The town of Swampscott, MA has incorporated rooftop solar electric generation into their middle and high schools in order to offset on-site electricity usage and provide a means of educating their students about renewable energy. With access to real-time energy production and weather data, students, faculty, and parents have...

Some of the most energy intensive operations overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC), including correctional facilities, a wastewater treatment plant, and an MCI industries license plate facility, are now powered by renewable energy in Norfolk and Middlesex counties. Five solar electric system...

The River Terminal Corporation retained Solar Design Associates to provide a solar electric system that would allow them to utilize the solar energy falling on the vast rooftop of their complex in New Jersey. SDA performed a full assessment of the River Terminal facilities and proposed a two-phase plan to harvest over 2.5...

A new hybrid has recently joined the SDA flock. I purchased a Toyota Prius C, the latest hybrid car to be available in the US. The car is smaller in size than the original Prius and weighs about 500lbs. less. It has a drag coefficient of 0.28, which is not as impressive as the larger car, which fights the wind at a slick 0.25....

Hanscom Field is a public airport operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) in Bedford, MA. As a state-run facility, it has recently had the advantage of participating in the Commonwealth’s Leading by Example Program (LBE) which works to reduce the overall environmental impacts of state government operations....

  The recently completed School of the Arts in Redding, California immerses its students, grades K-8, in environmentally friendly space. The building and school campus were designed by Trilogy Architecture to achieve a LEED platinum rating. The major contributors to this pending certification are the energy efficient...

The Allied Health Building at the North Shore Community College campus in Danvers, MA  is the leading example of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ outstanding commitment to energy efficiency and renewable energy. The project is the Commonwealth’s first state-owned zero net energy building. In order to fulfill the zero...

February 2012—This month Environmental Building News features an update on the viability of solar PV in the US energy market in an article entitled, “For Cheap Solar, Look to Laws, Not Labs” by Paula Melton. The piece points out that the critical path for PV is to achieve grid parity, the point at which the systems are...