Green Options

If you could design the green home of your dreams, what would it look like? What would it be made of? How would it produce and consume energy?

So you want to take advantage of the sun’s energy somehow but solar photovoltaics just aren’t in the cards? Solar hot water systems may not be as sexy as their electron-producing counterparts, but in most scenarios, you will get more energy bang for your buck—especially if you’re on a budget—because water heating consumes the most energy in a home after space heating and cooling.

After being seen almost exclusively on the rooftops of Jimmy Carter-era homes, solar hot water panels have made substantive advances in recent years, including efficiency improvements, earning some manufacturers the coveted Energy Star label.

Danish company AC Sun recently made news with the “invention” a new solar-powered air conditioning system.The new systems are pollution-free, low-noise, and use only 10% of the energy of conventional systems. The only problem is they’ve already been invented, several times over.

Lars Stigel, director of Østjysk Innovation, an investor in AC Sun, spoke with enthusiasm about AC Sun’s design. “It is a groundbreaking technology in relation to renewable energy and energy savings,” he says.

As solar technologies improve and costs fall, South Korea’s plans for solar energy are heating up.

In the coastal city of Gangneung, South Korea, look up and you’re likely to see solar panels or a solar water heater on the roof of at least one house.

The rice patties to the North of Gangneung offer up a view of a dozen such solar power facilities on the rooftops at the edge of one of the city’s newest neighborhoods.

If the sight of so many solar homes doesn’t convince you that South Korea is serious about solar, consider the newly proposed 20 MW solar plant. When it’s completed later this year, it will rival Spain as the largest photovoltaic solar plant in the world.

According to BP, South Korea’s national goal to produce 1 GW of solar energy by 2012 would make it the world’s tenth largest solar market. Even more ambitiously, the country hopes to reach 4 GW of solar production by 2020 and 18 GW by 2030.