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Adele addresses the audience after receiving her fifth trophy during the 54th Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, February 12, 2012.

There are many perks that come with being the world’s best-selling pop star and a multiple Grammy award winner. In the case of British chanteuse Adele, one of them is a $3 million beach home in Brighton, England, complete with big-money renovations.

According to a report in Ecorazzi, converting the house to solar power with the installation of panels on the roof is among the abode's many upgrades.

“Adele’s house is something to behold,” a “source” told U.K. paper The Sun (you know you’ve made it when anonymous sources are talking to major news outlets about you). “She’s having loads of work done at the moment so she won’t move in for a while. But when she does, she’ll have one of the most eco-friendly houses in the area.”

If there were a cloud over Adele’s solar-powered happiness, it would be reports that a neighbor’s swimming pool construction will block her view to the sea. Then again, she could always just write a sad song about it.

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A partnership between the South San Francisco Unified School District and Chevron has resulted in what’s being called “the largest K – 12 solar and energy efficiency program in San Mateo County.”

Fifteen elementary, middle and high schools in the county will be outfitted with enough solar panels to generate 1.68 megawatts of electricity, which is expected to cut annual electricity usage by half and reduce carbon emissions by more than 1,500 metric tons. Financially speaking, that adds up to a whopping $20 million reduction in costs over the next 25 years.

The upgrades are being financed through Measure J, which was approved by voters in 2010. The local bond measure provided $162 million specifically for educational means, including infrastructure improvements.

"Harnessing the power of the sun helps make our schools more environmentally sustainable, cuts their energy bills, and creates thousands of teachable moments for our students," said California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in a press release. "That's a win-win-win proposition, for our schools and for California."

Chevron Energy Solutions designed and installed the systems, and will maintain them over the next 25 years.

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Four California schools (including two from Manhattan Beach) have been nominated for the new federal Green Ribbon Schools Program.

Grand View Elementary and Environmental Charter High are the Manhattan Beach representatives; private Danville institution the Athenian and Longfellow Elementary in Long Beach round out the four California finalists chosen by Tom Torlakson, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The U.S. Department of Education rolled out this new program last September after collaborating with various state agencies. The award criteria is to “focus on measurable outcomes wherever possible, and based on a comprehensive approach incorporating environmental learning with maximizing positive environmental and health impacts,” according to a department press release.

"Our state has always been a leader in environmental protection, and these four schools are proof positive that California's schools are still leading the way," Torlakson said in the release. "As a science teacher, it is heartening to see how these schools are weaving sound environmental practices into the lessons in their classrooms and the daily life of their campuses.”

Each school has displayed an extreme commitment to sustainability. Environmental Charter High is known as a “living campus” for the wide variety of produced raised there, while Longfellow Elementary has reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent. Grand View Elementary has reduced their lunch trash from 40 bags to just two, and the Athenian School gets 65 percent of their electricity from solar panels. These are just a few of the practices that earned each school its nomination. Awards are to be announced on Earth Day, which falls on April 22 this year.

"We are extremely proud of our schools," Torlakson added, "and are hopeful that all nominees will be awarded so they will be able to serve as models to emulate around the nation."

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Ah, high school. Those were the days. Well, not really. I couldn’t wait to get out of that place. Then again, my high school was the kind of place that turns up in horror movies. But hey, it’s Friday night. I’d rather imagine that I went to high school in Dillon, Texas, and Tami Taylor was my sympathetic counselor. But I digress.

I’d like to think that the students of St. Francis High School in Sacramento will go on to have much happier memories of the best years of their lives. They’ll certainly have good stories to tell their kids, like how they remember when most schools were powered by expensive electricity, and not primarily powered by the sun.

St. Francis recently installed a 253-kilowatt solar energy system to seven buildings on campus, which is expected to generate up to 31 percent of the school’s electricity, and save them a whopping $1 million in energy costs over the next 20 years.

The school’s new energy system is showcased in a new report from the Environment California Research & Policy Center, “California’s Solar Cities 2012: Leaders in the Race Toward a Clean Energy Future.” Paid for through a grant from the U.S. Treasury and through rebates from the Sacramento Municipal Utility Department (SMUD).

“Our students are excited and happy to have solar panels here at the high school,” explained Ingrid Niles, the communications director of St. Francis to the Valley Community News (wow, high schools have communications directors now?) “I think overall, our kids think having something like this is pretty cool and we hope we inspire a few of them to look at this stuff after high school.”

Photo: Mike Spasoff/Flickr

 There sure is a lot of solar energy flying around these parts lately. Just this week we saw a sun storm that didn’t result in global catastrophe (yet), and we learned that California is still far and away America’s most solar powered state, and by a lot.

Still, it came as something of a surprise this week when U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that the 2013 Solar Decathlon will happen in California, the first time the bi-annual event has occurred outside of Washington, D.C. since it’s inception in 2002.

The Solar Decathlon challenges 20 college teams to design and build efficient homes that are solar-powered. Among the criteria is that the structures be affordable, comfortable, and produces as much or more energy that it uses. The 20 structures will be showcased at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, CA.

Among the schools represented in the 2013 competition are four from our fair state, including USC and the Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology.

“As President Obama made clear in the State of the Union address this week, we need to ensure that the next generation of America’s architects, engineers and entrepreneurs have the hands-on experience and training they need to lead our nation’s clean energy future,” Secretary Chu said this week at the announcement. “The Solar Decathlon will unleash the ingenuity, creativity and drive from these talented students to demonstrate new ideas for how families and businesses can reduce energy use and save money with clean energy products and efficient building design.”