A major consideration for many homeowners evaluating a solar power installation is aesthetics. It’s not too hard to imagine this scenario:

Partner 1: “I was reading about this new program where you can put solar panels on your roof and make money. Seems like a good extra revenue stream, and we can reduce the pollution from -”
Partner 2: “Wait… we put so much money and time into the beauty of our home and now you want to put big blue panels on top of it all!?”

This doesn’t have to be the end of the conversation – there are some good solutions to this predicament. (more…)

I just arrived back from a 3 week stint volunteering with Light up the World in Peru.  Light up the World is a non-profit specializing in community development through the design and implementation of renewable energy systems.  Most of their work is in developing micro PV lighting systems for individual homeowners where access to an electrical grid is not a possibility. (more…)

A recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory looked at the resale value of homes in California that have sold with Grid-Tied PV systems. They found that a recently installed PV system increased the resale value of the home by $3.90 to $6.40 per watt. (more…)

The curved roof criterion of Team Canada’s 2011 entry to the Solar Decathlon certainly presented a unique design challenge!  Some of the early designs of the home actually had slope changes in the North-South direction as well as the East-West direction – thankfully, the project was simplified when the students settled on the current design.  Simplified, but still not all that simple! We still had to work with angle changes from East to West and a significant cantilever of about 1.5m at the bottom East and West corners. (more…)