In what they are calling a "clear and easy choice" for the future of the renewable energy industry, the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy (FARE), announced today their endorsement of State CFO Alex Sink for Governor and encouraged every organization, business and individual involved in the renewable energy industry to do the same.

Iberdrola Renovables, in a consortium with local energy company Neoenergia, is to supply Brazil with electricity from 9 wind farms over 20 years for €60 million ($77 million) a year.

Craig Shields, editor of 2GreenEnergy.com, offers a free report on today's principles of marketing and sales – and how they apply to clean tech businesses. Though Shields is best known for his wide-ranging comments on the clean energy and electric transportation industries, his professional background is marketing, and appears to have provided some valuable advice.

Schneider Electric announced today its participation at the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC), the world's largest international conference for solar technology, in Valencia, Spain, from September 6-9, 2010. Schneider Electric will display its global solutions for a wide array of photovoltaic (PV) markets including solar farms, large commercial, residential, off-grid and backup power. These solutions range from inverters, switchgear, and monitoring to security products from Schneider Electric's vast offering of electrical and energy management solutions.

Growth Energy, the coalition of U.S. ethanol supporters, today welcomed four new producing plants to its membership. The four new producers bring total plant membership up to 64 and will join Growth Energy's 41 Associate Members and more than 18,000 individual Growth Force Members. Growth Energy is the largest coalition of ethanol producing plants in the United States.

A new method of predicting solar storms that could help to avoid widespread power and communications blackouts costing billions of pounds has been launched by researchers in the UK.

Scientists report success in boosting the ability of zinc oxide solar cells to absorb visible light simply by applying a blended mixture of various off-the-shelf dyes commonly used in food and medical industries -- in a soak-then-dry procedure not unlike that used to color a tee-shirt in a home washing machine.

The era of personalized energy systems -- in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars -- took another step toward reality as scientists reported discovery of a powerful new catalyst that is a key element in such a system. The advance could help free homes and businesses from dependence on the electric company and the corner gasoline station.

Find dusting those tables and dressers a chore or a bore? Dread washing the windows? Imagine keeping dust and grime off objects spread out over an area of 25 to 50 football fields. That's the problem facing companies that deploy large-scale solar power installations, and scientists have now developed a possible solution -- self-dusting solar panels -- based on technology developed for space missions to Mars.

DOE has issued a loan solicitation for renewable energy manufacturing projects, including turbine blades and photovoltaic systems.

The California Public Utilities Commission has approved a power purchase agreement between a California utility and BrightSource Energy, marking a step forward in BrightSource's utility-scale concentrating solar power project in the Mojave Desert.

The basis for solar energy is absorbing light and then effectively disassociating electrical charges. Researchers report that conjugated polymers are excellent materials for such a system, thanks to their light absorption and conduction properties.

California college has announced plans to become the first "grid-positive" school, using solar arrays to supply more than 100% of the college's electricity needs.

By embedding the element selenium in zinc oxide, researchers have made a relatively inexpensive material that could be promising for solar power conversion by making more efficient use of the sun's energy.

One of the most promising technologies for making inexpensive but reasonably efficient photovoltaic cells just got much cheaper. Scientists in Canada have shown that inexpensive nickel can work just as well as gold for one of the critical electrical contacts that gather the electrical current produced by colloidal quantum dot solar cells.

A new process that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology, say the engineers who discovered it and proved that it works. The process, called 'photon enhanced thermionic emission," or PETE, could reduce the costs of solar energy production enough for it to compete with oil as an energy source.

Researchers have succeeded in growing sea-urchin shaped nanostructures from minute balls of polystyrene beads using a simple electrochemical process. The spines of the sea urchin consist of zinc oxide nanowires. The structured surface should help increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic devices.

An unmanned solar-powered aircraft stayed aloft over an Arizona proving ground for 14 days, smashing records for such flights, according to its makers.

DOE is backing a California research team with up to $122 million for an energy innovation hub to produce fuels from sunlight. Cal Tech will lead the team in partnership with DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

A research team has produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that the researchers say have great potential for a new breed of solar cells.

DOE has announced $30 million in Recovery Act and FY 2010 funds to help small businesses commercialize promising new technologies. Applications are being accepted in the technology areas of biomass, buildings, geothermal, photovoltaics, wind power, vehicle efficiency, and energy transmission and storage.

During the first Clean Energy Ministerial, which attracted 24 governments, DOE announced that the United States will help launch 11 international clean energy initiatives, ranging from increased electric vehicle use to distribution of 10 million solar LEDs to the world's poorest.

DOE-funded research projects have won 39 of the 100 R&D 100 awards for 2010, including eight for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In a flight over Switzerland, a solar-powered aircraft flew for more than 26 hours, completing the first full day-and-night flight for a piloted solar-powered airplane, said organizers of the flight who are preparing for a zero-emission flight around the world.

DOE and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) have chosen a new "zone" on the Nevada Test Site for use in demonstrating cutting-edge solar technologies. The agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the collaboration.