Fuel Cells Provide Campus Power (from Smarter Technology)

Fuel Cells Provide Campus Power
One of the world's largest fuel cell arrays—2.8 MegaWatts—will be installed in San Diego's Energy Innovation Park at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) campus. FuelCell Energy (Danbury, Conn.) is installing the giant fuel cell capable of powering 2,800 homes—along with two others in the city of San Diego—to provide a renewable store of electricity. In cooperation with the city of San Diego and BioFuels Energy there, the project will turn methane from wastewater into electricity.

Today - Now - Affordable PowerFilm Solar products

I originally wrote about the research that was ongoing in my March 2010 post, about flexible solar panels. Well, you can purchase them now. The company is called PowerFilm Solar (http://www.powerfilmsolar.com ) They have created several product lines of flexible solar films are available now for individual, home, construction and other applications. Here's a link where you can download the
PowerFilm Solar product brochure.

You can even purchase the individual and some of the home products via Amazon! How cool is that? (Thanks Jeff Bezos)

Flexible solar panels open up a lot of possibilities, especially if you're looking to offset your home electricity bill with sun-made power.

What do you think? Is this the beginning of a less-costly entry into truly useful solar power for our lives? Be sure to check out the PowerFilm Solar site, and let me know what you think.

Green Tech Saves That "Other" Green

Everywhere you look, you see references to “green this” and “green that”. Since I work in the real estate field, I have some thoughts on all of this “green” talk.

Green tech uses some new and some old technologies to save you real cash. For example, the growing use of Geothermal Heating & Cooling in new home construction. This one area of Home Tech that can save you thousands of dollars! And if you live in the South, that can be your savings in just the first two years!

A friend of mine uses Geothermal for his newly constructed SIPs home - and his power bills during the hottest months of July and August should have been in the $40 dollar range - and that's to cool a two-story home. Better, is he get's hot water from the same system without using additional energy.

Then there’s solar panels which is both an old and new technology. Old in the sense that it’s been around for a long time. And, new in the way newer development technologies are creating more efficient and useful panels. A recent (circa 2007) breakthrough with solar panels comes from New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Available now, you can purchase flexible roll up solar charger panels. The company that manufactures and developed rollable solar chargers is PowerFilm Inc. Be sure to watch the short video where they shoot the solar panel - and it still works!

Find out if your state offers any incentives for using solar power. Here’s another source of info on “Green Power”.