Moondial teamed up with designers Wendy & Jim to create the Sun Nº01 limited edition zebra print tee, a “sunlight-activated” shirt which launched at the ARS Electronica Festival this year.

Anyone working long hours outdoors knows the burden that a glaring sun can take on the body. In Africa, Dominic Wanjihia has proposed a flexible, wearable solar panel vest to harness this energy for productive purposes.

The expensive process of manufacturing solar panels could be supplanted in the near future by sprayable inks derived from sunlight-absorbing nanoparticles- perhaps enabling solar power to have a further reach as an alternative energy option.
The particles, which are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of hair, consist of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). The nanoparticles are made into a solution and spray-painted onto a surface.
This process is still in the testing phase, as the solar-cell prototypes created thus far have only been able to convert one percent of the sunlight that contacts the cell into electricity. A 10 percent conversion [...]

This past weekend saw the inauguration of an Austrian nuclear plant that’s been transformed into a solar power station.

Energizer, teaming up with XPAL Power, is expanding its Energi To Go line of pocket-sized charging peripherals to include new options for a variety of portable devices. The new lineup will offer portable charging packs for netbooks, PMPs, digital cameras, and iPhones, among others—some of which are powered by solar panels alone. The new Energi To Go series will ship by July.
[via Engadget]

Philadelphia is adding another unique touch to it’s waste recovery program. Last week we saw Philly’s  recycling trucks wrapped in colorful graphics – and now, Inhabitat shares the news that the city is rolling out over 500 solar powered, compacting garbage cans. The bins can hold about eight times as much waste as a normal garbage can, and are estimated to save the city close to 12 million dollars over the next 10 years.
[via Inhabitat]

Next month, construction on the first large scale, solar-thermal power plant in Asia will begin near the Great Wall in China.  The Chinese-designed, 1.5MW ‘Dahan’ plant is projected to power 30,000 households by 2010 and “will serve as a platform for experiments on different solar-power technologies.”
[via Treehugger]

RuralLight is a Philippine-based non-profit organization that’s using renewable energy to create sustainable businesses, improve local education and reduce poverty while keeping the environmental impact carbon-neutral. There are still 2,400 villages in the country living off the grid and the government is finding it too expensive to hook them up to the power plants. This is because the multi-island structure of the Philippines would require extending electrical cables across water, which is simply too costly. Alternatives such as solar panels and geothermal energy will allow these communities the opportunity to finally integrate with the mainstream economy by providing them with [...]

Soleckshaw is a solar Cycle-rickshaw which has recently been introduced on a test basis in Delhi, India. The vehicle can be powered both by pedal power and solar energy. The Soleckshaw’s solar rooftop has been designed to power a 36-volt solar battery, which not only alleviates the drivers’ physical strain but also provides them with a mobile phone charging port, as well as FM radio. Soleckshaw will be fully introduced by the year 2010 for the commonwealth games. Soleckshaw has been designed, developed and prototyped by the CSIR’s national laboratory at the Central Mechanical Engineering Research [...]