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May 2012 Meeting

April 26, 2012 By

Solar NV meets monthly and everyone is invited!

Date: May 17th. (third Thursday of every month)

Time: 6:30 PM

Location: University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV)

Frank & Estella Beam Hall – Room 110
4505 S Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89154
(Maps, directions, parking info)

Meeting Topic: Searchlight Wind Energy Project

Presented by: Nancy Christ, Planning and Environmental Coordinator for the BLM Renewable Energy Coordination Office in Las Vegas.

Pine Tree Wind Energy Project

Searchlight Wind Energy, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Duke Energy, is proposing to develop a 200-megawatt wind energy generation facility on public land located near Searchlight, Nevada, approximately 60 miles southeast of Las Vegas. The proposed project would include up to 96 wind turbines.

Nancy Christ is a Planning and Environmental Coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – Renewable Energy Coordination Office in Las Vegas, Nevada. She coordinates the environmental review of renewable energy projects proposed on public land managed by the BLM Southern Nevada District Office. Nancy works closely with renewable energy developers and environmental stakeholders ensuring that environmental analysis meets quality standards and is in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. Nancy is a member of the Project Management Institute. She has been a certified Project Management Professional since August 2008.

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Filed Under: Meetings

April 2012 Meeting

March 27, 2012 By

Solar NV meets monthly and everyone is invited!

Date: April 19th. (third Thursday of every month)

Time: 6:30 PM

Location: University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV)

Frank & Estella Beam Hall – Room 110
4505 S Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89154
(Maps, directions, parking info)

Meeting Topic: UNLV Solar Decathlon Project -
The Autonomy House

UNLV's Autonomy HouseThe UNLV Solar Decathalon Team will compete in the 2013 Department of Energy Solar Decathalon.

Student team leaders and their faculty advisor will present their project at Solar NV’s monthly meeting on April 19th. Here is a colorful description of The Autonomy House project from Team Las Vegas (PDF).

In a recent Green Living column published in the Las Vegas Review Journal, Solar NV co-founder Steve Rypka wrote:

The Solar Decathlon is a serious challenge and only twenty collegiate teams are chosen to compete in this prestigious biennial event, first held in 2002. The next one will take place in the fall of 2013 and it is special, for a few reasons. All previous Solar Decathlons have been held in Washington, D.C. In 2013, it will take place in sunny Orange County, California. That puts it into easy driving distance for Southern Nevadans. What a great opportunity!

If that’s not special enough for you, how about the fact that UNLV is among the teams that will be competing? This is very exciting news and something our entire community can and should rally behind. Students and faculty celebrated the recent announcement after years of hard work honing their winning application. Congratulations to Team Las Vegas! [Read the full article]

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Meetings Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The HOMES Act

March 21, 2012 By

Energy Retrofit Legislation Introduced to Create Jobs and Help Homeowners Reduce Energy Costs

Washington, DC — On March 21, Efficiency First joined Congressman McKinley and Congressman Welch, the US Chamber of Commerce, and other industry leaders to announce the Home Owner Managing Energy Savings (HOMES) Act – bipartisan legislation to provide incentives for homeowners who perform energy retrofits.

Efficiency First Executive Director Jay Murdoch said: “More than any single interest group, it is the contractor and home energy auditor members of Efficiency First who are invited into homes every day – helping to solve real comfort and energy efficiency problems for homeowners.  Because of this close interaction with the homeowner, this is the group that best understands the needs of homeowners and equally important, what motivates them to make the choice to improve their home.  By offering incentives tied back to demonstrated savings, the HOMES Act will be a catalyst and will cause consumers to take action and hire a qualified contractor to make the desired home improvements.”

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: News

Solar 15% Returns Lure Investments From Google to Buffett

March 20, 2012 By

A new article in Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting on the shift major investors are making that favors solar energy. According to the article:

U.S. solar developers are luring cash at record rates from investors ranging from Warren Buffett to Google Inc. (GOOG) and KKR & Co. by offering returns on projects four times those available for Treasury securities.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) together with the biggest Internet search company, the private equity company and insurers MetLife Inc. (MET) and John Hancock Life Insurance Co. poured more than $500 million into renewable energy in the last year. That’s the most ever for companies outside the club of banks and specialist lenders that traditionally back solar energy, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.

Once so risky that only government backing could draw private capital, solar projects now are making returns of about 15 percent, according to Stanford University’s center for energy policy and finance. That has attracted a wider community of investors eager to cash in on earnings stronger than those for infrastructure projects from toll roads to pipelines.

Read the full article…

 

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Filed Under: News

March 2012 Meeting

March 2, 2012 By

Solar NV meets monthly and everyone is invited!

Note: We’ve changed meeting locations, day of the week and starting time!

6:30 PM on the third Thursday of every month. Our next meeting is March 15th.

