San Fran Ballpark Gets Solar System

AT&T Park, home to baseball's San Francisco Giants, is being outfitted with solar panels to light the ballpark's scoreboard. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) is installing the solar energy system. This year's All-Star game will be played at AT&T Park, so hopefully the solar energy system will get some of the spotlight over that weekend to educate some baseball fans about the use of solar energy.

What I found a bit disturbing is the fact that the article implies that the amount of power needed to light the scoreboard is the same amount needed to power 25 homes.

The article also points out that a photovoltaic system was installed in the Nuremberg soccer stadium for last year's World Cup.

Superefficient Solar Cell Maker Wins Big Contract

Spectrolab, Inc. has been awarded a contract for $13.3 million to develop their technology. Their solar cells convert 40.7% of the sun's rays to energy - most products on the market today are only about 16% efficient. I assume that this inefficiency in current products are a major reason that it costs 18 to 23 cents per kilowatt hour to produce (Of course, the small scale of current production is also a major reason). As a comparison, the article points out that in many states it costs 5 cents per killowatt hour to produce natural gas.

Spectrolab, Inc. is a subsidiary of Boeing.