Anyone who loved the 3D Solar Sinter that uses the sun’s energy to turn sand into functional glass objects will love the Sun Cutter. Also designed by Markus Kayser, this homemade laser cutter carves pre-programmed industrial designs into a variety of materials – including cardboard, paper and even thin slabs of plywood – and it […]
The Shams 1 Concentrated Solar Plant (CSP) in Abu Dhabi is the largest of its kind in the world and it has finally gone live. Green Prophet visited the 100MW plant in the western region of the United Arab Emirates earlier this year as part of a Masdar-sponsored media tour during the World Future Energy […]
Libya has long relied on its crude oil resources for revenue, but the country possesses a natural resource far more abundant and hardly tapped at all: sun. Nearly 90 percent of the country is comprised of sun-drenched desert or semi desert and only 1.03 percent of the land is arable. Match this with solar irradiation that […]
We all had so much hope for Jordan’s Solar Mamas – two women who traveled from a dusty village to India in order to become “solar engineers.” During their six month training, they learned to install and maintain small-scale solar systems back home and proceeded, upon their return, to implement 80 of them back home. […]
In 2012, Green Prophet reported from the front lines of the Solar Decathlon in Spain, but this year the event is taking place in China and students from Israel’s Shenkar College of Engineering and Design will be there. A US Department of Energy initiative, the biennial competition gives international architecture and engineering students a chance to […]
First Solar has until recently participated as an associate partner of the Dii initiative designed to develop renewable energy projects throughout the Middle East and North Africa for eventual evacuation to Europe. But now one of the world’s most prolific renewable energy producers has taken on a more serious role as shareholder. Particularly well poised […]
A host of private and government organizations in Qatar have teamed up to build the emirate’s first Passivhaus – one of the world’s most sustainable design certification systems with origins in Germany. Better yet, the solar array that will generate an annual 58,000 kilowatt hours of electricity to power the home will be provided by […]
Foster + Partners, the same UK architectural firm that created the zero-carbon city Masdar, is about to break ground on their first project in Israel - a solar-powered center for brain studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Want to find sunny Middle East solar opportunities? Think short term investments, and know that higher risks mean bigger rewards, says Belén Galled who talks about MENASOL 2013 CSP and PV solar opportunities in Dubai. A two-day networking and conference in Dubai this May will give equal treatment to both concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) […]
A Dubai neighborhood that is undergoing a dedicated urban densification plan, Al Quoz may have recently welcomed the first “largest LEED Platinum Government Building,” but it won’t be the last to claim this distinction. “Sustainable Building” is the new 340, 000 square foot headquarters for a branch of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) and […]
Built anywhere else, a 3.5 MW photovoltaic solar plant wouldn’t even elicit a whisper from mainstream news outlets. But one completed in Saudi Arabia has set the wires ablaze. We don’t mean to be cynical. It’s great that Saudi has turned to solar, regardless of its intentions. Some solar is better than no solar. To […]
What appears to be a first for Egypt (but not the first for us to report) is that a group of university students from the American University in Cairo have finally developed an entire building dubbed “Solar House” after two years of work, and lack of funds, despite not being able to showcase their idea at the […]
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are expected to bring 3.5GW of solar capacity online by 2015: Saudi Arabia and Turkey lead the way. A new report published by Green Tech Media (GTM) Research pins the surge from today’s near-negligible production on rapidly rising energy demand spurred by MENA economic expansion, population growth, and […]
A group of Yemeni high school girls have created a suite of solar-powered gadgets to help illuminate their country’s post-revolution darkness. When the first revolutions began to sweep through the Arab world, we were all so hopeful about the changes to follow. So hopeful, we called this time the “Arab Spring.” But for people living […]
A suite of mobile solar-powered lamps have completely changed the lives of hundreds of villagers in Mali. Approximately 90 per cent of the desert country’s residents lack access to an electrical grid, such that many children are unable to learn after dark and mothers stay up late using the light of paraffin lamps to complete […]