I came across this interesting iPhone app while reading a newsletter from a local solar panel company - good to see people making good use of the technology - Energy Matters Solar Analyser for the iPhone (as this post probably looks somewhat like an ad, I'll note I've got no connection to the company whatsoever and have no idea if they are any good or not).

The Energy Matters Solar Analyser is a revolutionary solar power site evaluation tool for the iPhone 3G, 3Gs and iPod Touch, providing full solar site analysis - and it's free! While originally designed for solar industry professionals, it's simple enough to operate that just about anyone can use it. ...

By utilizing the compass (on iPhone 3GS) and inclinometer functions of the iPhone, together with built in GPS and sun positioning functionality, the Solar Analyser can perform site evaluations in seconds. The Solar Analyser is easy to use, requiring minimal set-up time - you simply trace the skyline with the “heads up sight” and press “Analyse”.

Using the Solar Analyser's high resolution graphical display and easy to review results, you can determine a realistic estimation of the kWhr solar power that can be generated at a location, taking into account the local shading. It also supports fixed, single and dual axis tracking systems.

The Solar Analyser includes a large database of solar panel and inverter models. Select your dream system configuration and the tool will also calculate the $/month production of the site (Australia only).

TreeHugger has a post on an iPhone app looking at biomimicry based designs - An iPhone App about Biomimetic Architecture: BioDesign #3 by Dennis Dollens.

This seems to be the year for green iPhone apps, with already over 100 to choose from, including TreeHugger's own which was launched last month and the Green Map app launched recently. Now here is one for the biomimicry and architecture fans amongst you. Dennis Dollens, the architect who grows buildings, has just made his work available via the iPhone.

Dollens' latest comic carries on where his last one left off. It is about developing ideas to combine technology with biology in an architectural context. He is constantly studying plants and looking for biomimetic ideas to apply to buildings and designs, in order to create bio-architecture; clean, eco-friendly buildings that could filter pollution, harvest energy and much more.

In order to communicate these ideas and inspire others to come up with more, Dollens writes comic books. Most of them are available as downloadable PDFs via his site on Issuu, but now you can read BioDesign #3 as an iPhone application in a beautifully re-designed, much easier to handle, format.

Earth2Tech has a post on a wave of new iPhone apps that help you monitor and manage your power usage by letting users visualise data gathered by smart meters - 7 iPhone Apps to Manage Energy Consumption.

Energy management tools designed to help you curb unnecessary power used in your home have yet to break into the mainstream, and only 13 percent of people say they would want to manage home energy consumption via a mobile device, according to Clint Wheelock of Pike Research (via GigaOM Pro subscription required). But hey, who needs a market for this stuff, when energy management startups can build a slick iPhone app on the cheap and use the mobile version as marketing for their main products. There’s also been an influx of iPhone app developers that have created basic calculators that you can use to manually plug in electricity meter data to track and manage your home consumption (we only named a couple of them below). Here’s 7 iPhone apps being developed by firms that want you to cut back on your pad’s energy use and which are available now, or will be soon enough, through Apple’s iPhone app store.

Tendril Vantage Mobile: Tendril Vantage Mobile, which debuted at the Demo conference in March, comes from Tendril — a 5-year-old Boulder, Colorado-based company that recently raised $30 million. (Updated) The app will be available to both select utility customers and consumers in 2010, offering a way to see their home energy consumption in real time, view dynamic pricing changes, and control connected appliances and thermostats remotely. Tendril says it is also working on adding text-message updates, more graphs, and information about the carbon emissions associated with users’ energy use.

Visible Energy’s Energy UFO: Visible Energy, a year-old Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup that launched at our Green:Net conference earlier this year, has developed an iPhone application called Energy UFO that is already available on Apple’s app store for free. The UFO app provides a mobile interface for the plugs and circuits that are connected to Visible Energy’s energy management gadgets and power strips — but, since that gear isn’t available for sale yet, we’re thinking the iPhone app won’t be too interesting until the first products are supposed to be available by Christmas of this year.

Ecobee’s Smart Thermostat: As Tyler Hamilton reported on Clean Break this weekend, the Toronto-based startup Ecobee, which has developed a WiFi-based smart thermostat, is planning to launch an iPhone app that enables users to remotely turn up and down their thermostats. The thermostat interface is displayed horizontally on the iPhone screen and can be used for utility demand response services.

Meter Readings: Developed by Graham Haly and released at the end of July, Meter Readings is available now for $0.99, and provides up to four interfaces where you can enter meter data from electricity, water and gas meters. Like the following two apps, Meter Readings is intended for manual entry of meter data so it is a little time consuming and limited.

MeterRead: Another manual input app, MeterRead was created by Zerogate, and enables the user to input the data from electricity meters to monitor and manage home energy consumption. It’s available now for $0.99. The interface is interesting in that you can set the virtual dial on the app to match the image on the meter, instead of inputting numerical data (via TheAppleBlog).

Wattulator and Watts Plus: Like the two previous manual input applications, the Wattulator and Watts Plus — both developed by David Holzer and released late June — requires you to manually input power usage to crunch calculations, but these apps are focused on how much energy specific appliances are consuming. Available now for $0.99 for Wattulator and $1.99 for Watts Plus.

Control4’s My House UI: Digital home startup Control4, which recently raised $17.3 million, has recently launched an iPhone application for its customers called “My House UI.” The iPhone app enables the customer to control a variety of house system, including air conditioning and heating and lights. It’s free to download but of course you need Control4’s in-home devices.