While walking through Venice, we noticed an unusual looking public bench being installed. Looking somewhat out of place amongst the very old buildings, this bench has a number of metal stalks coming out from its center and reaching towards the sky. On the top of each of these stalks is installed a small solar panel.

I have no idea what these solar panels are going to be used to power. If I had to guess, I would say that there are batteries under the seating and the power will be used to provide lighting after dark. The lower one of the two collectors in the close-up shot looks like it might have a light fitting there. And if it is light the rest of the Venetian public lighting we saw, it will be using CFL, or perhaps another low power technology (perhaps LEDs).

Have read a couple of articles recently that presented ideas for using our road networks as ways to harness the sun’s energy.

The first article, in Inhabitat, talked about a solution from Australian company Going Solar. Their idea combines solar panels with a sound barrier along the sides of freeways that pass through residential areas. This cuts the noise level in the houses, while at the same time supplying them with electricity.

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Last week PG&E announced that it had signed two deals for a total of 800MW of photo-voltaic solar power.

One is with High Plains Ranch II, LLC, a subsidiary of SunPower Corporation, for 250 MW of solar power. The other is with Topaz Solar Farms LLC, a subsidiary of OptiSolar, for 550 MW more.

As we commented last week, solar power is currently a very small part of the power mix for PG&E, and in fact for the state of California as a whole, contributing less than 1% today. Investments like these two will go some way to turning that around, and making better use of that environmentally sound solar energy that warms and lights the state every day.

California utility companies are required to provide Power Content Labels to their customers letting them know the mix of power sources in the electricity that they use. Here in Alameda we have our own city owned utility, Alameda Power and Telecom, that provides a relatively clean mix of power. Other parts of California, including our immediate neighbours here in the SF bay area, don’t do so well.

The table below shows the projected 2008 mixes for PG&E and Alameda, alongside the 2007 mix for the whole state. As you can see, Alameda Power & Telecom is doing a pretty good job of using renewables (79% total when you include the large hydroelectric mix), whereas PG&E, one of the largest electricity utilities in the state, is still reliant on natural gas and nuclear power.

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The 2008 Summer Olympic Games has started in China, and with a very impressive ceremony both in terms of scale and execution. But as well as the opening ceremony, the sporting events and the inevitable political commentary that will surround the games, this year there is also a focus on the environment.

Earth2Tech has a list of ten companies who have provided some eco-friendly equipment for the games. Everybody from LED lighting experts Cree, who provided LED displays for the swimming cube and the bird’s nest National Stadium, to companies like GE who are involved in all kinds of projects at the games, including wind turbines, solar lighting and even rainwater recycling.

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Earth2Tech has a list of 13 startups working on concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar technology. CPV systems, like the one from Australia-based Solar Systems (shown in the photo), work by using mirrors and lenses to focus the energy of the sun onto a photovoltaic cell.

The reason CPV systems are interesting is that the cost of the collector is generally lower than the same area of solar cells. The catch is that the solar cell needs to be cooled (solar cells operate best when cool). Also, a CPV system is less effective on overcast days because the light striking the concentrator is diffused by the clouds.

Stirling Engine
Stirling Energy Systems is developing a similar system, but replacing the photovoltaic cell with a stirling engine. Their first project, in the Mojave Desert in southern California, is planned to generate 850MW of power, and the second (also in southern California) will reach 900MW.

MIT Professor of Energy Dr. Daniel Nocera has published a paper explaining a process that they’ve developed for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen efficiently using solar electricity, and then use that hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell to re-generate electricity.

Sounds a bit silly when put like that, but the part that I missed out is that there is a time delay between splitting the water and using it to generate electricity.

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Looking for a new bag? Check out the range of sustainably sourced bags from Noon Solar. The Chicago based designer of bags produces a range of bags from hand-dyed hemp to vegetable-tanned leathers, all of which incorporate a flexible solar panel as well so they can charge your mobile phone or iPod as you walk about town, or even while you’re sitting at work (with the bag left in the sunlight of course).

The energy from the solar panel is collected by a small lithium-ion battery pack inside the bag, so your device can charge day or night using the energy collected from the sun.

[Via Inhabitat]

Three billion people living in developing nations, about 42% of the population, are under the age of 15. The Green Wi-Fi project has the goal of bringing internet access to these children, and doing it in a way that makes sense for a developing country.

Unlike developed nations, many of the places where this technology was designed to be deployed lack electricity, so the Green Wi-Fi project designed a self-contained unit consisting of a solar panel, charge controller and battery for power, and a modified Linksys WRT54GL wireless router with a high gain external omni-directional antenna for the internet access part. These boxes form the nodes of a self-healing mesh network. Connect one or more of them to the internet somehow (often via a cellular modem) and you can share that connection across the entire mesh. Since the boxes need no external power, they can be placed on rooftops anywhere to build up the mesh.

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While I was out the other day I came across a couple of solutions for charging portable devices, like iPods & media players, iPhones and other mobile phones, GPS navigation units or portable gaming devices using the energy of the sun. The two models I saw in the store were the Solio Universal Hybrid Solar Charger and the Solio H1000 Hybrid Battery Charger.

Of the two, the H1000 was perhaps the most appealing to me, simply because I’m not such a big fan of the fan out operation on the other model. Both have an internal battery that is charged by the solar panel, and can then be used to charge your external device. That means you can leave the charger in a sunny place all day, and then top up your phone from it overnight. And using solar power instead of leaving the phone’s AC charger plugged in all day, reduces the phantom power drain too (unplugging that AC adapter when you’re not using will help there too).

In addition to the Solio portable chargers, there are also some other options out there like the SolarStyle SC002 or the iceTECH Solar i101 for those on tighter budgets. Be sure to check that the charger you select is compatible with your devices though before buying.