Time’s Best Inventions of 2008 – its annual list of all that’s new and cool – includes several facility-related entries.

Two actual buildings made the list as inventions in and of themselves. First, the $700 million Dynamic Tower in Dubai actually rotates on a floor-by-floor basis.  With the exception of the center core, the entire building is actually being prefabricated in factories – requiring 600 workers, instead of 2,000 if built on site. The building gets 100 percent of its power from 79 wind turbines and several solar cells.  Secondly, the “Shadowless Skyscraper” in Paris is a 50-story tower that eliminates the concerns of Parisians who “don’t want their lovely low-rise city looking too much like Houston.” The slim glass-and-steel pyramid is scheduled for completion in 2012, and will also get much of its power from wind and solar sources.

Speaking of solar power, there have been amazing advances in thin-film solar cells. Thin-film panels offer great application flexibility, and for that reason, a major application has been (and will continue to be) building integrated rooftop systems. Thin-film is easier and less expensive to manufacture than the traditional silicon based panels, which means the cost of the cells themselves will continue to sink. While thin-film generally is less efficient, one company – Ascent Solar Technologies – just achieved an efficiency of more than 9.5 percent. Typical silicone panel efficiency is around 12 percent.

Another renewable energy advance was invented by a company called Sky Windpower. The company is building flying wind turbines that will stay high in the sky, where winds are much stronger and more energy could be produced.

Anyone who has read Thomas Friedman’s new book Hot, Flat and Crowded is probably familiar with the idea behind the energy Internet device. Friedman envisions a future world where all facility equipment will be “energy smart” – so that they can talk to each other and to the utility to determine when best to work in tandem to optimize their energy use. It’s a fun idea to think about, but one that is probably quite a bit futuristic yet.    

Finally, Google’s floating data center also made the list, which I wrote about in a previous Technology blog.