Media Archive
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2010
April 3, 2010 La Salle Catholic College Preparatory Taps into Solar Energy with UNI-SOLAR® Laminates In January [2010], when the Oregon Electric Group installed "thin-film" solar photovoltaic panels on the 11K+ square feet roof of the La Salle Catholic College Preparatory, the college became "the latest Portland metro school to harness solar energy." With an annual capacity of 98kW, the system is anticipated to provide 10-20% of the school's power requirements. And, "[t]he black, thin-film panels could save the school about $10,000 to $15,000 in energy costs" should the school decide to purchase the system in six years. With the growing curriculum emphasis on being green, institutions similar to La Salle are using the thin-film solar PV panels as educational tools to urge students to be "good stewards of the earth." Courtesy of Milwaukie News / Oregonlive.com more
January 14, 2010 Making Music, Going Green In the 50's, Nebraska's rural farming community depended on off-grid alternative energy for all their power needs until power lines reached the farmland and "everyone jumped onto the grid for 'low-cost' electricity and disposed of their wind generators," recalls John Eriksen in an interview with Indian River Magazine. Some half a century later and with more than 20 years of specializing in custom home building, Eriksen has discovered "a product that would take him to the cutting edge of alternative energy." The product - United Solar's thin-film solar laminate - "bonds to roofing material and becomes an integral part of the building" and he recommends it to his clients, including his wife, Cindy Kessler, and owner of Stuart School of Music. "As soon as John showed me that our plan would work, I was on board," Kessler explains. By turning the remodeling of her school into also a "green project," she has been able to reduce energy costs. "The Photovoltaic system at the school," writes Indian River "produces 30-40 percent of the power used." The solar panels can "offset their [Stuart School of Music's] cost of electricity from Florida Power & Light" and, at the end of the year if there is a credit in their account, FPL will pay them for the overage. Courtesy of Indian RiverMagazine.com more
January 12, 2010 Solar Power Landfill Wins Award Impressed by "the use of thin-film, flexible" PV cells combined "with an exposed TPO membrane cap," the Texas CEC panel of judges awarded the 2010 EEA Gold Medal for the environmental category to the solar energy cover of a landfill project. The solar cells, with 180,000 kWh total annual energy output, are bonded through the use of peel-and-stick process which ties them "directly into the existing landfill gas-to-energy system," generating renewable energy electricity both in "low and high light conditions" and "at low and high temperatures." In addition to their economic benefits - use of energy for onsite needs or sold - the thin-film solar panels deployed on the exposed cap help reduce CO2 emissions into the environment. More information about the landfill project and The Engineering Excellence Awards Competition can be found at the link below. Courtesy of Geosynthetica more
2009
July 10, 2009 Solé - An Elegant Idea that Made Adding Solar Easy. Bresslergroup, designers of Solé Power Tile, the first 'curved' BIPV roofing product, had to create a polymeric material to allow curvature of the tiles "[i]nstead of the rigid silicon crystalline wafers." For the panels, they used the UNI-SOLAR® product, "an extremely flexible triple-junction non-crystalline amorphous silicon cells.known as a 'thin film' technology." The UNI-SOLAR® roofing product competes with traditional solar panels available in the market. Its energy and light absorption from the sun is competitive with the traditional solar panels and in cloudy conditions and high heat it can "actually do better." It is the first "cost-effective, lightweight solar technology that's ideal for the roofing space." Source: Courtesy of Fast Company more
July 2, 2009 Zephyr-6, the UK-built solar-powered plane, is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) which has set an unofficial world endurance record in its category staying aloft for more than 3 days and "running through the night on batteries it had recharged in sunlight." Its lithium-sulphur batteries are recharged by UNI-SOLAR® solar arrays manufactured by United Solar Ovonic. Source: Courtesy of BBC more