After the bump, a somewhat disorganized stumbling through a few of the latest drips out the business end of the energy tech pipeline.
But first, I must say: This is what we need to see here in the U.S. I'm talking most specifically about the last couple paragraphs at the link: products on retail shelves, where you can stumble across them on your way to buy window calk. I heard Costco had some solar sales reps on the floor recently, and that's good stuff, but people need to see these things in boxes and know they could just hoist that box into a cart, hit the register, and walk out of the store with it -- even if, in fact, they are far more likely to mail/online order it.
First up, some newcomers in the area of small -- as in rooftop -- wind turbines are covered
here and
here. And for a refreshing change, prices are actually listed instead of hidden behind a "call our service representative." Especially interesting if you like
alternatives to traditional HAWTS is the
SeaHawk VAWT in the first article, which as far as I know is the first of its class to be actively sold as an out-of-the-box product.
Second, more deserving than a simple update in a crusty old diary, we are actually starting to see products available in the unintentionally stealthy area of small solar concentrators. The Australian "Sunball" has given way to a second generation design, the SunCube and sales seem to be booming for those folks. In addition, while promises abound for 2006 and 2007 product availability for many of these systems, MicroPV gets special mention for actually taking orders, and I assume, shipping product. Many of these concentrators look like they'd be an especially good fit for Evergreen's string ribbon technology, which as the name implies, produces thin ribbons of reduced-silicon product, and which incidentally just released it's next sub-generation of product and started shipping from it's new facilities.
Hardly new technology, but it is worth noting that geoexchange and solar thermal markets are on an upswing both globally and even in our own backwards back yard, though we are hardly being as agressive as Europe where solar thermal will be required equipment on buildings by 2030. Incidentally, if you want to be a local celebrity, it seems that it's easy to get yourself a human interest story after installing these systems. With so many diverse products available, it's hard to track what represents a signifigant product development in these two industries, though I'm sure there have been some going on mostly unnoticed.
Unfortunately I've seen no indication of household-scale products to use excess heat from solar hot water installations for air conditioning during the summer. (In case the idea of using heat to generate cold doesn't make sense to you, read up on desiccant-based air conditioning, used in many commercial buildings.) Trane has a commercial-grade desiccant unit and also sells home central units... so maybe someday...