Jim Brumm: Long-Term Thinking for a Short-Sighted World

GreenRay Inc., developers of the first safety certified AC Module, announced today that the company's SunSine™200 AC Module has completed its safety certification and is now listed by Intertek to the UL 1741 standard.

The Chilean government is getting serious about geothermal. Last week, the country's energy minister said that Chile will support over $200 million in geothermal investments over the next two years.

The state of California is on its way to requiring utilities to store a portion of the renewable energy they generate for off-peak usage.

Spanish company Grupo OPDE's subsidiary Mecasolar, which designs, manufactures and installs solar trackers and other equipment for solar power plants in Europe and elsewhere, announced that by the end of 2010, it expects to have installed globally more than 22,000 solar trackers with a total power of 282 MW.

SunPower announced this week that it was chosen by the U.S. government to install 20 MW worth of projects on federal buildings around the country.

Shortly after the CIGS thin-film producer MiaSolé signed an agreement with German developer Juwi Solar for 7.5 MW of panels, the two companies announced a much larger supply deal for 600 MW. The move is a positive one for MiaSolé, which has faced delays in scaling up operations.

Researchers in Denmark have succeeded in storing wind energy in giant synthetic bags, reports the Danish trade newspaper Ingeniøren.

Even though solar is currently in the middle of a slow down when it comes to the manufacturing and the purchasing of panels and arrays, it still has the chance to become a big player in powering the world. Solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power (CSP) developments are already making great strides in powering parts of Europe and Asia. But the U.S. is lagging noticeably behind and will need a little push from the government to get things started, namely in financial incentives and a firm piece of climate legislation signed into law.

For decades, designers of solar power systems have faced a knotty set of interlocking challenges. Solar panels produce DC at relatively low voltages, but inverters require a relatively high input voltage to be able to convert the power to AC and send it to the grid. Solar panels can be wired in series to sum their voltages, but their combined output fluctuates with even small mismatches among panels on a string.

National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:NSM) today announced the addition of WEBENCH LED Architect to its award-winning portfolio of online WEBENCH® Designer tools. The first of its kind, WEBENCH LED Architect enables both novice and expert designers to perform real-time comparisons and optimize complex lighting systems for performance, size and cost in minutes.

The Government of the province of Neuquén, Argentina, through its Agency for Investment Promotion and Development (Agencia de Promocion y Desarrollo de Inversiones – ADI-Nqn), has launched a Public Call to Investors interested in developing proposals for the award of an exploration contract to discover and produce endogenous steam in the areas of "MARIA VICTORIA" and "MAITENA" mines in Domuyo, both of which are property of the Agency.

The Mantra of the wind industry during the recent downturn in the market has been "back to basics." That is, focus on R&D and drive down costs.

Two years ago, GW-scale production facilities were considered a big deal. With more companies reaching the GW range, the next step is to get to multi-GW capacities. That's exactly what Neo Solar Power Corp. is doing in Taiwan.

The energy developer and project owner NextEra Energy Resources got the green light from the California Energy Commission (CEC) this week to build a $1 billion, 250 MW concentrating solar power plant in the state. It's the first time in 20 years that a project of its kind has gotten approval.