Tag Archives: Solar energy

Energy

How AB 2188 came into Being

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By Roy L Hales

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Governor Jerry Brown did not realize how backwards California’s solar regulations were until he visited Germany in the summer of 2013. There were 500 jurisdictions back home, each with its own requirements and charges. Some are models of efficiency. Los Angeles’ web based system can spit out an approval immediately and it only takes a day in San Diego, but there are also jurisdictions where the process drags out over the course of many weeks. As a result, the soft costs of getting a solar system in California can be eight times as they are in Germany. The Germans have a single system for the entire country. Governor Brown was impressed. So impressed that he started making inquiries about how to streamline California’s permitting process. That was how AB 2188 came into being.

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Energy

A Leading Supplier for Off Grid Solar & Hybrid Systems: OutBack Power

Contrary to what you may have heard, Seattle is not the rainiest city in the US – but it is clouded over around 225 days a year. So it may come as a surprise to learn that a local house utilizing solar-plus-battery was designed to obtain about 96% of its energy from the sun.

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Energy

Sun Above the Horizon: Meteoric Rise of the Solar Industry (A Review)

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Peter Varadi is one of the few people who could be said to personify the solar industry. He and his partner, Joseph Lindmayer helped develop this technology for space and founded the World’s first terrestrial solar company in 1973. It was the worlds largest, and possibly the only profitable, solar company when they sold out a decade later. That did not end Varadi’s involvement. He has continued to be at the center of developments, as a consultant to organizations like the European Commission, The World Bank and National Renewable Energy Laboratory. His recently published book, Sun Above the Horizon: Meteoric Rise of the Solar Industry, is and insider’s view of what has transpired since Bell laboratories discovered that silicon was a incredible conductor of electricity in 1953.

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Energy

Unako: A House of their own

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By Roy L Hales

Kevin Edgecombe’s passion was enflamed ed during a trip to Nepal in 2009. His wife, Linda, was one of the Directors of IWEN (Intercultural Women’s Educational Network), a charity that rescues females from bonded labour and provides meaning to their lives through education. After seeing the extent to which the program liberated young women, he decided to get more involved. A builder by trade, it is only natural that he would come up with a program like “Classrooms for a Cause.” In 2012 he led a team of volunteers that built two classrooms at the Chainpur School in Godhawa, Nepal. Now he is building a 4,000 square foot multi-functional facility, called Unako House, in the Dang region of Nepal. The name Unako means “it’s hers” in Nepalese. The building will hold a community center, classroom, workshop, kitchen, large meeting room, two retail outlets and living quarters for a caretaker. Though the grid is very intermittent, there are excellent solar conditions. The building will be solar powered and truly Unako:  a house of their own.

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