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Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s premier architect, interior designer and social visionary, once noted that he thought it “just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.”

But he probably never thought of building one that used solar panels to maintain indoor air temperatures at a level that chickens find most comfortable. Or, if he did, he kept the plans to himself, because solar-heated (and lighted) chicken houses seem to be on the rise – not surprisingly, just in time to match the comeback of urban chicken farming...

Concord, North Carolina-based SBM Solar, inventor and manufacturer of a revolutionary new, patent-pending solar panel that uses non-EVA (ethylene-vinyl acetate), non-thermoplastic material developed by The Dow Chemical Company, recently had its panels certified by UL Laboratories, the world-leading electrical product compliance specialist.

Thermoplastics are man-made polymers that become flexible or semi-liquid when heated and rigid when cooled, which would not be a very effective surface for a solar panel. In addition, according to SBM founder Dr. Osbert Cheung, the material allows for manufacturing at three times the speed of conventional solar panels, which use glass as the surface layer, while still retaining “highly consistent quality”...

Three months ago, Stonegates retirement community in Delaware overcame the problem of a 62,000-square-foot flat roof by installing 785 specially designed solar panels by Fremont, California-based Solyndra.

The solar installation is remarkable for two things: Stonegates is the first retirement community in the state (and one of the first in the nation) to install solar panels, and the panels themselves are a unique design by Solyndra that allows for greater capture of solar irradiance on flat or low-slope roofs...

This project, which is apparently being called, “The NextEra Genesis Ford Dry Lake Solar Project” (hopefully, someone will come up with something shorter) is one of several being fast-tracked by the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, a division of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.

Under Ken Salazar, the BLM is pushing BrightSource, Ivanpah, and what this writer calls the Genesis Project, among others. (You can view the full list here)...

In the first instance of its kind in commercial real estate history, Harris Stratex Networks, a wireless solutions company, has made the move of its offices (from San Jose to Santa Clara, California) contingent on being able to access “green” power.

Harris, a global provider of wireless solutions that facilitate 4G, next-generation fixed and mobile broadband networks, told DJM Capital Partners, Inc., a private equity real estate investment group, that it would not make the move to a 128,500-square-foot building in Santa Clara unless green power options were made available...

On November 10, at their regular meeting, Sussex County, Delaware officials endorsed a consultancy recommendation to use $648,000 from the federal government to install more than 400 solar panels to power the county’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC-911) east of Georgetown.

If approved by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2010, the expenditure would represent the most significant use of renewable energy technology in the county to date, accruing $12,000 in energy cost savings per year, as well as $30,000 annually in revenue via renewable energy credits, or $1.3 million over the next 25 years), based on current and projected value for RECs. The system would also allow the county to take advantage of a one-time state rebate of more than $200,000...