NRG Energy’s New Solar Canopy Offers a Grid-Free Alternative to Rooftop Solar

We recently attended Fortune's Brainstorm green conference in California, where <a href="http://inhabitat.com/13-things-we-learned-from-some-of-the-worlds-smartest-people-at-fortune-brainstorm-green-2013/fortune-solar-canopy/?extend=1">NRG unveiled their mini prefabricated Solar Canopy</a>. The canopy offers an alternative to <a href="http://inhabitat.com/tag/rooftop-solar-panels/">rooftop solar</a> and provides a shady pavilion or parking area that can be placed in any garden or commercial lot. It's a tidy prototype for a new product that <a href="http://inhabitat.com/tag/nrg-energy/">the energy company</a> hopes to roll out by the end of the year.

The prototype will deliver 2.4 kilowatts of energy - enough to power half of a standard home

A commercial model will generate three times as much as the mini Solar Canopy

The Solar Canopy will be completely free of the grid, though it could sell back if there is excess

We attended a session to discuss alternatives to rooftop solar

The Fortune conference was an enormous success; it's inspiring to see how many people are out there doing constructive good

NRG playground donated to a charter school for science and technology in New Orleans may have been the precursor to the recently unveiled Solar Canopy