Congratulations to STG President Matt Orosz and Treasurer Amy Mueller who received their PhDs from MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in June 2012!

Read about the Energy Globe Awards here.

We are proud to announce that Matt was awarded an Echoing Green Fellowship program for 2012 to push forward STG’s mission on a full-time basis for the next two years.

President Matthew Orosz presented STG’s work at the International Conference on Low-cost, electricity generating heat engines for rural areas in Nottingham, England.

STG has joined the United Nations 2012 Sustainable Energy for All Practitioners network. STG President Matt Orosz also joined RINGO and governmental delegates at the 2011 UNFCCC COP17 in Durban as an MITEI sponsored participant.

STG has been awarded a grant through Constellation Energy’s educational grant program to scale up outreach and visibility efforts to the public and undergraduate community in Florida.

Team STG, including Matt Orosz, Amy Mueller, Libby Wayman, and Bryan Urban, traveled to Houston, Texas this weekend to participate in the 2010 ConocoPhillips Energy Prize finals after being announced as a Finalist earlier this month.

Our entry focused on the growing demand for rural electrification in developing countries and, primarily, the significant impact we can make by providing a renewable energy option for rural institutions such as clinics and schools. This award will support completion of our two test systems, the Pilot Clinic user-test site and the Eckerd College technology testbed. Read more about the contest results and our entry!

With help from Sopogy and the Water Oak Development Group, installation of the absorber tubes to complete the solar trough assembly was undertaken in mid-September.

Guest lectures by STG at several undergraduate classes reinforced the goals of the installation both on campus and relative to STG’s work in Lesotho. Photos of the ongoing work can be seen here.

We have posted a new video featuring President Matt Orosz to give more information about our work and our motivations! Watch it here.

STG recently broke ground on a new project site at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. This installation, to be used as a technology testbed and a domestic demonstration of the technology, is being undertaken in parternship with Sopogy, Inc. and timed to coincide with Eckerd’s Africa Initiative.

Assembly and installation of a donated array of SopoNova troughs was undertaken in a location next to the Galbraith Marine Science Laboratory on Eckerd’s Campus with invaluable help from Sopogy representatives, the Water Oak Development Group, and Eckerd College students. Continued work on the installation will be ongoing over the next several months and is expected to go live in early 2011. STG would like to give many thanks to all of the partners in this project, including MIT, Eckerd College, Sopogy, Inc., and Krinner Groundscrews.

STG’s business development team, working to support our partner organizations as they enter their respective markets, has received two awards for their Lesotho-based business plan: 2nd place at the ASME I-Show and 2nd place in the MIT 100K Business Plan Competition (Development Track).

We would like to formally congratulate STG president Matt Orosz for his recent appointment as a 2009 Fulbright Scholar. His work over the next year will include a technical and economic feasibility analysis of the use of STG’s Solar ORC technology in the greater Southern Africa.

In cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the team has been awarded two grants to support installation of a new system at a clinic in Lesotho during 2009. We would like to thank the EPA P3 program (Phase II Award (2009)) and NCIIA (2008 Sustainable Vision Grant) for their generous support.

STG has officially recieved designation as a 501(c)3 Public Charity as of November, 2008. We are now accepting charitable donations from individuals and organizations within the Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland and working to expand to other states. For more information, please see our FAQs.

The STG field team recently completed a trip to Lesotho during August 2008. Through a partnership with the Appropriate Technology Services (ATS) of Lesotho, preparation for a pilot installation at a health care center outside of Maseru has been put in motion. Engineers at ATS, already trained in construction of the solar troughs, are in the materials sourcing phase, and construction should begin before the end of the year. This system will be sized to provide approximately 3kW of electrical power (continuous during daylight hours, with battery storage for nighttime use) and up to several hundred liters of hot water per day. Discussions are ongoing with the Ministry of Health to finalize the choice of health care center, in order to coordinate with other projects underway in the health sector. The STG team will be returning to Lesotho during early 2009 to integrate the trough and engine components and to conduct further technology training. The system is expected to be operational by June 2009.

Pilot installations were also assessed during the STG team visit to Lesotho. Due to problems with vandalism, the Bethel High School installation was disassembled and donated to partner organization BBCDC for use in their Solar Energy course curriculum. The installation at Ha Teboho village has weathered more than 18 months in the field without problem, however theft of the system batteries is currently preventing the system from being fully functional. The team is working on an upgrade to the Ha Teboho system, along with the development of a security plan in cooperation with the villagers of Ha Teboho, and we hope to have this system back online sometime in 2009.

STG Director Amy Mueller was recently featured in the Technology Review Emerging Technologies Conference in September 2008.

STG team members, in conjunction with other students at MIT, were recently awarded an EPA P3 Grant for 2008-09.

In addition, STG team members received a small grant from the MIT Energy Initiaive’s Student Financial Assistance for Energy-Related Research, sponsored by TOTAL, along with a travel grant from MIT’s International Development Initiative (IDI).

Bryan Urban joined the STG Board of Directors in November 2007, bringing with him his experience as a mechanical engineer, in business and entrepreneurial work, and personal goals and visions for the direction of the organization. STG welcomes Bryan on board!