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Urban spaces are full of rooftops with the capacity to host PV systems for solar energy collection. New York City has recently recognized this and in 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his goal of powering 100% of the citys government buildings and operations with renewable energies. The plan on how to reach this goal has been developing for the past few years. New York City Public Housing Authority (NYCHA), one of the largest housing authorities in the nation, has a lot of rooftop space for solar and in 2017, a new goal was developed to œinstall 25 megawatts of solar panels atop the city's public housing buildings, enough capacity to power 6,600 households. In January of 2018, the Housing Authority will start reviewing bids from companies to start the project.

Water scarcity is a pervasive issue all over the world. While there are massive amounts of water on our planet, only about 3.5% of it is fresh water and a majority of that is trapped in glaciers and ice caps. With around 7.5 billion people on this planet, œmore than 650 million people lack access to clean water, and a billion do not have electricity, which makes this an a very extensive health concern. Many researchers have been exploring recently how renewable energies could be used to combat this issue of water scarcity.

Richard Lunt, the Johansen Crosby Endowed Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University, and his team have recently pioneered a new technology that could change the face of the the solar industry. This new technology is a transparent luminescent solar concentrator that can be placed on building surfaces to collect solar energy without impeding views.

SolBid has provided consistent coverage of the ITC Solar Tariff Case as it has evolved over the past four months. In August, I reported on the œproposed solar tariff submitted to the U.S. International Trade Commission by Suniva and SolarWorld America, two U.S. based but majority Chinese and German-owned companies (respectively), to impose a tariff and floor price on imported crystalline silicon photovoltaic solar panels of $0.40/watt and a floor price of $0.78/watt.

At SolBid, we love to celebrate the unique personalities that comprise our team and contribute to our mission everyday. Today, the spotlight is on Mike Fortier, a solar energy associate with us.