A Greensboro retirement facility is planning a $1 million solar panel project that is designed to reduce its fossil fuel costs by about $30,000 per year.
Wilson Sheldon, CEO of Friends Homes Inc., said his company will install a total of 208 solar panels on the roofs of its two retirement communities, Friends Homes West on West Friendly Avenue and Friends Homes at Guilford on New Garden Road.
Asheville-based FLS Energy — which also designed and installed the panels for the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro — will install and maintain the solar panels, he said. Work will begin in April and should be finished by September.
The panels will provide about 10,000 gallons of hot water for more than 600 residents each day, Sheldon said, making up about 80 percent of its hot water needs, with natural gas service providing the rest.
Suniva, a leading solar cell and module manufacturer in the U.S., announced the commissioning of 555-kW Evergreen Solar Farm in North Carolina, with its partner FLS Energy. This project was constructed on a site that was formerly a landfill. The solar facility uses Suniva’s high-powered solar modules and was built through a 20-year power purchase contract from FLS Energy to provide renewable energy to Progress Energy’s customers in the region.
Progress Energy Carolinas' generation mix in Western N.C. is a little sunnier, as the region's largest solar photovoltaic (PV) array is now online and generating electricity. The new 555-kilowatt (kW) Evergreen Solar Farm is owned and operated by FLS Energy and built on Evergreen Packaging's now-closed landfill in Haywood County. Progress Energy Carolinas is purchasing the array's entire output for distribution to the company's customers.
This solar PV array project created five new jobs and is expected to generate approximately 730,000 kilowatt-hours every year. This is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand from 51 average North Carolina homes. This will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 525 tons per year, which is the equivalent of removing 100 vehicles from the roads in Western North Carolina.
Now, in North Carolina, a 555-kilowatt array, called the Evergreen Solar Farm, has gone online at the former landfill of Evergreen Packaging, a century-old paper-products company.
"The solar age has dawned," said Michael Shore, chief executive of FLS Energy, which owns and operates the solar array. "FLS Energy converted an old landfill to an electricity generation facility, creating jobs and clean energy along the way," he added, according to a news release.
The utility Progress Energy Carolinas is buying the solar plant's generated electricity for distribution to its customers. The project includes a 20-year power-purchase agreement, which is similar to a lease. These agreements often do not require any up-front cost. They are commonly used by businesses and governments to obtain solar electricity and are available to homeowners in a limited number of leading solar states, with more on the way.
Suniva, Inc., a U.S. manufacturer of high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells and modules, today announced the commissioning of the Evergreen Solar Farm in Canton, North Carolina, with partner FLS Energy. Set atop a former landfill, the 555 kW project utilizes high-powered Suniva solar modules and was constructed via a 20-year power purchase agreement from FLS Energy to supply clean energy to the region's Progress Energy customers. The installation went live at a local ceremony on March 1st in which Congressman Health Shuler spoke at the press conference and toured the Evergreen Solar Farm.
A new solar farm is on line in Canton sporting 2,340 solar panels on four acres — generating enough electricity to power 51 homes. A new state law that mandates utilities get 12.5 percent of their power from renewable sources by the year 2021 was the catalyst for the solar farm.
“A project like this really starts with good policy,” said Michael Shore, president of FLS Energy, which installed the solar field.
Consider this T-shirt: It can monitor your heart rate and breathing, analyze your sweat and even cool you off on a hot summer's day. Or a solar-powered dress that can charge your MP3 player? This is not science fiction -- this is cotton in 2010.
Isolating the minute crystals of the PSI super complex from the pea plant, a biochemistry researcher suggests these crystals can be illuminated and used as small battery chargers or form the core of more efficient man-made solar cells.
Researchers have found a better way to trap light in photovoltaic cells through the use of vertical arrays of silicon nanowires. This could substantially cut the costs of solar electric power by reducing the quantity and quality of silicon needed for efficient solar panels.
In order to save energy, consumers need to be able to obtain up-to-date information at any time about the energy consumption of their appliances, and be able to control them while away from home. Scientists have developed two new applications that help consumers manage their power use.
Researchers are creating technology that will treat neighborhoods like a miniature power grid, sharing energy generated at each house according to need. Allied to a host of other developments, the concept promises huge energy savings.
Scientists in France have transformed the chemical energy generated by photosynthesis into electrical energy by developing a novel biofuel cell. The advance offers a new strategy to convert solar energy into electrical energy in an environmentally-friendly and renewable manner. In addition, the biofuel cell could have important medical applications.
Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, scientists have created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.
Smart control units that learn householders' energy habits and provide immediate feedback on consumption could give home energy savings of up to 20 percent without compromising comfort.
Researchers suggest that policy makers examine greenhouse gas emissions implications for energy infrastructure as fossil fuel sources must be rapidly replaced by windmills, solar panels and other sources of renewable energy.
Material scientists have created a system, using nano-sized molecules of gold, that induces and projects electrical current across molecules, similar to that of photovoltaic solar cells.
