A new study reported in the journal Applied Physics Letters in August this year (published by the American Institute of Physics), explains how solar energy could potentially be collected by using oxide materials that have the element selenium. A team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, embedded selenium in zinc oxide, a relatively affordable material that could make more efficient use of the sun’s power.

This technique has an enormous potential. Only in the United States, for instance, the total surface of roads, highways and open parking lots is estimated in over 100,000 square kilometres. The proposal comes from an American company which, using funds granted by the US Federal Highway Administration, is designing resistant photovoltaic panels on which cars can drive, with tiny prisms built into the surface in order for tyres to grip.

The Swiss manufacturer Trunz Water Systems and a California-based reverse osmosis company, Spectra Watermakers have developed a new eco-friendly water purifier designed for use in disaster stricken areas where conventional energy sources are unavailable or too expensive. The new system, called the Solar Container, is capable of generating more than 8,000 gallons of potable water per day and is powered by renewable wind and solar energy.

The University of Cambridge has come up with a low cost organic solar cell that opens up some intriguing new possibilities in solar energy design. Although the Cambridge team is focused on bringing large scale photovoltaic devices to the market, the new technology could also lend itself to a smaller canvas, yielding such products as solar-energy generating umbrellas and canopies. For that matter, even small objects like plastic cups and straws could some day double as mini solar power generators.

The nanotube antenna focuses all of the excitons resulted from the collision of photons with the material, towards its center. Asolar cell using this kind of technology would have to have a core of semiconducting material built inside the nanotube antenna

The legendary competition between the branches of the U.S. armed forces has taken on a sustainable twist. Take portable solar power, for example. The Marines just introduced a portable solar power system this spring, and a few weeks later the Air Force kicked in with a portable solar system of its own.

There's no "one-size-fits-all" approach to going solar, but whichever option a homeowner chooses, he's almost certain to save money in the long run. And he can begin reducing his carbon footprint immediately, whether he opts for solar thermal or photovoltaic.

MIT rsearchers have created tiny solar cells that can repair themselves after damage from the sunlight they're designed to process. The team was inspired by the way plants constantly break down their light-capturing molecules and reassemble them from scratch, so that the basic structures that capture the sun's energyare regularly renewed.

At the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (Valencia, Spain), Imec presents several large-area silicon solar cells with a conversion efficiency above 19%.

Tập đoàn Neo Solar Power, một trong những nhà sản xuất pin mặt trời hàng đầu thế giới, đã công bố kế hoạch xây dựng nhà máy điện mặt trời tại Khu công nghệ cao Nam Đài Loan (STSP). Dự tính, nhà máy sẽ có công suất 3,4 GW, nhiều hơn 1 GW so với công suất của tất cả các nhà máy khác tại Đài Loan.

Neo Solar Power Corporation, one of the leading solar cell makers has recently unveiled its new plant within The Southern Taiwan Science Park, according to The China Post. The new factory is expected to have a 3.4 GW capacity, almost 1 GW more compared to the capacity produced by all Taiwanese manufacturers.

Dust, dirt, and the occasional bird-bomb can chip away at the efficiency of solar panels. Hand washing is fine for home-scale installations but that can add up to a huge problem for large installations that cover multiple acres of ground or roofs. Now scientists from Boston University have come up with a solution: self-cleaning solar panels based on technology used in missions to Mars.

The company has a thin film assembly line with an annual capacity of 40 MW. The company also has several manufacturing facilities around the country and exports solar panels to Germany, Italy in addition to setting up solar installations within the country.

"Our research could pave the way for turning electricity from the atmosphere into an alternative energy source for the future," said study leader Fernando Galembeck, Ph.D. His research may help explain a 200-year-old scientific riddle about how electricity is produced and discharged in the atmosphere. "Just as solar energy could free some households from paying electric bills, this promising new energy source could have a similar effect," he maintained.

A new joint venture research work at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, supported by Department of Energy and DARPA has come up with a new solar energy conversion process that can potentially double the efficiency of solar cells. Stanford engineers have discovered this new and totally different process to harvest energy from sun.

In the 1990s, the solar energy technology was introduced into Vietnam through projects funded by the governments of Spanish, Dutch, French and German. Many solar energy projects have been put into application since then, mainly to meet electricity needs of people in remote and rural areas, where the national grid has not reached. Unfortunately, those above projects are only in pilot scale.

One of the largest orchards in Massachusetts has just cut its utility bill 80% with a $1.1 million 220 KW solar power plant. The state of Massachusetts helped Carlson Orchards with grants totaling $595,000 to help in the installation of the 1,050 solar photovoltaic panels.

One purpose of developing solar power technology is to support the load for the national grid and enable consumers to use EVN’s electricity at peak hours with price of off-peak hours (price of grid electricity at night is only 500 dong per Kwh, while during peak hour it is about 2000 dong, calculated accumulatively).

This has led to the increased production of PV cells not only in Europe but also in Taiwan and china. China alone produces 2GW solar cells annually. In February 2010 the price of electricity using PV panel is $4.27 per watt. Today the price of photovoltaic cells of different companies is different. The General electric solar panel costs $ 228 to $385. This trend would decline with more competition.

An innovative clean energy collaboration between auto manufacturer Ford, utility Detroit Edison and energy storage systems builder Xtreme Power plans to bring to Michigan one of its largest solar energy systems, which will be used to help in the production and usage of electric vehicles. The system will be installed at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant.