A utility owned by stockholders or other investors; sometimes referred to as a private utility, in contrast to a public utility that is owned by a government agency or cooperative.

An unregulated subsidiary of an electric utility that is allowed to generate and sell wholesale power as an independent energy producer, and is exempt from the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.

A system of astronomical time in which the sun crosses the true north-south meridian at 12 noon, and which differs from local time according to longitude, time zone, and equation of time.

A law that requires electric utilities to purchase electricity produced from qualifying power producers that use renewable energy resources or are cogenerators. Utilities are required to purchase power at a rate equal to the avoided cost of generating the ...

Air that provides the necessary oxygen for complete, clean combustion and maximum heating value.

A measure of the moisture content of air; may be expressed as absolute, mixing ratio, saturation deficit, relative, or specific.

A concrete pad that sits on gravel or crushed rock, well-compacted soil either level with the ground or above the ground.

A frequently used room or area that is maintained at a more comfortable level than the rest of the house; also known as a "warm room."

A group of solar photovoltaic modules connected together.

A method of depositing thin semiconductor photovoltaic) films. With this method, physical processes, such as thermal evaporation or bombardment of ions, are used to deposit elemental semiconductor material on a substrate.

Standardized codes used to classify businesses by type of activity they engage in.

A device or material with a high resistance to electricity flow.

A cooling device that uses mechanical energy to produce chilled water.

The ratio of actual power being used in a circuit, expressed in watts or kilowatts, to the power that is apparently being drawn from a power source, expressed in volt-amperes or kilovolt-amperes.

Any wholly or partially enclosed space in which combustion takes place.

The part of an energy utility's charge based on actual energy consumed by the customer; the product of the kilowatt-hour rate and the total kilowatt-hours consumed.

A solar collector in which the absorber is contained in a sealed glass tube, thereby providing for relatively high temperature heat gain.

Waste water from a household source other than a toilet. This water can be used for landscape irrigation depending upon the source of the greywater.

Solar Two is a retrofit of the Solar One project (see above). It is demonstrating the technical feasibility and power potential of a solar power tower using advanced molten-salt technology to store energy. Solar Two retains several of the main components ...

A battery that uses lithium in the negative electrode and a metal sulfide in the positive electrode, and the electrolyte is molten salt; can store large amounts of energy per unit weight.