Solar Energy News | Solar Panel Projects

Noteworthy solar energy and environmentalist projects

This list tallies recent advances in solar technology and large-scale solar and enviornmental projects. Browse the links below to learn more about each project – as the century draws on, we should be seeing large advances in solar technology and many large scale renewable energy projects. Rest assured, we’ll keep you posted.

BP Solar’s Paranhos Solar Project

About BP Solar’s Paranhos Solar Panel Project in Angola, where solar panels are bringing useful energy to a war-torn village of 360 people living in poverty.

Solar Panel Project in Paranhos

Solar panels provide energy to community facilities

In June 2004, in the wake of a recent war that had ravaged Paranhos, Angola, a small village some 50 miles north of Luanda, BP Solar and the British government established a renewable energy source for the 360 people living in the devastated village. A free-standing solar panel installation was established, and ever since these solar panels have been providing the village with clean, renewable solar energy to help power community facilities such as the local school, medical facility, water-pumping facility, and vaccine refrigerator. These solar panels helped the community get on with life even as they felt the effects of a violent war.

Before the solar panel installation, the vilage had been relying on a low-yeild generator that the Pananhos villagers could not afford to maintain. After being trained how to use the new solar panel installation by the team at BP Solar, these African citizens become a more self-sufficient and more functional community.

Analysts have been looking at this case as a model for how many small African villages can be powered and put on course to progress. Solar panels will be an integral part of Africa’s future. BP Solar calls the project “a showcase to demonstrate the potential of solar energy in rural communities in Angola.” The local Ministry of Energy and Water is looking into the issue to see if the Paranhos project’s use of solar panels can indeed serve as a model for the rest of the poverty-striken country.

Space-Based Solar Power

Using advanced solar panels in outer space, it may one day be economically feasible (or even necessary) to beam the sun’s seemingly infinite power supply back to Earth for general consumption. More about space-based solar power efforts and the driving forces behind them.

Space-Based Solar Power Efforts

Acquiring Solar Energy Directly from the Source

Earth-based solar panels can never function at optimal capacity. Atmospheric Interference and weather conditions make “peak capacity” a relative term. Space based solar panels, however, will always function at optimal capacity, since they have direct high-exposure ratings to sunlight. Although it is feasible that we might be able to meet all our renewable energy needs with solar panels on Earth, some are calling for the launch and setup of a large solar power platform in high orbit around the Earth.

With the right technology to set up a solar station in space already in place, a seemingly infinite supply of power from the sun, an impending energy crisis on Earth, and with a more efficient means of collecting solar energy than ever before – why are there no large-scale space-based solar panel installations?

The answer is simple: Cost

Solar Tower of Power gets the Green Light

Enviromission’s planned 1 kilometer-high solar tower of power will soon be the largest man-made structure in the world. This magnificient and ambitious solar project is finally getting underway in Austrailia.

More about Enviromission’s Solar Tower of Power.

Enviromission’s Solar Tower of Power: Construction Begins

The Solar Tower of power will be the tallest man-made structure ever built

If all goes as scheduled, Eviromission’s Solar tower of power is going to rank as the tallest manmade structure in the world, measuring a whopping 1000 meters in height!  exclusive preview video directly from the creators at Environmission.

About the Solar Tower of Power

Enviromission makes plans for the tallest manmade structure ever created: The Solar Tower of Power – a huge solar array with enough photovoltaics to light up 200,000 typical Austrailian households. When completed, the tower should be almost twice the height of the world’s tallest structure, the CN Tower in Canada. This ambitious project, announced some years ago, will be the first large-scale solar thermal power station on Earth. This 200MW solar power station will be a technological marvel and will, as Enviromission hopes, help to spark new interest in renewable energy resources. The tower itself is hollow, chimneylike, and around its base a large, circular solar collector is placed in a 25,000 acre bowl-like shape around the facility. During the day, this solar collector absorbs a massive dose of heat from the sun, and the air under the colletor is rapidly heated. As this hot air rises at about 30mph, it will find its way up the central hollow tower, where the hot air will turn several large wind turbines to generate electricity.

Ultra-thin CIGS Solar Panels

A new Breakthrough in Solar Panel technology in South Africa has lead to the development of a photo-sensitive alloy only 5 microns thick! Learn more about it’s implications to solar panel technology here.