Solar Power is having a dramatic impact on the foundation of the Toledo economy with a confluence of industry, academia and government. While like so many other manufacturing hubs if the US, jobs have been lost en mass, the solar power industry has helped mitigate these losses as it’s proving to be fertile, green ground for economic development.

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 are 35 meters long and extend 73 meters from end to end, will increase power to the ISS by 25 percent. The station has three other sets of solar arrays that generate enough electricity to power 42 average homes.

This increase in energy on the ISS will allow for twice as many crew members and significantly more scientific experiments.

Solar airplane the Sunseeker II, will be flying over Europe this Spring.

Eric Lentz Gauthier of Solar Flight says, “The exact dates and destinations that the tour will cover are not set in stone right now. The first leg will be from Freidrichshafen, Germany down to Sicily and then back up to Switzerland. From there the Sunseeker will be flown over the Swiss Alps to the Austrian Dolomites and through to Slovenia. From Slovenia we will fly West through Italy again, then Southern France down to Spain.”

Eric Raymond, designer of the Sunseeker, told a German magazine, ”

With its current generation of batteries, solar cells and electronics installed in 2005, the Sunseeker II has never been forced to land before late afternoon.

The magic part begins when I near cloud base. With my batteries full, or nearly so, I switch on the motor, and climb up between the clouds, once on top, I can throttle back to fy on direct solar power in the clear, bright conditions over the clouds. Under direct solar power, the Sunseeker II is basically a one-speed airplane, fying about 18 m/s (~40 mph). When soaring conditions are present or if the batteries are used, faster speeds near 36 m/s (~80 mph) are possible. When I fnally shut off the motor, it takes hours to glide down, and the airbrakes are normally needed to get down before dark.”

California utility company PG&E said Tuesday it plans to develop 500 megawatts of solar power, its largest-ever plan to build and invest in ground- and rooftop-mounted solar energy generation systems. The company plans to spend about $1.4 billion on the project and hopes the solar generation could serve up to 150,000 homes.

Prompted by changes to federal tax law last fall, PG&E is taking advantage of tax credits for renewable energy development that were previously unavailable.

“This program represents an unprecedented commitment of our capital and expertise to speed the delivery of clean, renewable energy to our customers,” said PG&E Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Darbee.

PG&E said it would develop and own 250 megawatts of its own solar-generation capacity, mostly using ground-mounted solar panels. PG&E will also be investing in photovoltaics, which directly convert light into electricity.

The cost of solar power is dropping, numbers from Solarbuzz are showing. U.S. panel prices have fallen 4 cents since December to $4.81 per watt of peak capacity, while European panel prices are down 6 euro cents to €4.62 per watt.  Industry insiders are saying that prices are back to where they were five years ago. And some are predicting prices could plummet as low as $2.40 per watt.

According to Solarbuzz, the lowest prices have reached $3.57 per watt for a thin-film panel, $3.89 per watt for a monocrystalline panel and $3.99 per watt for a multicrystalline panel.

Lux Research predicted nearly a year ago that the solar market would become saturated and that solar supply would exceed demand in 2009.

“While oversupply in the solar market has been looming for some time, the correction has been more aggressive due to the economic crisis,” Lux senior analyst Ted Sullivan said in a release.

Wood and asphalt shingles are so last century! Solar shingles, made of solar cells, function like conventional shingles, but help bring down that nasty energy bill.  Most Solar Shingles are 12 inches wide (when stacked have 5 inches of exposed area) by 86 inches long and can be stapled directly to the roofing cloth. Although solar shingles are more expensive to install than typical PV panels, solar shingles offset the cost of traditional shingles for that section of the roof.

Vaguhn Prost, who works for Missouri Solar Applications, says, “If you had one of these arrays on your home, it would produce about half of your electricity that you’d need for your average home. In the coming years, I think that people will look at solar shingles on their house as something as normal as having plumbing inside their house.”

Gloomy Oregon is looking to become the hottest state when it comes to solar power. Get it? Hottest? Ahh, tough crowd, tough crowd.

Several exciting projects such as Solar World, which has the largest solar cell manufacturing facility in North America and Solaicx, a silicon manufacturer for solar energy applications, as well as Sanyo Solar, have been given the green light – which will ultimately make Oregon the leading state in terms of solar production.

Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski’s has pushed to develop the Renewable Portfolio Standard which mandates the state supply 25 percent of its electricity needs by 2025. The Standard also plans to have 100% of the state buildings lit and run on clean and green energy resources by 2025.

Govenor Kulongoski made trips to Japan and China, looking to imports to provide sources for eco-friendly consumerism. Nissan had shown interest in test marketing its all-electric vehicle in Oregon in 2010 as the state plans to strongly promote the electric and hybrid car industry. Plans are in place to build charging stations throughout Oregon.

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 United States in October, teaching children about renewable energy.

Stewart Mitchell, the chief strategy officer for Sharp who began the program, believes that marketing to children just makes sense.

“The big picture is, you really want to try to tie your focus on social responsibility as a company into your business model,” Mitchell said. “The more that students learn about climate change, and the more they learn about the importance of renewable energy — it ties back to feeding into our business model of being in the solar business.”

This spring, a team in California will attempt to ignite a tiny man-made star inside a laboratory and trigger a thermonuclear reaction. In an experiment that will cost millions, these scientists will try to activate a tiny man made star that will imitate sun by setting off a thermonuclear reaction.

“We are creating the conditions that exist inside the sun,” Ed Moses, director of the the National Ignition Facility (NIF) stated. “It is like tapping into the real solar energy as fusion is the source of all energy in the world. It is really exciting physics, but beyond that there are huge social, economic and global problems that it can help to solve.”

If this experiment is successful, recreating the sun’s power could potentially provide an answer to the world’s impending energy shortage.

The founding conference for the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) took place today in Germany. It marked the beginning of the first international organization that specifically promotes renewable energy.

Among IRENA’s responsibilities is the provision of advice and help for countries seeking to exploit clean and renewable energies like wind power and solar energy. They will assist in establishing regulatory frameworks while providing access to any necessary or relevant data, best practices, technological expertise and proven financial mechanisms.

Fifty-five governments have agreed to make a full membership commitment to Irena today, while 116 have agreed to participate in a lesser role.

While the United States has not joined it is expected that now under Barack Obama’s administration it will. Britain is also among the countries which have not committed to participation and are content to observe the agency’s activities for now.

IRENA describes itself as an “institutional counterbalance to the International Energy Agency” which in the past has been the subject of criticism for not promoting renewable and clean energies like solar power as much as they should.

The president of the World Council and German member of parliament, Hermann Scheer, is one of the founders of IRENA. He said in a statement to the Guardian that, “Irena is the single-most important step for a speedy global introduction of renewable energies. It will give an enormous push to the use of renewables around the globe.”