The U.S. Department of the Interior announced last Tuesday that construction will begin on the world’s largest solar power plant, which is to be built in Blythe, California. The facility will use Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology to deliver 1,000 megawatts of generating capacity — enough electricity to power 300,000 homes annually — and will span 7,025 acres of federal property in the Mojave Desert. Since the plant will be “dry-cooled”, it will use 90 percent less water than a standard “wet-cooled” solar thermal system of this kind. Solar Trust, the project’s developer, plans to use water from the Palo Verde Mesa…

MASH, or Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing, is a program using $108 million from the California Solar Initiative to help provide solar panels to lower income families. MASH has recently finished its first solar installation on Hacienda Townhomes, an inexpensive housing complex owned by the San Diego Community Housing Corporation. Several tenants living there only bring in…

The California Air Resources Board has unanimously decided to raise the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard to 33 percent by 2020. “The Renewable Electricity Standard means cleaner energy for California’s households and businesses,” said Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols. “It will help clean our air and bring new solar and wind energy facilities to California with thousands of jobs in construction, operation and spin off…

Last week, Panasonic unveiled its “Green Plan 2018”, which promises to boost sustainable business efforts through a comprehensive strategy geared toward environmental conservation. The strategy is inspired by the 100th anniversary of Panasonic’s founding, which they will use as a target date to implement green practices spanning throughout all of the company’s business operations. While reducing carbon emissions and water consumption, the company also plans on…

Better Place is an innovative company with a goal to establish an infrastructure for electric vehicles around the globe. The concept behind Better Place is to rent EV batteries out so that they can be swapped out at a later time. According to the company, these swapping stations would afford longer trips for battery-powered cars – roughly 100 miles or so – by allowing drivers to pull in to one…