Colorado Solar Company in New York Project
RGS Energy announced Monday it will begin providing solar electricity to homes and businesses in Troy, New York, as part of a nonprofit program to reduce the costs of adopting solar energy.
Louisville-based RGS — officially named Real Goods Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: RGSE), which brings solar energy to residential, commercial and utility customers, will work with Solarize Troy, a cooperative designed to increase solar energy usage at New York homes and businesses. MORE …
SunShare and “Community Solar Gardens”
Rooftop solar sounds like a great idea. You can have solar panels installed on your roof for no money up front and can not only power your house but also can potentially sell some of the electricity you generate back to the grid. But what if you don’t have a suitable rooftop because of trees, shading, or other physical restrictions? What if you just don’t want to put solar panels on your roof for cosmetic reasons? Even more problematic, what if you’re living in a rental and don’t own the house? Sunshare is one company that has come up with a solution to all these problems with their community solar gardens …
How it Works
Sunshare offers the ability for anyone who has receives an electricity bill from one of the utility companies they service to make a minimum energy purchase of 2-5 solar panels in order to participate in the program. MORE …
Solar Garden Maxed
A 2-megawatt solar garden sufficient to power 500 homes, to be built by home-grown SunShare, is sold out, the company said in a news release last week.
Pikes Peak Solar Garden LLC, a company created by SunShare LLC, won the Colorado Springs Utilities contract last fall. The project is the largest privately developed and subscribed community solar garden in the nation, SunShare says. Customers include the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the Pikes Peak Library District, Security Water District and the City of Manitou Springs.
The project will be built on the city’s south side and produce power by year’s end, the Gazettereports.
It’s SunShare’s third Colorado Springs solar garden, which caters to those who don’t have suitable rooftops for solar panels because of trees or other physical restrictions (“Sunblock for SunShare,” Aug. 7, 2013). The first two were 1/2-megawatt each and were constructed under a 2011 pilot program. The company is controlled by Colorado College grad David Amster-Olszewski.
The news release says SunShare has started a waiting list for its next Springs project, which is projected for next year.
Colorado-Based Ascent Solar Selected by Vanguard Space Technologies
Aerospace group Vanguard Space Technologies has selected the lightweight thin-film PV modules of Colorado-based Ascent Solar Technologies for a space solar array research program being conducted with NASA.
The California-based Vanguard specializes in the engineering and manufacturing of high-performance, lightweight and precision aerospace structures, including spacecraft and solar power systems for commercial, defense, military and research satellites. The company will use Ascent’s copper-indium-gallium-selenium (CIGS) cell technology in its work with the NASA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, which aims to develop economical, lightweight alternatives to existing and emerging high-cost solar arrays for high-power space applications. MORE …
Solar Projects Get Lift From Online Tool
As environmental groups gear up for their first “put solar on it” national campaign, an online platform made its debut Tuesday that allows people to nominate local buildings throughout the United States for rooftop solar panels.
The new tool by Mosaic, a company that crowdsources funding for solar projects, allows users to click their “support” for any of 300,000 non-profit buildings – mostly churches, schools, libraries, museums. For every 50 clicks in a building’s favor, Mosaic will donate $100 to the solar installation.
“This is a way for everyone in the country to contribute to solar in their communities,” says Billy Parish, founder of Oakland, Calif.-based Mosaic. His platform, Mosaic Places, launches in advance of the first National Solar Day of Action on Saturday, the longest day of the year, when a coalition of 32 environmental groups plan grassroots events to promote solar power.
As plunging panel prices boost growth in the U.S. solar industry, the tool allows individuals and community groups to rally support for local projects without spending any of their own money. Mosaic, a Kickstarter-like company for solar power, has set aside $2 million for its donations and if more is needed, can tap revenue it collects on homeowner installations. MORE …
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