Innovation, Progress and Scale: Introducing the 2014 Project of the Year Award Finalists
This year’s Project of the Year Award finalists truly represent the evolving energy landscape and exciting global efforts to transition to a cleaner, renewable future. The five projects vying for the Renewable Energy Project of the Year crown include a wide range of innovative technologies from coal-to-biomass conversion to concentrating solar power.


It’s been widely publicized that the cost of residential solar electric systems in the United States is falling faster than ever before. This downward pricing trend is projected to continue through 2016 and then stabilize, according to a September 2014 report compiled by researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Lawre
It’s been nine months since Ivanpah celebrated its grand opening in February, 2014. Since that time, the world’s largest concentrating solar power plant has continued to receive accolades from around the globe, including being named Plant of the Year by Power Magazine, the first time a renewable energy project has ever received that honor in in more than 40 years.
Solar panels keep getting more efficient. That’s a great thing. But they can’t communicate, can’t adjust to environmental circumstances, and don’t have automatic shutdown capabilities. Fortunately — and with apologies to the Farrelly brothers (who seem to have similar limitations) — solar panels aren’t getting any dumber. Many of the newest solar panels are equipped with optimizers, either built into the junction box or attached as a separate component to the back of the panel. Microinverters (which convert the DC output of a panel to AC) provide the same basic benefits at similar costs; however, unlike microinverters, optimizers operate on the DC side of the system and are always connected to a central or string inverter.
Brazil’s nascent solar industry may finally have found the Green Knight it needs to develop domestic cradle-to-grave manufacturing capability that can supply the country’s growing demand: Itaipu, the world’s largest hydroelectric generator.