While we’re on the topic of solar…
Wired.com has this story about the use of solar PV panels in a New York City subway station, which gets two-thirds of its power — or 210 kilowatts — on a sunny day from the clean technology. The article also refers to a train station in California that has solar PV panels doing double duty as a roof for a parking lot. Makes sense — lots of space, shelter for cars. Imagine if more of these massive parking lots were designed with this feature. The article talks a lot about integrating solar PV cells into buildings, rooftops, etc… which ultimately makes the installations more affordable because you’d have to buy those building materials anyway. It will be exciting 10 years from now to see how many structures are being built with solar-PV-integrated materials.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca