Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., the world’s largest crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer, announced plans to build a new solar manufacturing facility somewhere in the U.S. Why will a Chinese company come to America? Suntech sees:

• dramatic growth in utility demand for large-scale wholesale solar projects
• several states offering incentive programs for customer-owned systems, and
• the federal government’s recent stimulus package.

This combination of incentives sets up “steady, long-term growth in demand,” according to Suntech.

Click here to see Suntech’s announcement.

There should be some good deals ahead for those interested in purchasing solar technology. Suntech clearly sees trouble ahead for the solar power industry, so its move to the U.S. may signal tougher times for American solar companies.

Reason: Suntech’s CEO, Zhengrong Shi, says there’s a glut of solar panel producers on the market today. He predicts prices will fall 20% to 30% in this year’s third quarter.  Prices could fall as much as 50% by 2013, he says.

One solution is the .pdf file by Adobe, which can help you eliminate paper, the hassles of filing and all the hardware costs associated with printing, faxing or copying a page.

That’s the promise offered by Duff Johnson, CEO of Appligent Document Solutions. Johnson helps companies get their arms around the .pdf technology to move towards the paperless office goal.

He promotes cost-saving opportunities in any office situation because each office-worker consumes 4,000 sheets, or 8 reams of paper a year. And Johnson likes to point out that making paper releases carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on top of creating water and air pollution problems, even if the paper contains recycled content.

But “electronic” paper skips all that pollution, as well as the costs of maintaining copiers, fax machines, scanners, printers, software, etc. Then, there’s the savings on clerical costs of handling all the documents that can be better managed.

All this can be reduced with .pdf technology, as is detailed in a blog Johnson writes. Johnson’s articles are here.

The two-seater by upstart car maker Riversimple has great styling and could ultimately put England back in on the motorcar manufacturing map. It’s powered by a 6-kilowatt proton exchange membrane fuel cell (made by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies in Singapore).

The hydrogen powered car is made in the UK by Riversimple for lease as an urban get-around-town vehicle. No pesky greenhouse gas emissions from this little guy.

With its futuristic and expensive look, it might be just the ride for sales reps who want to telescope “excitement”  and “premium value” to their customers (provided it holds up better than the stylish two-seater of a generation ago, the MG).

Riversimple just unveiled its first demo in London. The company plans to get 10 prototypes on the road this year and will start leasing its first 50 cars by 2012. Once its “distributed manufacturing” plans are worked out to encourage small, independent companies to make the car, the company expects to produce up to 10,000 vehicles a year.

Ya gotta love a car company that’s into science fiction. The company notes that in 1874, Jules Verne predicted the use of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel in his novel, The Mysterious Island. Click here for the reference on Riversimple’s Web site.

One big drawback with hydrogen-powered cars is lack of fuel availability.

To get around the refueling problem, Riversimple provides the fuel as part of the lease. This not only insulates the driver from fuel costs, but forces Riversimple to constantly work on improving fuel availability and economy. “The bill comes to us,” says Riverside founder Hugo Spowers. “We have a financial driver to constantly improve the energy consumption of the vehicle.”

Riversimple won’t sell this car. It’s only available for a $350 per month lease. And, you’d better like working with Riversimple: The lease could be for 20 years, though you’d get a new model every two to four years.

A photo gallery of the Riversimple car is here.

Well, it’s happened, though of course it’s not for everybody — certainly not for facilities relying on fossil fuels.

But a very rosy scenario — a $277 billion market — is predicted in a new market forecast by Pike Research for green telecommunications equipment.

Most of this new demand is for green equipment that can cut users’ energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially in developing nations.  It’s this combination that will drive a 46% increase in the market for green telecom gear by 2013, according to Pike’s Green Telecom Networks report.

Green networking infrastructure is increasingly already sought after by manufacturers and companies with overseas operations for two reasons. First, green equipment helps companies meet their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies.

Second, energy efficiencies have very practical applications in developing countries that have spotty electrical service and rely on older and dirtier coal-fired power plants. To reduce GHG emissions, energy-efficient networking equipment could be powered by renewable sources: solar photovoltaic systems, wind, energy and fuel cells.

And in remote areas, telecommunications gear powered by solar and wind energy will replace diesel-powered electrical generators.

To get help measuring the efficiency of networking products, the telecom and tech industries created the Energy Consumption Rating Initiative. Click here to check it out.

High costs of renewable energies (such as solar, wind and thermal) compared to electricity created by burning coal, has been a huge hurdle for the clean energy sector to overcome. Traditional wisdom has it that renewable energy can only be a niche player in the power markets.

But Google set out in 2007 to disprove this wisdom, and this week, the search engine company said it expects to buy all of its electricity from renewable energy suppliers at prices cheaper than electricity provided by coal-fired power plants.

Google’s so-called green energy czar, Bill Weihl told Reuters news service it’s “even odds, more or less” that Google will run totally on clean energy that’s cheaper than coal within three years.

If Google pulls this off, it could open the door for all sorts of companies and industries to switch to clean energy, based on renewable sources, which would make it much easier for the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The bold goal of replacing coal-fired electricity is part of Google’s green goals to reduce its carbon footprint, adopt efficient computing and help employees go green. Click here for Google’s green plans.

The company’s story is here.

Google has also developed a smart power meter that gives consumers the ability to monitor their daily electric power usage on their home computers. Google has partnered with eight power companies to test the Google Powermeter so homeowners can control usage and cut costs.

