Solar Energy News

Europe may be the big end-market for solar PV demand (at least for now), but from a manufacturing standpoint Asian firms are beginning to dominate.

The concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) industry tenaciously pushed through these last four years, and now has 33 megawatts (MW) in the ground, with 60 more expected by mid-year 2012 and about 700 MW more in the pipeline.

One reason why solar companies don’t blog regularly — or at all — is that they believe that it can be a lot of effort for a small audience that may just happen upon the post. Wrong, wrong, wrong, in so many ways, wrong. People don't happen upon blogs accidentally. Most often, you have to go to where your customers a

"Desperate" installers rushing to complete installations ahead of FiT reductions in key end-markets caused a 7% spike in PV module prices in December, but look for a return to familiar pricing pressure within just a month, according to IMS Research.

In January 2011, I plotted the size of state solar markets against their average installed cost and found surprisingly little correlation.  When Lawrence Berkeley Labs put out their 2011 version of Tracking the Sun (IV), it was possible to update the chart, which I did in two stages. The first chart simply overlays the 2010 average insta

Chile is built for renewable energy. The seemingly unending coastline that runs the length of its boundary is prime real estate for wind development, and eventually the offshore wind projects, that could power the cities found along its spine. The nation's solar resources, especially in the northern regions, are among the best in the world. And its place along the ring of fire means its geothermal potential is vast, yet untapped.

A top GE executive is calling the political battle between economy and environment "nonsense." In a video interview at an international clean energy investment conference last week, Mark Vachon, vice president of GE's successful Ecomagination program, hailed "environmental performance" as a key driver for business.

Researchers at MIT and Germany's RWTH Aachen U. have devised a new way to set up a concentrated solar power (CSP) project that both increases the system's efficiency and reduces the land footprint -- all thanks to inspiration from Mother Nature.

If there was one key takeaway from the most recent RenewableEnergyWorld.com and Solar Power-gen webcast it was that the year ahead will be difficult for large-scale solar power development due to poor access to capital, an uncertain policy landscape, the pending trade case against China and module prices that are too low to support a healthy indust

Weeks after the end of the U.N. climate talks, international leaders from across the world are meeting again on the world stage to discuss fossil fuels, nuclear energy and the growth of renewables.

Utilities worry about a lot of things, such as keeping the lights on, earning a return for investors, and making regulators and customers happy with their service. Now there is a new worry: How can they protect customers from what one utility refers to as “mental fatigue?” In this particular case, the utility raises the issue as it pr

While solar is making steady progress towards the main stream, it ain’t there yet. Many consumers are still suspicious of solar because it’s unfamiliar. They’ve seen panels and solar homes in pictures, but it’s not like buying or selling a car… or is it? Making analogies to something familiar can be very helpful fo

The notable absence from a recent Japanese renewable energy meeting by many political backers — plus blunt comments from some of them — are being interpreted as a sign that Softbank's ambitious plans for multiple megasolar plants are falling apart.

With a glut of shale gas on the market, natural gas prices continue to tumble in the U.S. And they'll only fall more throughout the year.

The U.S. Virgin Islands are a great place to visit, but you wouldn't want to pay energy bills there. The tiny U.S. territory in the Caribbean has just 110,000 residents, all the beach, surf, wind and sun you'd ever want, but energy prices that are four to five times higher than are paid in the continental United States.

Vestas on Thursday announced a major restructuring of its global operations, though it remains unclear how the move could affect its plans for the growing and lucrative Latin America market.

Five months after greatly widening its solar PV scope, Texas municipal utility CPS Energy has found a partner in OCI Solar Power to bring 400 MW of capacity to its customers — and the potential to add a significant number of solar-related jobs to the region.

Solar grid parity is considered the tipping point for solar power, when installing solar power will cost less than buying electricity from the grid.  It’s also a tipping point in the electricity system, when millions of Americans can choose energy production and self-reliance over dependence on their electric utility. But this

In the lead up to another 15 percent reduction in Germany's feed-in tariff (the price paid for solar electricity fed into the grid), the German solar industry finished 2011 off with a bang — installing 3,000 megawatts of solar photovoltaic systems in December.