Wow! A 637-kilowatt solar power system has just been installed at the Port of West Sacramento. This solar power system is expected to supply 100 percent of the electricity needed by the Port of West Sacramento. The solar power system has 3536 solar panels and it covers 90,000 square feet of rooftop.

And best of all? It was installed FREE. Yes, FREE with the 25 year power purchase agreement with Pacific Power Management (PPM).

And the savings it will generate?

The port’s energy costs will be reduced by about $20,000 annually and in the next 25 years, this solar powered system is expected to eliminate over 34 million pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions.

The system consists of 3,536 solar panels covering 90,000 square feet on the rooftops of two rice warehouse buildings. With the 25-year power purchase agreement, it was installed at no cost to the port by Pacific Power Management (PPM).
 
So question is, why isn't this something that everyone is jumping on and doing? I mean if the initial cost is zero and the savings are apparent, and the environment is sure to get cleaner, what are people waiting for?

Did you know that New Jersey was the 2nd largest producer of solar-generated power in the country in 2007? Yep, with 70K kilowatts of solar-generated power, New Jersey was 2nd only to California which produced over 528 K kilowatts of solar power. This according to statistics published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) in New Jersey announced a program which would double New Jersey's solar output by 2013. This program is called the SOLAR 4 ALL program in which four solar farms will be built in New Jersey. These solar farms would be built in Trenton, Hamilton, Edison and Linden. The New Jersey PS&G also plans to install thousands of solar panels which will be on pole-mounted utilities.

How much solar power is this new program expected to generate? Over 80,000 kilowatts or enough to power 64,000 homes!

According to New Jersey officials, this may well be the largest installation of solar panels in the world.

Wouldn't it be great if every state implemented a SOLAR 4 ALL program? Think of all the energy we'd be able to save by utilizing earth's most renewable energy.

Office windows as solar power generators? That's just what the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE) located in New York plans to do.

Anna Dyson, the head honcho at CASE states that tall buildings have windows with large surface areas which provide a lot of surface to generate power from captured sun's rays. By using a technology called ‘integrated concentrating dynamic solar façade’, a grid of clear pyramids are inserted on a window. These pyramids contain a lens which can focus sunlight onto a highly efficient solar cell by over 400 times intensity. What these pyramids do is they rotate to follow the sun throughout the day and generate the electricity to heat, cool, or light buildings. And these solar cells have a fluid around them to cool them off which also captures the heat that didn't convert into electricity which can also be used for heating or cooling a building.

Of course this technology is expensive and so its implementation may be cost-prohibitive. But someone out there will be sure to create a more cost-effective version of it not too long from now, I'm sure.
 

Buildings account for over 40 percent of carbon emissions in the U.S. Buildings also account for over 70% of total electricity consumption. While companies need to focus on building more energy efficient buildings, the reality is that to help reduce carbon pollution, existing buildings need to be made more energy efficient.
 
But will incremental improvements be enough? Or do we need technologies which will reinvent the way we use energy?
 
Here is one example of an innovative technology which truly fits "thinking outside the box":
 
Electrochromic Glass by SageGlass is glass that can go from clear to dark to create energy efficiency. Basically the glass can transition from clear to tinted glass and the tinting can be user-defined automatically or manually. So a  SageGlass window would allow a user to change the tint depending on the changing weather conditions outside.

The company's literature mentions that "SageGlass panes are coated with five layers of ceramic materials. When voltage is applied across the coatings, ions travel from one layer to another layer, where a reversible solid-state change takes place, causing the coating to tint and absorb light. Reversing the polarity of the applied voltage causes the ions to migrate back to their original layer, and the glass returns to its clear state."

Of course innovation ain't cheap. SageGlass glazing is expensive. However
with SageGlass, energy efficiency is increased which results in lower electricity bills and of course a reduction in carbon emissions.

Now think of the carbon reduction potential if SageGlass were used in all those large skyscrapers that have all glass exteriors.

Will the technology used by SageGlass become more cost-effective and more widely used? We'll have to wait and watch.
 

Are we ready for solar rooftops? Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation that will encourage the installation of these 10 million solar panels within the next 10 years on rooftops of homes and businesses

Sanders said a recent report shows that solar power could help make every state more energy independent if solar units were installed on available rooftop space, because every state can meet 10 percent or more of its electricity needs just through rooftop solar.

The proposed bill is called the "10 Million Solar Roofs and 10 Million Gallons of Solar Water Heating Act of 2010". The bill would authorize rebates to cover the cost of the installations.

Sanders states that by expanding solar power, the United States can minimize its dependence on foreign oil and can help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as create "Green Jobs".
 
Sanders is right. I also agree that solar power can help us all become more energy independent. The bill appears to be address an issue that we as a country face. I'd be curious to see how it evolves and how new jobs may be created as a result of it.