A new and promising technological advancement used to monitor the environment and even conduct surveillance is small robotic birds. But, for all the promise these little marvels show, there is one significant drawback that their creators struggle to overcome, which is the amount of time the little birds can keep themselves airborne. The birds are lightweight and relatively small, allowing little room and resources for a robust battery or
The Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) new report on "Non-Hardware ('Soft') Cost-Reduction Roadmap for Residential and Small Commercial Solar Photovoltaics, 2013-2020," funded by DOE's SunShot Initiative and written by NREL and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). The NREL's ongoing project charts a path to achieve soft-cost targets of $0.65/W for residential systems and $0.44/W for commercial systems by 2020 and provides soft-costs
Texas is one of the sunniest states in the country, giving it an enormous amount of untapped solar potential. The state is also known for its oil production. However, many people don't know that the amount of sunshine Texas gets each month contains more potential energy than all of the oil ever pumped in the state? Despite having the highest solar potential in the country, Texas only ranks tenth
A new report from IHS Inc. forecasts that global photovoltaic installations will exceed 40 GW for the first time in 2014. This dramatic spike in solar installation growth will generate more than $86 billion in revenue. After a two-year slowdown, annual solar installations will reach 41 GW in 2014. IHS maintains its earlier prediction that installations in 2013 will total 35 GW. The new report says that PV installations
Solar installers and businesses can sometimes have difficulties keeping track of all their jobs. The admin work required to keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes is often underestimated. The Clean Energy Council seeks to make things easier for these businesses through its new Solar Checklist app on iPhone. The app purportedly keeps track of all their jobs, allowing installers to focus on providing high-quality installation work by cutting
The military has been showing an increased interest in renewable energy recently. They have been procuring increasing amounts of energy to add to their energy security framework. The most recent update on the matter comes from the Army's Energy Initiatives Task Force and the US Army Corps of Engineers. 13 biomass vendors were selected to compete for future orders. This round of selections is the 4th in recent months
