A British business offering turnkey solutions for micro wind power is aiming to become one of the top five producers in the world by 2016. Its innovative new design will provide a fully installed wind turbine for as little as $7000, according to the company’s CEO.

A new report out by the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) and GTM Research, the inaugural U.S. Solar Market Insight™ report, finds that solar power is going to continue its rapid growth in the United States.

Growing numbers of cities and towns are turning to solar-powered road warning and school safety signs to inform the public and save money and energy. In the past year, cities including Baton Rouge, Branson and Kansas City, Mo., and Lyndhurst, Wayne and Ringwood, N.J., have adopted the technology, officials in those municipalities say.

Vietnam ’s first wind power turbine production factory was inaugurated at the Nomura industrial zone in the northern port city of Hai Phong on October 15. The 61 million USD project, invested by the US-based GE group, rolled out over 200 turbines for export in the past five months of test run.

Solar panels are usually mounted in series, to sum up their voltages, and the resulting power is sent to a large inverter, which transforms the DC voltage into AC. One big issue with this scheme is that if shade falls on one panel, or it gets dirty, the inverter lowers the current of all the other panels, and causing power losses through inefficiency.

West Virginia has recently discovered, though a project funded by Google, that it is lying on top of a major resource: geothermal power. The finding is even more significant taking in consideration the state’s high dependence on fossil fuels.

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) approved on October 5 the first large-scale solar energy plants ever to be built on U.S. public lands. The approval of two developments in California grants the U.S.-based companies behind the projects access to almost 6,800 acres of public lands for 30 years to build and operate solar plants. The approved plants could produce up to 754 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, or enough to power 226,000–566,000 typical U.S. homes. The projects will generate almost 1,000 new jobs.

It seems that we are finding a new use for solar power everyday. Whether its grid-tie applications, lighting, or backup power, solar is rapidly becoming our green energy alternative of choice. Solar is rapidly evolving as the technology and applications for it are changing daily. In this light, here are 3 great contests that are stretching the limits of what solar can be used for and may just change the way we use energy in our everyday lives.

The cells that power the bicycle use sodium silicide, a powder similar to sand. In combination with water, the substance “instantly creates hydrogen gas”, that is further on used to generate energy. Moreover, excess electricity is stored in batteries that are safe and fully recyclable.

Tocco is a remarkable Italian town, not only for its ancient heritage, but also for its futuristic projects that concern the implementation of renewable energy installations. The town benefits four wind turbines that are more than enough to meet the needs of its 2,700 inhabitants.

Beacon Power Corp., a provider of energy storage systems has established a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency to produce parts of a flywheel energy storage over a period of two years.

Struggling to tackle the acute power crisis in the state, Shobha Karandjale, the new energy minister, is planning to encourage energy conservation as purchasing electricity is proving to be a costly affair. The government spends an average of Rs 350 crore a month to purchase power from private producers to meet the power crisis.

The latest official figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) could provide insight into how energy saving aspirations across the UK have affected power consumption. In its second quarter 2010 report, DECC notes a 24 per cent fall in primary electricity consumption across the country.

According to the Danish climate commission, the country will gets its electricity from wind farms, developing an energy network entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050. The committee also said that biomass and wind energy could meet the bulk of the country’s energy requirements.

Beacon Power, a major player in flywheel energy storage, is now working with U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) on the development of a next-generation of flywheel storage. The new flywheel storage system is expected to be able to store 4 times as much energy as present flywheels, and at one-eighth the per kilowatt-hour cost.

A very large solar solar-powered yacht called Planet Solar has set out on a 31,000 mile trip around the globe. It is estimated it will maintain an average speed of 7.5 knots per hour. At that speed it should take about 160 days to travel around the planet.

This weekend, automobile maker Jaguar introduced it’s newest supercar at the Paris Motor Show. The new concept vehicle sets new standards for green vehicles and showcases technology for the future of electric motoring. The Jaguar C-X75 concept car is a first of it’s kind to sport both an electric powered engine in concert with a jet turbine engine, which tops out in at an impressive speed of 205 mph.

On September 26th, Thai An Hydropower Joint Stock Company inaugurated Thai An Hydropower Plant - one of 15 key projects to celebrate the 15th Party Congress of Ha Giang province. Thai An Hydropower Plant is built in Thai An commune (Quan Ba district) and Thuan Hoa commune (Vi Xuyen district). The plant has the capacity of 82MW, with the total investment of more than VND2,000 billion, According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Dao, Chairman of the Board, General Director of Thai An Hydropower JSC.

Designed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and fine-tuned by researchers at MERSTech in partnership with the ONR's office in Tokyo, the Magnetic Energy Recovery Switch (MERS) harnesses and recycles residual magnetic power that is produced by electrical current. By using a device that controls the flow of electricity, light bulbs can now maximize their potential. The proposal for the expanded experiment is scheduled for completion in October.

Engineering researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University have demonstrated the low-temperature efficacy of an atomically dispersed platinum catalyst, which could be suitable for on-board hydrogen production in fuel-cell-powered vehicles of the future.