by many others. We can just wait and see.

There is only one way that you didn‘t hear about the Louis Palmer‘s solar taxi ““ if you live in the US. He was all over the news when he was crossing Europe, the Middle East and India, so the people over there know him pretty well. The goal of the Swiss teacher was to demonstrate the capabilities of solar power and in order to do that he came up with the idea of creating a solar powered vehicle and then making a year long journey around the globe, starting from Lucerne, Switzerland last July. And if you wonder what the whole deal with the taxi is ““ the vehicle carries a taxi sign, because Palmer is offering rides to anyone who‘s interested. And trust me many people have accepted his offer for a quick ride. The vehicle has three wheels and two seats and is towing a trailer with extra solar panels bringing the total cell area up to 65 sq. ft. (I bet he needed those most when passing through England). This week he‘s tooling around Bali, Indonesia and is expected to make his way to the U.S. next year on his way home later in 2008. So don‘t worry too much if you haven‘t heard his name still, very soon he’ll be all over the US news, too.

Here’s another of those still rarely seen transport vehicles – hybrid bikes – gain speed in their use as more and more companies start to produce them and the coolest thing is that they keep evolving making them better looking and with wider range capacity. That’s exactly the case here with this French hybrid bike. Dubbed a “Lightweight Hybrid Motorbike”, it’s basically a high-tech moped. Its batteries offer a range of 25 to 100 km, contrary to those on the other bike reviewed where the batteries had a pretty short range traveled distance.

Another difference is that the MS1 has a quick mode for charging the batteries which take only 3 hours to reach back the 80%, that’s something that lacked on the other model. The power it has is 1KW which is not bad for a bike, top speed of 45km/h and not because of the 1KW power, but because the speed is electronically limited in order for it to comply with the European moped regulations. If you want to burn off some of the unnecessary calories, you can always use the 9-speed chain drive instead of the wheel motors.

What about safety? This issue hasn’t been neglected at all. You’ve got huge hydraulic disc brakes, LED lighting and a horn, and the standard helmet. We should not forget the high tech dashboard – a LCD display that shows you the current speed and how much juice is left in the batteries. The bike is unlocked started up by a magnetic card for enhanced protection.

Another thing that makes it better form the other bike reviewed is the price .. it sounds like a good news, but wait till you see the price. It costs €3,500 ($4,951). That’s about double the price of a regular moped but around half of what you had to pay for the Pi bike. So as I already said those things are evolving and they are evolving fast. Soon regular mopeds may not even be available, hopefully until then the prices for the hybrid ones will drop as fast as they do now.

A five year supply contract was signed recently between the multicrystalline solar wafer manufacturer LDK Solar Co and the taiwan-based Solartech Energy Corp. For the five year period LDK Solar will deliver multicrystalline solar wafers to Solartech. The solar wafers are valued at approximately 224 million US dollars. “This agreement enables us to secure a significant amount of LDK Solar‘s high-quality wafers as we rapidly increase our production capacity. Solartech plans to double its capacity to 60 MW in November 2007 and to add 50 MW annually over the next two years to reach an annual production capacity of 160 MW in 2009,” stated Charles C. Chang, President of Solartech.

Again solar powered cars are in the center of attention, just this time not to be praised, but quite the opposite. It’s been considered that the goal of that type of cars is to be as light and fast as possible, but being all that what’s left for safety measures. And to be honest safety is definitely not one of the subjects that have been a major topic when talking about solar powered cars. But indeed they are cars and indeed accidents happen. An example for that is what happened on august 12th 2004 when the University of Toronto’s Blue Sky Solar Racing team was taking a victory lap to show off each of their solar-powered race cars. Andrew Frow, a U-of-T mechanical engineering student, was driving Blue Sky’s Faust II, a single-seat, wedge-shaped vehicle, covered in photovoltaic cells. At around 4:30 pm, witnesses report, Frow began swerving.For reasons that have never been fully determined, he pulled out of the convoy and into oncoming traffic, striking a Chrysler minivan head-on. The minivan’s driver was unhurt, but unfortunately Frow was killed instantly.

