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The Wales National Coal Museum, known as the ‘Big Pit’ museum, has turned to
solar energy to power its buildings in Blaenafon, south Wales.

More than six percent of Big Pit’s energy will be generated by 200 solar panels installed on the museum’s roof in a bid to reduce bills and carbon footprints, museum representatives said...

This week, the federal government approved to build a solar farm covering 445 square miles in the Western United States. The land is in parts of California (fifty percent of the land is in Southern California), Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The project could produce as much as 23,700 megawatts of renewable energy on government land, enough energy to provide solar power to 7 million homes.

Ken Salazar, secretary of the interior, finalized the plan with United States Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). The new plan capitalizes on the abundance of sunshine and potential for solar power in this sunny region of the country. The land will be divided into 17 solar energy zones that will house future solar plants, all of which are located near major power lines that will allow the power to be easily distributed to homes. The government says it is open to the idea of adding more zones in the future, and will also consider development outside of the zones on a case-by-case basis through 19 million acres of land designated as variance zones. Because one of the program’s goals is to conserve natural resources, it has ruled out development on 79 million acres of land where development would harm the environment...

Solar City and Balfour Beatty Communities announced plans to provide up to 13.2 megawatts of solar energy on 4,700 military homes at Balfour Beatty-managed residential communities at Fort Bliss, Texas, and the adjacent White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. The project is an equipment lease arrangement, primarily financed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which supports the U.S. Army’s program to reduce energy consumption at all installations to ‘Net Zero’.

The project is the first and largest phase of a 5-year plan to build more than $1 billion in solar energy systems for up to 120,000 military homes throughout the United States is the first and largest phase of a 5-year plan. The project is dubbed Solar Strong by Solar City, a leader in public and private solar energy projects around the country. Construction is expected to begin in January. Solar City will initially add more than 100 installation, electrical, and maintenance jobs locally...

Oakland-based Sungevity’s founder and president Danny Kennedy predicts politicians will start talking about renewable energy and climate change because "the consumer market will force them to". Since 2012, rooftop installations up 426 percent industry wide.

Furthermore, Hurricane Sandy has made clear the harm of non-renewable energy resources. "Sandy cast her vote early and in doing so ended the long silence of mass media and our politicians around climate change. Sandy has provided us with a stark reminder that we need to upgrade our energy supply to sources that are clean and that do not harm what has become a fragile environment," Kennedy said...

The first project, a $265 million solar park is being built in southern Puerto Rico and is expected to generate enough electricity to power more than 13,000 homes in the U.S. territory. This will be the Caribbean’s largest solar park. The park features 270,000 solar panels and is being financed by CIRO Energy Group and One Planet Caribbean of San Juan and San Francisco-based GCL Solar Energy Inc.

CIRO Group executive Ruben Perez said that the project will help save 236 million barrels of petroleum a year and reduce greenhouse emissions by 217 billion pounds...