Electical Contractor

In early August 2009, the Chicago City Council approved a lease on a vacant lot where a solar power facility will be constructed.

Visitors to and tenants of a three-story class-A office building in Paramus, N.J., can now witness what it is like to monitor energy savings in real time.

For some innovations, such as calculators and computers, the key to success was in finding a way to make things smaller. The future of concentrated solar power, on the other hand, depends on making the product deliverable on a grand scale.

A plan proposed by Souther California Edison (SCE) for the largest U.S. installation of advanced solar panels on otherwise unused large commercial rooftops across Southern California was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission.

An array of 213 solar panels will soon provide electricity to homes served by Duke Energy’s McAlpine Creek substation in south Charlotte, N.C. The substation’s new solar panels will provide approximately 50 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power five homes when the panels are operating.

In one of the nation's most ambitious projects of distributed generation, Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy recently announced it will build between 100 and 400 electricity-generating mini solar power plants throughout the state over the next two years.

Texas is known for doing things big. In this case, a first-of-its-kind application for generating solar electricity by covering a solid waste landfill with a flexible membrane containing photovoltaic (PV) cells.

The University of Lleida (UdL) in eastern Spain has patented a concentration solar power module that produces heat, cold and electricity and that can be integrated into a building’s facade or roof.

Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) president and CEO Rhone Resch touted the vast potential for solar-energy development in the southeastern United States, particularly the untapped state of Georgia.