Midland-based Dow Chemical is announcing the latest in energy independence, the Powerhouse Solar Shingle. Roofers install the solar shingles just like regular asphalt shingles. They are due to be available in 2010 and readily available in 2011. Dow Chemical says, it’s the first affordable, neighborhood-friendly solar shingle. With it, the company says, it’ll create jobs [...]

An American firm is currently working on a prototype solar panel that could be embedded into existing roads. The company, Solar Roadways, won a $100,000 grant from the US Department of Transportation. The panels would also be covered with a mosaic of small lights, which could be illuminated to provide road markings and warning messages [...]

Now is the time to start outfitting your home with solar panels. Why? Because solar panel prices have dropped about 40% since the middle of last year, driven down partly by an increase in the supply of a crucial ingredient for panels, according to analysts. The price drops, which are paired with recently expanded federal [...]

The beautiful Italian city of Milan will very shortly be home to a 2.9 million-square-foot, 18-MW solar array atop the Milan Trade Fair. The array will become the largest rooftop array in the world, surpassing the current record-holder, a 12-MW array on the General Motors factory in Zaragoza, Spain. In comparison, the largest rooftop array [...]

The first of 1,100 planned solar-powered bus shelters has been opened up in the progressive California city of San Francisco. The other 1,099 will be installed across the city over the next four years. The roof of the shelter is made up of thin-film solar panels which have been embedded in a 40 percent post-industrial [...]

The International Space Station (ISS) has completed installing its solar panel power grid today with the deployment of its final solar array. The solar panel arrays which were installed during a space walk yesterday, are the last piece in the ISS energy grid that has been almost 10 years in the making. The solar panels [...]

Jenkins High School (not pictured above) in Savannah, Georgia, just added a new solar panel which will not only save them on energy bills, but teach the students about going green and alternative energy. Mike Joyner, an executive of Georgia Power, and one of the strongest advocates behind Jenkin’s new solar panel said, “Green energy [...]

If you’re thinking about installing solar panels, you might be pleased to hear that researchers in Australia are working on a project to develop a spray-on coating for solar panels, which will both bring down the cost and improve the efficiency of solar panels. A new company, Spark Solar, is working in conjunction with Australian [...]

If children out the future, then the folks over Sharp Electronics Corporation have the right idea. Employees from the company, a solar panel manufacturer, visited a New Jersey elementary school to to teach a lesson on climate change and renewable energy to a class of fifth graders. Sharp began its Solar Academy program in the [...]

File this one under ironic. The U.S. military is overseeing the installment of almost two dozen solar power projects in an attempt to mitigate Iraq’s energy crisis. The country which was invaded by the U.S., which many people suggest was simply to get at oil there, is in an energy crisis and the U.S. is [...]