Carrotmob is the invention of Brent Schulkin. He pits a few businesses against each other, promising to drive business to the one that does “the most good.”

Example: Schulkin challenged 23 convenience stores in San Francisco to make their lighting more energy-efficient.

After determining the K&D Market was the winner, a Carrotmob descended on the store, spending more than $9,200. K&D used 22% of the revenue for greener lighting.

The idea: Instead of using boycotts (sticks), Schulkin uses the power of buyers (carrots) to encourage businesses to become greener.

So far, Carrotmobs have focused on small businesses in 11 cities. The group intends to expand into more cities and target big companies in the future.

What if Carrotmob rewards a company, and then finds out they’re doing something else bad? The Carrotmob Web site says it’s a matter of “one step at a time,” and gives a fictitious example:

Festivus Inc. manufactures poles for Festivus. But they dump toxic chemicals into a river, have a terrible maternity leave policy and test their poles by smacking chipmunks with them.

If the company promises to stop dumping the chemicals and smacking chipmunks, that’s a big improvement. It still may not have a good maternity leave policy, but on balance it’s improvement, so Carrotmob would encourage its members to buy poles from them.

Carrotmob was recently profiled in Time.

They now have the option to chop their utility bills by up to 20%.

How? Buy buying commercial griddles and ovens that qualify for a new Energy Star standard adopted by EPA. The market for energy efficient griddles and ovens is $700 million a year.

The environmental benefit is huge as well. When the industry makes the switch to these more efficient devices, it’ll eliminate the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions produced by 660,000 vehicles.

The breakdown for savings in reduced electriciy or natural gas costs is:

• $190 a year for electric griddles
• $175 a year for natural gas-fired griddles
• $190 a year for electric ovens, and
• $360 a year for natural gas ovens.

Outfitting a kitchen with all Energy Star equipment could save operators $3,600 a year.

For more information on EPA’s green griddle and oven standards, click here.

A proposed Green Bank would put the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department in charge of making billions of dollars in loans and investments to promote energy-efficient products and services.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has proposed the Green Bank Act of 2009 to create an independent, tax-exempt corporation owned by the government that would spend up to $50 billion on clean energy projects.

T. Boone Pickens, who promotes using natural gas and wind power as an alternative to coal-fired power plants, praised the green bank proposal as way to “jump start the private sector’s involvement in renewable and other alternative energy projects.”

Former Vice President Al Gore sure likes the Green Bank idea. His testimony in support of Van Hollen’s proposal is here.

Information on Van Hollen’s Green Bank proposal is here.

But that’s not all. Van Hollen also proposed to offer zero-interest loans to help homeowners go green by investing in energy-efficient products and services. Sounds promising, but let’s hope the program is more efficient than his use of works for this bill (National Home Energy Savings Revolving Fund Act!).

Details of his consumer loan program for energy products is here.

There are bonafide cost savings with environmentally friendly practices, but money isn’t the prime motivator for 71% of the small companies surveyed by the online payroll service, SurePayroll. Instead, business owners say they adopt green practices like recycling, telecommuting, energy reduction and recycling products because they want to.

SurePayroll reports that when small businesses adopt environmentally friendly practices:

• 93% recycle
• 79% give employees reusable office mugs
• 75% use environmentally friendly office supplies, and
• 68% limit use of electricity or energy.

There is money to be saved by adopting these kinds of programs. Roughly 50% of those surveyed realized between 5% to 10% return on their investments by doing the right thing for Mother Earth. Some of the ways companies save money include:

1. giving employees reusable coffee mugs instead of Styrofoam cups
2. using environmentally friendly office supplies (i.e., recycled paper and LEED-certified products)
3. switching to cloth towels and biodegradable soap in rest rooms
4. telecommuting, and
5. encouraging employees to use public transportation instead of driving to work.

The SurePayroll survey is here.

About 25% of those surveyed didn’t think of themselves as doing anything “green.” However, it turns out they have taken at least one step to be sustainable — they use an online direct deposit service instead of issuing paper checks. SurePayroll provides online direct deposit services.

For each employee that’s switched to online direct deposit, a company helps eliminate four tons of wastewater and a pound of greenhouse gas emissions every year. This saves the company about $176 a year, according to a survey by the PayItGreen Alliance.

Proof: Three California wineries have slashed their electric power bills and chalked up greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction credits.

The savings posted by these vineyards are impressive. J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines has installed the industry’s largest solar power system, which has cut its energy bill by $216,000 in the first year of operation.

This burnishes their green business image as well. They get credit for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the predominant GHG, by the equivalent to planting 512 acres of trees or not driving 96 million miles. Their story is here.

EOS Estate Winery virtually eliminated its electric bill because it now relies exclusively on solar power. Click here for the EOS story and to see their solar arrays in action.

And, there’s more proof. Clautiere Vineyard, owned by Claudine Blackwell and Terry Brady, has cut its electric bill by 80% by switching to solar power. Click here to see where they installed their solar panels.

The couple has passionately rejuvenated and transformed a local ranch into a place of vibrant color and energy. This small winery in California’s Central Coast region is reducing its electric bill by 80% with a 30 kWp photovoltaic system.

The solar systems for the vineyards were created by Conergy USA, a renewable energy supplier who claims to install 10% of world’s solar power systems.