Earlier this year, on October 27th, Ausra commissioned their first solar thermal pilot plant, a 5.0 megawatt facility located in Kimberlina, just north of Bakersfield, California. It is the first solar thermal power facility to be commissioned in California in over 20 years - significantly, the approximately 350 megawatts of solar thermal power installed back [...]

With many millions - if not billions - around the world believing today’s U.S. Presidential election could be the dawn of a new age of peace and prosperity and international cooperation - with even this skeptic among them fervently hoping they’re right - where are we with the dawning of the age of solar energy? How much [...]

Even if California “only” ends up with 25% renewable electricity within the next decade or two, there is going to be a staggering amount of investment pouring into wind and solar power, and with intermittant sources of energy, massive storage infrastructure is just as necessary as the generating infrastructure. In our analysis of Prop. 7, [...]

There is nothing wrong with encouraging clean, renewable, domestically produced energy.  But California’s proposition 7 “would, if approved, require California utilities to procure half of their power from renewable resources by 2025″ (ref. Ballotpedia).  Currently California’s public utilities are mandated to generate 25% of their electricity by 2025, and this is an ambitious goal.  Just [...]

Back in April 2006 we posted “The Photovoltaic Boom ,” where we enthusiastically reported the bright future of photovoltaic power.  We thought then, and we believe now, that photovotalic production will increase faster than projections, at the same time as costs will fall faster than expected.  But if photovoltaic power is becoming a commodity, doesn’t that mean [...]

We’ve reported before on TREC, “The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation,” an initiative that campaigns for the transmission of clean power from deserts throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.”
The mission of this group, affiliated with the Club of Rome, is to promote the construction of high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines throughout Europe, the [...]

A company that is quietly competing to possibly become the biggest manufacturer of thin film photovoltaics on earth is Optisolar, headquartered in Hayward, California.  Optisolar already has a manufacturing plant at their Hayward headquarters, and has just signed a lease to construct a 600,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Sacramento, California.  (ref. Sacramento Housing & [...]