Two pieces of good news from down under! Oddly (but goodly), Prime Minister Howard, who dosen’t like the Kyoto Accord, appears to realize the environment is important:
1. His government has announced that households that use solar power will get $1000 in rebates. This is to encourage less energy consumption.
2. At the same time Howard also announce that schools will be rewarded if they improve water and energy efficiency.
In the last 24 hours, Google produced 9,949 kilowatt-hours of electricity from the sun.
Google’s solar panels are up and running! In fine Google fashion, you can see how much energy the panels create each and every day. They also make it easy to understand, for example, 9,949 KW is equal to 6,215 dishwasher cycles.
Mayor Bloomberg shows no sign of slowing down his drive to reduce New York City’s carbon emissions, which is of course a good thing. He’s now set to announce that municipal buildings in NYC will switch to solar power and move from dirty regular oil to a less-damaging biodiesel. Other mayors (and North American federal leaders!) should follow NYC’s example of emission cutting.
On Monday, Bloomberg said the city will issue a request for proposals for a pilot program to install solar panels on city-owned buildings in hopes of generating 2 megawatts of solar capacity _ offsetting about 320 tons of emissions per year, equal to taking more than 50 U.S. cars per year off the streets. The city will not pay for the installation but will buy electricity from the provider.
Japan’s first solar power condo is on the market and it looks pretty funky. The Grandia Solare has solar panels on its roof that power the complex.
This is what Japan for SUstainability has to say:
Shibaura Group estimates that the system will reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to the amount absorbed by approximately 4,200 cedar trees, and will save as much as 1,200 18-liter containers of petroleum.
Via: TreeHugger
PGIGrup is about to make Europe’s largest solar roof. The building is going to be built in Madrid and generate 3 megawatts of electricity.
At over a kilometer in length, the rooftop will have an area of over 57,000 square meters, of which 21,000 will be occupied by solar panels. The power installed will be of approximately 3 MW peak, which will generate over 3.6 GWh per year.
It is predicted that this design will enable it to save 15% on climate conditioning in winter, and 34% in summer, as well as saving on lighting. The facade of the office blocks is a double skin, where the external glass is hung out from staggered glass fins.