Philadelphia Eagles Power Stadium with Renewable Energy
DOE: $400M Loan Guarantee for Abound's Thin-Film Solar Manufacturing
First Companies Earn Industrial Energy Efficiency Certification
First Leaf, Volts Shipped
DOT Redirects $1.2B in High-Speed Rail Funds
DOE: $30M for Next Generation Biofuels Research
Philadelphia Eagles to Power Stadium with Renewable Energy
The Philadelphia Eagles recently announced it will power Lincoln Financial Field with a combination of onsite wind, solar and dual-fuel generated electricity, making it the world's first major sports stadium to convert to self-generated renewable energy.
SolarBlue will install the system, which includes 80, 20-foot spiral-shaped wind turbines on the top rim of the stadium; 2,500 solar panels on the stadium's facade; a 7.6 MW onsite dual-fuel cogeneration plant; and a monitoring and switching technology to operate the system. The completion goal is September 2011.
SolarBlue will invest over $30 million to build the project, and will maintain and operate the stadium's power system for the next 20 years at a fixed annual price increase in electricity. The football franchise will save an estimated $60 million in energy costs. The system is expected to provide 1.039 billion kWh of electricity, enabling an estimated 4 MW of excess energy to be sold back to the local electric grid. See the SolarBlue press release.
DOE Closes $400 Million Loan Guarantee for Thin-Film Solar Manufacturing
DOE finalized a $400 million loan guarantee for Abound Solar Manufacturing, LLC to manufacture state-of-the-art thin-film solar panels.
The project, with facilities in Longmont, Colorado, and Tipton, Indiana, will employ manufacturing technology for cadmium-telluride panels that has yet to be deployed commercially. At full capacity, Abound will produce 840 MW of solar panels a year, creating about 1,200 solar jobs.
Abound will produce PV panels using an innovative process for depositing cadmium-telluride thin films onto glass panels. The company says the technology offers numerous improvements over existing manufacturing methods and reduces production costs. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions significantly compared to crystalline silicon panels.
DOE has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling nearly $16.5 billion to support clean energy projects. Together, the 16 projects represent over 37 million megawatt-hours of capacity, enough clean energy to power 3.3 million homes. See the DOE press release and the Loan Programs Office Web site for more information.
First Companies Earn Industrial Energy Efficiency Certification
On December 9, DOE announced the first industrial plants in the country to be certified under its new market-based industrial energy efficiency program, the Superior Energy Performance program.
Certification, which is provided by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), will offer a roadmap for industrial facilities to continually improve efficiency and maintain market competitiveness.
The industrial and manufacturing sectors, which account for roughly a third of US energy consumption, have significant opportunities to improve operational efficiency.