This was actually the first and for now only fatal accident, but it brought up many questions about the safety of the cars and especialy the safety mesures taken during the solar car races. Fact is that many of those cars are simply not sutable for the terains the drivers are racing on during those events. The terains being twisty and curvy, the drivers wanting to give their team a good start and a car not safe enough by any standarts is just an accident waiting to happen. But there is hope. Measures have been taken and untill finding a better solution the sponsors of the events are tightening the safety regulations and are insisting on every driver to have a roll cage, wear a helmet and a five point harnesses. Hopefully that will give results and become the first part of making solar cars safer even for the mass public and not just for the sake of races. If this is gonna be the future’s transport, the one thing we need most is for it to be safe.

When we talk about solar power and all the supporters it has, we should never stop thinking that there are always two sides of the coin. Ufortunately no matter how many the supporters are there always gonna be people that oppose the solat power energy and solar power panels and other gadgets. With their way of thinking that solar power panels not only don’t contribute, but even lessen the value of the property where installed, those people only depreciate the cause many others have embraced. But there’s an answer to everything

Many solar product inventors and manufacturers are continually developing gadgets that will eventually become almost invisible. In fact there are now solar panel tiles, which are already integrated to the roofs. Those tiles make mounting much more convenient as fewer materials are used and the production cost is minimized. Now all of those who think of esthetic first can be relieved and unless they come up with another reason not to use solar power the society should finally unite over the idea of cleaner and healthier world.

On October 3rd in the Press room at Solar Power 2007 took place the Second Golden Meter Awards. Golden Meter Award For Excellence in Net Metering Rules was given to the Chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Ron Binz. The award was presented by Claudine Schneider, President of the Solar Alliance. Leaving the rivalry behin Colorado was selected from the authors of the Freeing the Grid 2007 report, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), the Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC), the Solar Alliance, and The Vote Solar Initiative, for crafting a best practice net metering policy. Proudly taking the award CPUC Chairman Ron Binz said:

We think we‘re doing things right in Colorado and it‘s great to have our hard work cited by these groups. With the leadership of Governor Ritter and the Legislature, we‘re creating a good environment for solar and wind power

Colorado governor Ritter plays a major role in creating the environment that Binz talks about. Ritter has delivered on his New Energy Economy vision by building upon Amendment 37 and doubling the Renewable Energy Portfolio standard for investor owned utilities to 20% by the year 2020. As to the municipal utilities and rural electric providers, they are required to generate 10% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. This has been a long persued goal for Colorado and now when it’s finaly achieved we hope other states will folow in the name of brighter future.

There’s one thing for sure”¦bicycles have never been ahead of cars in poluting the air. But since the electric cars have become a common view lately, we may start wondering about those motorized bikes. Yet again “¦bikes will never be ahead of cars in polution the air”¦and if there are gonna be electric cars why not electric bikes. The only problem with the bikes was the amount of surface required for the solar panels to be placed at. But there’s always a solution for everything. In this case a very shiny one as the only place where the solar panels can mounted are the wheels. And since it is not an uncoon view for the electric bikes to have a front hub motor or for them to have batteries mounted on the rear racks, these are the first pair of wheels that I have seen with solar panels integrated into them

There’s only one problem you may face with wheels like these”¦the heavy side winds. But hey it can’t be flawless. Think about the bright (in this case brighter) side of the things – with this bike you could pedal when the going was easy and engage the motor when the going gets tough – and you never need to gas it up or plug it in.

Global Warming Solutions Incorporated – a firm that dedicated itself in developing technologies that decrease the global warming – presented their newest invention. A technology targeting the development of clean, environmentally friendly solar power for commercial and residential use. The new and important mission of that invention called Light Electric and Thermal Generator or LETG is to maximize the electrical and thermal energy derived from sunlight. LETG uses a hybrid system to produce electricity year round even in low sunlight regions.

Dr. Vladimir Vasilenko the CEO of Global Warming Solutions explains what the LETG actually does. The LETG process increases the efficiency of photovoltaic conversion. He also adds that “LETG employs a unique molecular solar spectrum converter””a “˜photonic quantum pump’”” to shift an inefficient part of solar radiation to the effective red absorption spectrum of the silicon photocell.” Which translated in plain English means that the result of this technology will be an increase in electrical output of 250%””a stunning advance in what had been considered a mature field

The Global Warming Solutions are still testing the LETG technology but when completed it will give the opportunity the solar energy to be used for larger, more general purposes. And if now it is most comonly used for heating a home or office building in the near future it may be used for developing a new generation of power plants for instance.