London's Blackfriars Tube station is on its way to becoming the world's largest solar bridge. Stretching across South Bank a stone's throw from the Tate Modern, the busy station, built by Solarcentury, has already reached the halfway point to completion. Construction on the world's largest solar bridge began on October 2011. Blackfriars Tube station is still fully functioning, ferrying Londoners and tourists from the popular South Bank promenade to areas all over the city. Yet construction is still underway across the bridge's rooftop. Heavy scaffolding is slowly being removed to reveal the 4,400 solar panels that will serve the station, pumping 900 thousand kWh of solar energy back into the grid each year. The solar powerhouse will also reduce CO2 emissions by 511 tons per year, all while promptly serving commuters with uninterrupted service around the city. The gorgeous Victorian bridge is the only bearing solar panels along the River Thames. With stellar city views, boats pass under the bridge's arches throughout the day, while the station serves 24 trains per hour. Pedestrians strolling along the South Bank walk way pass under the historic bridge, check out the progress of its solar modernization. The idyllic scene could be just a glimpse of London's future. With over 100 bridges crossing the River Thames throughout the city, adding additional solar arrays on any of them could drastically reduce the city's consumption of fossil fuels, and ensure a source of clean energy for generations to come, reducing emissions and overall carbon footprint.

Last week California's Governor Jerry Brown was joined by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar for the ground breaking ceremony of the world's largest solar thermal facility near Blythe, California, reported constructiondigital.com. Once construction is completed, the site will feature four solar thermal power plants with a total generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts of electricity. This would be enough energy to power 800,000 (corrected by construction.am according to the US Energy Department data) American homes using a clean, domestic source of fuel. Blythe Solar will cover about 7,025 acres of land. Governor Brown praised the solar power plant as a key step toward his goal of building a green economy of the future in California."We're going to be the world leader in solar energy," Brown said during the groundbreaking ceremony. Preparations for the facility have been underway since 2010, with early work already being done on the first two solar power plants that will be able to generate 242 megawatts of electricity. The first two plants are expected to be operational and connected to California's power grid by 2014. In April the Blythe solar project received a loan guarantee of $2.1 billion from the US Federal Financing Bank. The total projected cost of the project is expected to reach about $2.8 billion. The facility is being built by the Solar Trust of America and the Solar Millennium Group, two of the world's top producers of solar thermal technology. The Solar Millennium Group built the first operational parabolic trough power plants in Europe. Parabolic trough is the only type of solar technology that has been proven since the 1980s to be able to produce enough electricity for commercial use in large power plants.

While Germany has spent the last few years stealing the headlines for its remarkable advances in renewable energy infrastructure, neighboring France has, up until now, remained relatively silent on the matter of green energy. But this week Paris-based company Neoen broke ground on a 300 MW, US$ 450 million photovoltaic grid-connected installation at Cestas, which will provide power to nearby Bordeaux from October 2015-and the facility will be the largest photovoltaic power plant in Europe. Solar capacity in France has grown exceptionally slowly; according to Reuters it had "5,095 MW of photovoltaic capacity in June, which accounted for only 1 percent of its energy consumption in the first half of the year," in stark contrast with Germany's 37,000 MW. But Neoen suggests that prudence in the early years may be key to France's success. While Spain, for instance, has experienced a solar "bubble," France does not have comparable struggling or failed projects, and as such it was easier for Neoen to secure financing for this large-scale installation. And the costs for the output when it goes online look remarkably promising-it will provide electricity for US$ 131.46/MWh over 20 years. Speaking to Reuters, Neoen Chief Executive Xavier Barbaro explained that the Cestas installation will provide solar power "below the price of new nuclear electricity in Britain. So the parity between nuclear energy which is costing more and solar which continues to drop is happening now, in 2014... Four or five years ago, nobody thought that would be possible before 2020".