City Hall Powered with Solar Panels

        By the end of this year, Rancho Mirage's City Hall and the city's vehicle maintenance yard should be getting most of their power from brand-new rooftop and carport solar panels. The City Council gave the go-ahead Monday to a $1.2 million contract with Palm Springs-based Nobell Energy Solutions to add the panels to the city facilities, with construction expected to begin in October and finish in mid-December.
        The council also approved spending $23,000 to put a new roof over the maintenance yard's traffic signal warehouse, which will be able to support the panels. The new panels, which will be leased by the city from Nobell for up to 20 years with an option to buy them out at 10 years, are projected to generate 60% of the electricity needed by City Hall and 95% for the maintenance yard, which is in Thousand Palms.

Dutch engineer students get ready to compete in the 2013 World Solar Challenge

Young engineer students from all over the world are busy getting ready for lift off for the 2013 World Solar Challenge that is to be held in Australia from Oct 6-13. The conditions for the competition influence teams to invent and build the most efficient and unique looking vehicles that stand out. As many of you know, the vehicles will require many solar panels for them to be operational on the road. Therefore, being able to compete with other teams will require some creativity involved while in the process of having it mechanically possible.

“The project started with the first ideas in March last year, we wondered why there was no car yet that is practical, comfortable and drives purely on solar energy,” Lex Hoefsloot, team manager Solar Team Eindhoven, told the News.

Solar powered three wheeler called the "Elf"

Rob cotter founder and CEO of Organic Transit in Durham, North Carolina, developed something extraordinary that couldn't be characterized as a bike but is indeed operated as one. It's called the "Elf", this three wheeler is equipped with a solar powered motor that can be switched on anytime when the operator is exhausted from pedalling. Elf is categorized as a bicycle and doesn't require an insurance and registration to ride in the United States. The solar panel is found across the roof from the front to the end of the bike and only needs 7 hours of charging in the sun or could also be plugged into an outlet for less time consumption. The Elf can be well acknowledge to commuter who has to go to work in the morning using the powered motor and pedal back home from work for a good workout. The Elf should weigh about 100 pounds including the solar panel, motor, and battery; it also has a top speed of 20 mph considering the weight of the production model. The Organic Transit had raised enough funds to produce 100 models up for purchase from the Kickstarter Campaign.

3 Amazing Innovations in Solar technology

1. The SolarKindle
One product that grabbed much attention at this year's Consumer Electronics Show was a cover case with a solar panel for Amazon's Kindle E-reader, showcased by Solar Focus. From just one hour of stable sunlight, the SolarKindle collects enough power to your device for 3 consecutive days. What's more amazing is that the SolarKindle is advertised as being able to be powered 3 consecutive months under "normal" sunlight conditions.

2. Artificial Leaf
A researcher from MIT has developed a technology in what he calls an "Artificial Leaf", which is an energy storage technology that successfully mimics the process of photosynthesis. The so called "Artificial Leaf" is engineered to use solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, providing a fuel cell making off-grid lifestyle possible. It has been confirmed that Sun Catalystix will work on many products using only renewable energy, fueled with electricity for household items and tools. The product is soon to be advertised for commercial use.

3. The Lotus Position

What they call "Lotus", is a structure designed to charge up electric vehicles as well as lighting up the streets with LED lighting. An italian architect Giancarlo Zemo along with an architectural design company known as "Luminexece" has created a multi-function design. A small "Lotus" generates 500 watts of electricity and larger models generates 2.8 kilowatts. The structural design most definitely is envisioned as a solar powered charging station for electric vehicles for the future.