There will be factories for cement and steel beams for new apartment and office buildings, for furniture and solar power panels.
The prospect of getting a piece of that growth has fueled the stocks of companies such as Sunpower, the leader in producing traditional silicon solar-power panels, and First Solar, whose thin-film solar panels are cheaper to manufacture but are less efficient.
For instance, homes equipped with solar-power panels could feed unused electricity back into the grid, adding to the total available supply.
NextEra Energy Chief Executive Lewis Hay told me last week over breakfast that he had higher hopes for solar photovoltaic (PV) power than for solar thermal power because the prices of solar PV panels were falling so extraordinarily fast.
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The wings are covered with a sheet of thin-film solar panels, which produce less power than the polycrystalline solar panels found on buildings, but are very lightweight.
Cheaper prices have made solar panels more attractive to power plant developers and companies that install solar panels on the roofs of homes and businesses, however.
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Using its proprietary crystalline technology, called String Ribbon, the company develops and manufactures solar power cells and panels.
Yet it's scarcely visible in the market for solar panel inverters, devices that turn the direct current power generated by solar panels into alternating current for the grid.
The complex runs completely on solar power, courtesy of 150 Sanyo solar panels that provide round-the-clock electricity. ("We fire up the generator once a month just to see if it works, " Derek Joubert says.) Construction materials were chosen through an environmental audit: The furniture is made from Indonesian mahogany uprooted by the 2004 tsunami.
His toilet uses solar panels to power an electrochemical system that turns waste into useful things.
They see a sunny future for firms that generate power from solar panels, wind turbines and so forth.
The fiberglass hull glides on the surface, with solar panels to power its electronics and sealed boxes to protect data-gathering instruments.
This is the part of the satellite that generates power through solar panels, and keeps the platform on-station using a propulsion system.
That could happen about five years from now, perhaps using a laser on the International Space Station to transmit solar power collected by its panels to Earth.
Orion, for example, was able to open with the help of small business loans and incentives that are creating demand for clean energy technologies like wind power and solar panels.
Areva would buy the panels for its hybrid solar power plant, though it is unclear how exactly Areva plants to integrate the electricity-generating panels with its solar-concentrating mirrors and steam system.
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The garage itself strives to be green, with much of its power coming from solar panels.
The solar panels will generate power during the day, of course, while people are more likely to recharge their vehicles at night.
Project manager Gillian Smith's job is to co-ordinate the company's own contributions to the satellite: power systems, solar panels and other hardware.
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Inverters and microinverters convert the direct current (DC) power produced by solar panels into alternating current (AC) used in homes and businesses.
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The production of modern wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power plants are extremely energy-intensive enterprises, and are by and large powered by the burning of fossil fuels.
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Back in 2004, researchers presented Carly Fiorina with a business plan for a vertically integrated company that would produce solar panels and operate power plants built on its own products.
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Beyond that, it was fascinating to see seeing what Detroit automakers are doing to reduce their carbon footprints, like using green roofs that insulate their buildings, porous pavement to filter rain water and even solar panels to help power their facilities.
Even with the ability to convert sunlight into electricity with high efficiency using photovoltaic solar cells, many challenges prevent us from being able to power all our energy needs with solar panels.
First Solar also develops and builds solar power plants that use, of course, its owns solar panels.
And the Staples Center is generating its own power with hundreds of solar panels.
It also houses a large array of solar panels to provide the power.
Technologically, spin-offs from the space program have revolutionized fields from medicine to energy generation (solar panels were made to power satellites) to breakfast drinks.
Two, they can substitute grid-based power with self-generated power, i.e. power produced onsite using solar panels, fuel cells or whatever that never flows through the grid.
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Nanosolar announced Thursday that it had signed contracts to supply up to one gigawatt of its thin-film photovoltaic panels to European solar power plant builders over the next three to six years.
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