Solar for Communities in Nicaragua
Location: Nicaragua Date: On-going Partners: Sister Communities of San Ramon You can help up to 250 people with a donation! Summary As the largest country in Central America, Nicaragua has a relatively small population of 5.79 million people for its size. Following Haiti, Nicaragua is the poorest country in Latin America with a GDP per capita […]
UNC Students Bring Solar to Nicaragua for Brighter Future
Overview For the majority of Americans, living entirely without access to electricity is a thought that almost never comes to mind. In a country where livelihoods revolve around the energy grid, going without access to devices as simple as light bulbs seems unfathomable. But for 1.2 billion people on Earth, access to energy is not […]
Zach Sprau: Project Manager of United Solar Initiative
Zach Sprau recently received his Master’s degree from Appalachian State University, and is the head project coordinator for United Solar Initiative’s project with the Hospitality House, a homeless shelter in Boone, NC. Here, he talks about his experience with USI and what he hopes to do with solar energy in his future career endeavors. USI: […]
Kenya Solar Water Pumping Installation and Troubleshooting Workshop
USI board member Ed Witkin visited Kenya and Zambia in late February of this year to lead training for World Vision staff. They focused on installing solar panels on water pumps that were previously installed by World Vision in a few communities. Below are his accounts of his second day in Kenya. On day two […]
Five State Clean Energy Policies that are Expected to Survive and Thrive during the Trump Administration
President Trump has been a long-time climate change denier. We know this from his rants during his campaign, his tweets —his most famous being that the global climate change is just a “Chinese hoax”—, and from Trump’s writings in his book titled Crippled America. I’m glad our President has the environmental knowhow to make an […]
Cole Anderson: Project Manager for Yes! Solar Solutions
20th Mar 2017 Cole Anderson graduated from Appalachian State University in the spring of 2014, and following his graduation, joined students from ASU and volunteers from USI on a trip to Nicaragua to work on solar projects in communities there. He specifically worked in San Ramón and helped install solar panels on a local art […]
Update: Solar Water Pumps in Ghana
As some of you may know, United Solar Initiative has been working on a partnership with World Vision to provide solar powered water pumps to rural communities. USI not only donated solar panels, but also facilitated training in the transportation and installation of the solar powered systems. The training occurred over four days of June […]
Hawaii’s Popular Rooftop Solar Incentives Winding Down
Hawaii is a national leader in rooftop solar power, but despite the state’s ambitious goal of using only renewable energy by 2045, people are being shut out of solar incentive programs because of limits set by the state. On Maui, a program that reimburses customers who supply energy to the grid reached its maximum in […]
Solar Impulse completes historic round-the-world trip
The first round-the-world solar powered flight has been completed, after the Solar Impulse aircraft touched down in Abu Dhabi. Bertrand Piccard piloted the plane for a final time, steering it safely from the Egyptian capital Cairo to the UAE. He has been taking turns at the controls with Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg, with the mission […]
You’ll Never Believe How Cheap New Solar Power Is
Solar energy has grown 100-fold in this country in the past decade. Globally, solar has doubled seven times since 2000, and Dubai received a bid recently for 800 megawatts of solar at a stunning “US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour” — unsubsidized! For context, the average residential price for electricity in the United States is […]