The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft landed in New York early Saturday, after flying by the Statue of Liberty at the end of the US portion of its bid to circle the globe using only solar power.

“It’s absolutely incredible,” Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg said over a live video feed as the iconic statue lit up the night below him. “It’s a dream here.”

The light, slow-moving aircraft later landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport, completing the five hour flight from Lehigh Valley Airport in Pennsylvania.

Cameras in a boat in New York harbor captured the innovative solar powered aircraft as it flew over the Verrazano Bridge and headed toward the towering Lady Liberty.

It circled the statue and cruised along the Manhattan skyline before turning back south for the landing at Kennedy, one minute ahead of schedule at 3:59 am (0759 GMT).

Ending the US crossing at...

Solar power system – In the 1880s, selenium photovoltaic (PV) cells were developed that could convert light into electricity with 1-2% efficiency (“the efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of available sunlight converted by the photovoltaic cell into electricity”), but how the conversion happened was not understood. Photovoltaic power therefore “remained a curiosity for many years, since it was very inefficient at turning sunlight into electricity.” It was not until Albert Einstein proposed an explanation for the “photoelectric effect” in the early 1900s, for which he won a Nobel Prize, that people began to understand the related photovoltaic effect.

Solar technology advanced to roughly its present design in 1908 when William J. Bailey of the Carnegie Steel Company invented a collector with an insulated box and copper coils.” By the mid-1950s Bell Telephone Labs had...

There are several advantages of photovoltaic solar power that make it “”one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the world.” It is non-polluting, has no moving parts that could break down, requires little maintenance and no supervision, and has a life of 20-30 years with low running costs. It is especially unique because no large-scale installation is required. Remote areas can easily produce their own supply of electricity by constructing as small or as large of a system as needed. Solar power generators are simply distributed to homes, schools, or businesses, where their assembly requires no extra development or land area and their function is safe and quiet. As communities grow, more solar energy capacity can be added, “thereby allowing power generation to keep in step with growing needs without having to overbuild generation capacity as is often the case with...

Solar Energy is cornerstone to Success! The Clean Power Plan will rely on the installation of thousands of megawatts (MW) of new solar power systems, in addition to the 50,000 MW of solar projected to be operating by 2020.

What the plan does: The Clean Power Plan is the first ever U.S. standards designed to reduce carbon pollution from power plants, the nation’s largest source of CO2, while maintaining energy reliability and affordability. Today, electric power generation is responsible for nearly 40 percent of U.S. CO2 emissions. It will cut down on pollutants that cause serious health problems for thousands of Americans every year. The American Lung Association strongly supports the new standards, stating that if reduction goals are met by 2030, it would prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths, 90,000 asthma attacks and 300,000 sick days at work and school....

A THEnergy analysis exemplarily shows the mining sector why the timing is excellent for intensive energy consumers to commit to solar and wind energy The price for crude oil is falling, and the diesel price is following. This development is triggered partly by the demand side, as China’s economy is not growing as quickly as expected. We can however see a more interesting development on the supply side. OPEC is sitting on the driver’s seat of the recent oil price tumble. The price of the OPEC basket of twelve crudes recently fell below USD 28.50 per barrel.

A dumping-like strategy by OPEC seems to be aimed at preventing long-term investment by other oil producing nations. An oil price in the twenties means hardly a dozen nations can produce oil economically. Similar consequences arise for related energy forms, such as renewables. In solar– and wind–diesel hybrid applications,...

It’s a closely watched fight with broad implications for the solar industry and the push by the Administration to go green. An Arizona utility that generates and distributes electric power in one of the country’s sun-drenched areas has asked the state’s Corporation Commission for assistance in its fight with homeowners who have installed their own solar power panels, typically on house rooftops. Tucson Electric Power Co. asked the agency, which sets utility rates, to let it double its basic monthly service charge for residential customers, from $10 to $20 per month, as well as assess new fees, penalties, and charges on rooftop solar customers. A study done by the utility says that customers with solar panels, on average, shift $67 a month in costs to non-solar customers because they pay less for grid upkeep.

The fight has the potential to go to the courts and set standards...

New Policy Lets You Save $100’s On Your Energy Bill Every Year If you currently own a house and live in specific zip codes the government is giving $1000’s to each consumer to install solar panels and consumers are reducing their energy bill by as much as 70%. New subsidies and rebates help to cover huge costs associated with installation so there is significant savings for the homeowners thanks in part to companies like NationalSolarProgram.com. With as little as $0 down, you could be on your way to significantly reducing your electric bill in a matter of weeks.

So here’s the deal. You no longer have to buy solar panels, the new policy let’s you lease solar panels for as little as $0 down. Until now, solar panels cost $10’s of thousands of dollars to purchase and install and unless you were building a new home or had that much extra cash sitting around, so the cost was more...