Solar Energy News

SolarCity Corp. (SCTY), the second-largest U.S. solar company by market value, posted a first-quarter loss as it bore higher costs from installing rooftop solar systems at little or no charge to customers.

In the past, a PV system with battery storage was associated with the off-grid system — not connected to the utility grid. The battery stores the energy produced by the PV system and when the sun goes down, electricity is drawn from the battery. In Japan, the battery became attractive to store electricity from "the grid," to reduce electricity bills.

ClearSky Advisors has recently evaluated the attractiveness of each market in Latin America by quantifying the relevant fundamental and political factors which will drive solar installations over the next several years. Fundamental factors include solar insolation, the cost of electricity and current PV market maturity while political factors include the effectiveness of existing solar policies, new generation required and economic and investment risks.

A conference committee is resolving differences between House and (much weaker) Senate versions of a solar energy standard in Minnesota today. Here's eight graphic reasons why the state should go for solar as aggressively as it can.   This post originally appeared on ILSR’s Energy Self-Reliant States blog. 8 Vivid Charts – 8 Reasons for a Solar Ene

You may not know much about Finland, but you certainly know the powerhouse technology company that became a household name across the globe and drove the nation’s economic expansion through the 1990s-2000s. Nokia generated a quarter of Finnish economic growth from 1998-2007, prompting a new term, ‘the Nokia effect’, to describe economic development

SoloPower, a manufacturer of photovoltaic solar modules, sold thousands of dollars' worth of equipment from its California headquarters last week and is preparing for more layoffs, according to a report from the Oregonian.

It's not often that I hear about renewable energy installations near my hometown in Southeastern Massachusetts – many towns in that area seem to have a vocal dose of NIMBY-ism. So when I heard that auto-auction company Manheim was unveiling a 3.5-megawatt installation in Dighton, Mass., I jumped at the chance to go take a look and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

In my past couple blog posts, I've written about the electric car market and inventor Nikola Tesla , but I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to talk about Telsa Motors and the very big waves the company has been making lately. Tesla is having a very, very good May so far. Stock prices raised eyebrows on Wall Street, the company turned its first

Based on the falling costs of solar and rising electric prices, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), one of the largest utilities in the country that serves northern California, may not be able to compete with residential solar soon. That’s according to a recent piece at think tank, The Energy Collective by energy expert Douglas Short, President of Exas

Whether you're in the solar business or any consumer-facing business, you can’t ignore Yelp today or in the foreseeable future. First of all, it won't ever go away, and it's only getting stronger. In fact, it’s even more important now in the age of “Siri,” Apple’s voice-activated concierge for the iPhone. If someone asks Siri, “Who are the best sol

All German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to do was pick up the phone and dial her people in Brussels. Had she done so before the European Parliament's (EP) key vote last month on April 19, her party's representatives could easily have saved the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), Europe's flagship mechanism for reducing carbon emissions. But the woman once hailed as "the climate chancellor," didn't make the call, a consequence of differences of opinion on the ETS within her ruling center-right coalition, she said. The impotent ETS is now withering on the vine, where it may remain until it is dead altogether.

A contested bill in North Carolina that would repeal the state’s renewable portfolio standard is moving forward despite what appeared to be committee that voted against it. The bill was moved out of the Senate Finance Committee by State Senators Bill Rabon and Bob Rucho, both Republicans, who co-chair the committee. The senators held a voice vote o

The European Commission has decided to recommend duties on Chinese solar panels up to 67.9 percent, according to reports from multiple sources.

After falling 15 percent in 2012, solar photovoltaic wafer production is forecast to grow 19 percent in 2013, passing 30 GW and recovering to the 2011 level, according to the latest NPD Solarbuzz Polysilicon and Wafer Supply Chain Quarterly. However, industry utilization is expected to remain below 60 percent, and while prices have stopped falling, no significant increases are expected, so profitability for wafer makers will remain challenging.

In our book Clean Tech Nation, which came out late last year, Clint Wilder and I offered up a Seven-Point Action Plan for Repowering America. One of our main action items was "Leverage Proven Investment Tools from the Oil, Gas, & Real Estate Sectors." Namely, level the investment playing field by opening up master limited partnerships (MLPs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs) to clean-energy projects.

You know that experience, when you buy a new car, and suddenly you see the model everywhere? Since Superstorm Sandy I’ve had the equivalent experience with the term ‘microgrid.’ Policymakers and thought leaders in the U.S. Northeast started talking microgrid in earnest shortly after the October 2012 storm leveled swaths of their region. Lately, the

India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is seeking to defer penalties on about $1 billion of solar-thermal power projects that are delayed by a lack of water, financing difficulties and equipment shortages.

I’ve been trying to avoid writing about the latest punitive tariffs for Chinese solar panels that look set to come from the European Union this week, since the story has dragged on for more than a year now and the outcome was almost inevitable. But that said, it would be a bit remiss of me not to write at least something on this latest move, which

Hopes for Renewable Energy Source Development Measures (RESDM) in Russia's renewable power sector are high: if adopted and properly implemented, it will boost the renewable sector that is plagued with underfunding, often differing regional and federal legislation, other short-comings or simple ineffectiveness.