University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV)
Frank & Estella Beam Hall – Room 110
4505 S Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89154

(Maps, directions, parking info)

Meeting Topic: Energy Efficiency Panel

Comments from our members and meeting attendees have mentioned an array of interests from homeowners looking to maximize their own efficiency or lower their footprints to citizens looking to get involved on a community or regional level. This panel will speak about energy efficiency on the personal homeowner’s level, the business level, and the community level.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Meetings

Feb 2012 Meeting

January 10, 2012 By

Solar NV meets monthly and everyone is invited!

Note: We’ve changed meeting locations, day of the week and starting time!

6:30 PM on the third Thursday of every month. Our next meeting is February 16th.

University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV)
Frank & Estella Beam Hall – Room 110
4505 S Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89154

(Maps, directions, parking info)

Our meetings feature speakers from a variety of renewable energy disciplines and are also a great place to network with people who share an interest in renewable energy.

For February’s meeting, we have Greg Helseth as a speaker:

Greg HelsethGreg Helseth is the Southern Nevada Renewable Energy Manager for the Bureau of Land Management. Stationed in Las Vegas, he had been with the BLM for three years, managing the Renewable Energy Coordination Office Southern Nevada District. Greg successfully accomplished two fast track Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) in 2010 and has the first solar energy site on federal land sending power to the grid. Southern Nevada has 5 EIS (4 solar, 1 wind) processing now. Before the BLM, Greg worked as a Mechanical Engineer, Senior Mechanical Engineer, and Engineering Manager for more than 15 years. He recently graduated from the University of Phoenix with a Bachelor of Science in Business Management Green and Sustainable Enterprise.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Events, Meetings

Happy Holidays from Solar NV!

December 16, 2011 By

There's a lot we can do with the sun!We wish you all the best!

There’s a lot we can do with the sun -  from powering our homes and businesses to telling us the time of day (ok, that’s not exactly high-tech, but it’s a nice image).

There has never been a better time to get involved in the transition to clean energy. We hope the New Year is a good one for you and that we’ll be seeing you in 2012!

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Filed Under: Misc

Dec 2011 Meeting

November 29, 2011 By

How to get solar for your home or business, and finance it too!

A happy Southern Nevada solar homeowner.Solar NV board member and electrician/solar installer Guy Snow will give a presentation that will teach you everything you need to know about getting that solar installation you’ve always wanted. Come prepared to learn and ask questions from one of the most experienced and busy installers in town!

Then, learn about a great financing option available from US Bank, as branch manager Denise Lyon will be speaking and providing information about their solar financing programs!

Meeting Info:

When: December 8, 2011, 6:30pm

Where: Vegas PBS Building, 3050 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas NV, 89121

We hope to see you at December’s meeting! It is open to the public.

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Filed Under: Meetings, Photovoltaic

Here Comes the Sun

November 7, 2011 By

For decades the story of technology has been dominated, in the popular mind and to a large extent in reality, by computing and the things you can do with it. Moore’s Law — in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months — has powered an ever-expanding range of applications, from faxes to Facebook.

Our mastery of the material world, on the other hand, has advanced much more slowly. The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago.

But that may be about to change. We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power.

If that surprises you, if you still think of solar power as some kind of hippie fantasy, blame our fossilized political system, in which fossil fuel producers have both powerful political allies and a powerful propaganda machine that denigrates alternatives.

Read the rest of “Here Comes the Sun” by Paul Krugman

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Filed Under: Opinion

Nov 2011 Meeting

October 29, 2011 By

Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System

Ivanpah Solar ProjectNovember’s event is a very special opportunity to learn about a major solar project in our backyard, BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in construction near Primm, NV. Solar NV thanks the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for orgainzing this meeting! Members from both groups and the public will be in attendance.

Todd Stewart P.E., BrightSource’s Senior Director for Project Development, is our guest speaker. BrightSource’s main office is in Oakland, CA, however as a fellow engineer Todd is visiting for our event – please come to this rare opportunity!

Meeting Info:

When: November 10, 2011, 6:30pm

Where: Vegas PBS Building, 3050 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas NV, 89121

More: Meeting Flyer (PDF)

Project Overview:

ISEGS is a 3-plant, 392-megawatt solar complex using mirrors to focus the power of the sun on solar receivers atop power towers. The electricity generated by all three plants is enough to serve more than 140,000 homes in California during the peak hours of the day. The complex is located in Ivanpah, about five miles from the California-Nevada border, on federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The project – which counts RG Solar, Google and BrightSource as equity investors – is currently the largest solar plant under construction in the world. The project is being constructed by Bechtel.

For more detailed information on the project, visit IvanpahSolar.com.

We hope to see you at this special event! It is open to the public.

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Filed Under: Large Scale Solar, Meetings
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