Mayor Bloomberg has been on a roll supporting green design lately and last week, he announced a new bill that would allow buildings to construct sun-control devices on their roofs with no zoning issues. The devices can add up to two and a half feet to a building’s height without worry of violating the current zoning for each property. The new legislation is in keeping with Zone Green, a program that has been improving green building in NYC by easing up zoning restrictions for sun-shading, green roofs and other sustainability-boosting projects.

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photo © Elvert Barnes via Creative Commons

The MTA has turned to green energy to help make subway rides a little more pleasant for riders. A system of solar panels has been installed at the Smith-Ninth Street F and G train stop near the elevated Culver Viaduct. The solar energy harnessed from the panels will fuel track lubricators, creating a smoother ride.

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Thanks to new solar arrays atop ten city buildings, including three police stations, two schools, a fire station, and sanitation department garages, New York City has tripled its solar power production. Mayor Bloomberg made the announcement yesterday during a press conference at the offices of a new tech start-up, Efficiency 2.0. The new projects bring the city’s total solar production to 648 kilowatts, which is enough to power 143 households.

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Freshkills Park, the massive restoration project that’s transforming what used to be the world’s largest landfill into public green space, is one step closer to receiving its long awaited solar and wind power. The city issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) from private contractors to build solar and wind installations on the site to power 6,000 homes. The plan for renewable energy in Freshkills Park has been talked about since the park’s inception, and this is a huge step in making the plan a reality.

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On Thursday, January 27, the Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer spoke in front of a 3 KW set of solar panels on Hunter College of the City University to promote his “Rooftop Revolution” campaign and the New York Solar Jobs Act. “On this rooftop and on rooftops across this city we can create the economy we need,” said Stringer. The panels on Hunter are a result of a three-year student-led initiative, and for Stringer, the panels symbolize what could be a city-wide program of solar installations on public schools.

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It’s soon going to be easier for New York City buildings to go green. On December 12, a new set of 20 green zoning rules will be unveiled by the Bloomberg administration. The new set of rules is be aimed at removing hurdles that building owners face in implementing more sustainable technologies and practices. “This is the most comprehensive effort to sweep away impediments to green buildings in our zoning,” City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden told The Real Deal.

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Gotham City? How about Solar City? Thanks to a brand new, highly detailed scientific map, New York City could see a massive increase in rooftop solar panels. In fact, NYC could more than double the entire nation’s solar capacity if all suitable rooftop space was used for solar power. Over the last year, the City University of New York worked with the city and the federal Department of Energy to collect detailed information about every single rooftop (literally – that’s not an exaggeration!) to create the NYC Solar Map in order to help advance New York’s solar energy. The research shows that two-thirds of rooftops are suitable for solar installations, which could generate enough power to meet half of the entire city’s energy needs at peak times!

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Good news once again for the NYC solar power enthusiast! Energy developers are lining up for a chance to develop solar panels on the city’s landfills, as part of the mayor’s PlaNYC environmental initiative. Last week, mayor Michael Bloomberg presented his first four year update to PlaNYC: A Greener,Greater New York, which highlighted phasing out the use of dirty oil, and installing solar panels on landfills. So far, the first steps have been taken with about 250 acres of land in the process of being used for solar energy production – that’s about 50 megawatts of power.

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IKEA is working hard to green its big box operations. The furniture giant is building a wind farm to power 17 of its Swedish stores, and they’ve pledged to adhere to the Better Cotton Initiative by 2015. Continuing the company’s efforts to run on 100 percent renewable power, IKEA’s Brooklyn store has just fired up a 19,000 square foot rooftop solar array. The installation will generate 240,000 kWh of clean energy for the store, the equivalent of eliminating 365,615 pounds of CO2. The 1,104 solar panels join a 70,000 square foot green roof on top of the building.

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NYSERDA launched an incentive program for thermal solar systems, in an effort to encourage New Yorkers to swap electric hot water systems for solar-powered systems.

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Solar power generation in private homes and businesses doubled in 2010 in New York City and the surrounding area.

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