Mapping Renewable Energy, Rooftop by Rooftop

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 weeks 1 day (www.time.com)

The sun shines on everyone — but not in equal measure. That reality has long slowed the spread of solar power. Depending on where you live in the country — or even where you live in your city — the same array of photovoltaic solar panels can produce enough electricity to power your house with watts to spare, or barely cut a nickel from your utility bill. It all comes down to the precise amount of sunlight that hits your roof

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Nature examines thin-film and other solar cells

Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 months 6 days (www.nature.com)

There are a few different varieties of solar cell on the market and in development, but they've all got their ups and down. Traditional solar cells are now an established technology, but they are very expensive to make and their efficiencies don't top 22%. Other, newer types of solar cells (with one exception) are even less efficient, but they are much less troublesome to mass-produce. Some types of solar cells can even be woven into cloth.

As always, I'm a fan of Natures whole-picture approach. The practical, hopeful and economic aspects of this project all get their treatment.

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a revolution in solar power--thin-film

sea-maid submitted, created time 8 months 1 week (www.sciam.com)

Thin-film photovoltaic cells, like those in the array seen here in Mainbernheim, Germany, can harvest as much energy from the sun with far less semiconductor material,the lowest cost and most reliable thin-film technology directly into building construction materials will be the beginning of a revolution in solar power, we will see the day when solar became an economically substantive part of our energy mix

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