1 Block Off the Grid, the low-cost solar group-purchasing program, just launched a new campaign in San Diego.

1BOG expects to choose a solar installer around April 18th, and have them evaluting homes by the end of the month. The more people that sign up, the better the discount for anyone buying solar through the program.

If you aren’t familiar with 1 Block Off the Grid, what they do may be best explained by today’s article in New York Times Magazine:

…in a cultural moment when many individuals aren’t feeling all that rugged, perhaps it makes sense that a company called 1BOG has put collective buying at the center of its business model. The name is derived from the phrase “one block off the grid,” a reference to the goal of rounding up groups of homeowners willing to install solar-power systems on their houses — removing the rough equivalent of one block from a city’s electrical grid.

If you’re looking for solar in San Diego and want to get involved, check out their website. 1BOG has gone to great lengths to help spread the word, so don’t forget to check out the volunteer kit.

Disclaimer: Both 1BOG and GO Media (aka this blog) are owned by activism startup Virgance. Don’t worry though - we’re an independent media arm and we wouldn’t be telling you about this if we didn’t think it was a great program. Read more about us here.

No more solar cells covering a roof, but around the edges of a flat glass panel, as shown in the artist’s representation by NSF.

MIT engineers say they’ve created a new approach to harnessing the sun’s energy that provide windows with a clear view and illuminate rooms at the same time without the need for tracking devices.

According to a news release from MIT , the solar concentrator collects light at the edges, and dye molecules coated on the glass absorb sunlight and re-emits it at different wavelengths.  The light is trapped within the glass and transported to solar cells along the edge, creating electricity and allowing light into the room as well.

The mixture of dyes is applied to the surface of the glass and allows light to travel a much longer distance.  Mapel said, that as a result, light transportation losses were significantly reduced, resulting  in a “tenfold increase in the amount of power converted by the solar cells.”

• » See also: Solar Energy discounts through bulk purchasing in Boston, Massachusetts
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Marc A Baldo, leader of the work, is quoted as saying; “the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell by a factor of over 40″.  The article went on to say that because of its simplicity and ease of manufacture, the system could be implemented within three years.  It could even be added to existing solar-panel systems, increasing their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost.

Other researchers involved in the project are Michael Currie, Jon Mapel and Timothy Heidel, all students of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Shalom Goffri, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Research Labortary of Electronics.

The new technology will be developed and commercialized by a new company, Covalent Solar, formed by Mapel, Currie and Goffri.

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Source.