Boulder-based Namaste Solar began the installation in late August 2009. The New Belgium packaging hall now holds 870 panels, and engineers estimate it can power the bottle line for up to eight hours on a sunny day.
New Belgium became the country’s first brewery to subscribe to 100 percent wind powered electricity in 1998 and can produce up to 15 percent of its electrical needs by capturing methane from its process water treatment plant to fire a co-generation engine which produces heat and electricity on-site.

The planned neighborhood will contain 12 LEED Platinum-certified homes powered completely by solar energy and heated with geothermal energy. The homes, which will be located close to local shops, schools, and offices, will also feature recycled countertops, bamboo cabinets and non-toxic paints. Spring Leaf Boulder will wrap around a park that acts as both a community gathering space and a place to soak up storm water.

Spring Leaf’s developers expect that the townhouses and single-family homes will cost approximately $200 per square foot, there is currently one model home open to tour. There is a geothermal heat pump, hepa filtration system and other green features and materials on view. The home exceeds LEED silver standards.

In addition to being cheaper, these new solar shingles, dubbed Dow PowerHouse, are 10% more efficient and cost 15% less on a per-watt basis. The panels can be installed by regular roofers and can provide renewable energy without changing the look of your house. The new solar shingles can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingles, Dow said, and will be introduced in 2010 before a wider roll-out in 2011. The shingle will use thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a photovoltaic material that typically is more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells. Dow’s shingle will be about 30 to 40 percent cheaper than current BIPV systems. The Dow shingles can be installed in about 10 hours, compared with 22 to 30 hours for traditional solar panels, reducing the installation costs that make up more than 50 percent of total system prices. The product will available in North America through Lennar Corp (LEN.N) and Pulte Homes Inc (PHM.N) before marketing is expanded.
via Reuters

The team has scored well in the categories of architecture (94 out of 100), market viability (91 out of 100), and communications (53.25 out of 75).

Lighthouse Solar has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the inventors of the gym. The energy required to power the gym will be harnessed by a 100KW photovoltaic array and water is heated in a 90-sq-ft evacuated tube solar thermal system.

The solar systems are owned by Lighthouse Solar and the building owners purchase the energy the photovoltaic and solar thermal systems produce. Since the system is installed on the building, the gym owners pay a fixed power cost, which is 10% below the current grid electrical rate.

Designed by Jim Logan Architects, the facilities in the climbing gym are state-of-the-art. The building incorporates smart and energy-efficient lighting systems. A heat exchanger is integrated to utilize outside air to cool or warm the interior. The electrical consumption of the building is displayed on a monitor at the entrance of the building.

The momentous deal will deliver more electricity than even the largest nuclear plant, spread out among seven facilities, the first of which will start up in 2013. When fully operational, the companies say the facility will provide enough electricity to power 845,000 homes — more than exist in San Francisco.

This conversion technology isn’t the familiar photovoltaics — the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity — but solar thermal power, which concentrates the sun’s rays to create steam in a boiler and spin a turbine.

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