Green Options

An Italian company has announced plans to install the world’s largest rooftop solar photovoltaic plant, with an energy capacity equivalent to the power needs of 5,000 households.

Solon SE will establish the facility at its Padua warehouse and truck-loading complex, generating an output of up to 15 megawatts when the sun is at its brightest.

The latest Japanese car sales figures reveal that the Toyota Prius hybrid has now become the top selling vehicle in Japan.

According to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association, in June the company sold 22,292 units of its flagship hybrid vehicle, a sharp rise of almost 400% over the same month last year (when 6,231 cars were shifted) and more than twice as much as the 10,915 sold in May.

The United States has overtaken Germany to become the largest producer of wind energy in the world, generating enough capacity to eliminate the burning of 91 million barrels of oil per year.

According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), US wind producers enjoyed another record year of growth in 2008—the third in a row. The country now has an installed wind power capacity well in excess of 21,000 megawatts (MW), enough to supply electricity to over 5.5 million American homes.

Earlier this week, the China Huaneng Group started building China’s largest ever solar power plant, a massive 166 Megawatt (MW) facility in the southern province of Yunnan.

The project, costing a total of 9.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion), is scheduled to commence operations in 2010. According to the China Electricity Council, the company intends to expand its capacity for solar, wind and other clean energy projects to an impressive 10,000 MW by the end of the same year.

Italian wind energy company Enel SpA has announced that it has inaugurated its biggest ever wind power project, a 250 megawatt U.S. farm.

Enel said in a statement released earlier today that the Smoky Hills plant in Kansas will be fully operational by the end of this year, and will become the largest wind energy installation in the Great Plains state, and one of the largest in the entire country, capable of supplying the power needs of 85,000 U.S. households.