A proposal to tighten up the U.S.’s mess of 42 different energy incentives – more than two dozen of them short-term measures that frequently roil the markets as they expire or near expiration – is drawing a split reaction from the nation’s two largest renewable energy sectors. The American Wind Energy Association commended Sen. Max… Keep reading →
The year 2013 marked a new era for sustainable energy and cleantech. Innovative sustainable technologies have started to mature and are getting closer to mainstream acceptance. Growing pains are over for many of these technologies and they can now simultaneously reduce cost and the energy intensity of products and production processes, while also improving the… Keep reading →
“When I consider this checklist, we’re pretty close.” The U.S. solar industry has come a long way in a very short timeframe. After decades of slow but steady growth, the last 2.5 years have brought an explosion of new installations in America — with two-thirds of all total distributed solar installed since just 2011. By… Keep reading →
With the announcement today of continued growth in residential and utility-scale installations in the third quarter and a forecast of a robust fourth quarter, the leading American solar industry group said new capacity additions in the U.S. in 2013 will likely exceed those in Germany for the first time in 15 years. In a way, this isn’t… Keep reading →
In our recent interview with Solar Reserve CEO Kevin Smith, he filled us in on the company’s global ambitions, but was particularly proud of the Crescent Dunes concentrated solar power (CSP) project currently being constructed in the Nevada desert. This is the second video in a two-part series that provides an up-close look at the… Keep reading →
Modernizing the US power grid while incorporating increasing volumes of intermittent renewable energy is the electrical engineering challenge of our time. And there’s a lot at stake from costly blackouts to highly profitable energy storage solutions. Fragmented and often outdated regulations enforced by competing government agencies from local to national levels compound the problem. These… Keep reading →
The last video in a 3-part series from the Advanced Biofuels Association features a San Francisco-based company that’s making renewable diesel fuel in Brazil and renewable jet fuel that is being tested by the US military and commercial airlines. Amyris is training yeast to produce hydrocarbons instead of alcohol. A common challenge cited by all… Keep reading →
Who’s the biggest turkey of them all? Creating year-end lists is usually an exercise in positive thinking and congratulatory back-slapping. But as the popularity of this year’s list of deceased solar companies showed us, GTM’s readers are far more interested in the morbid and the sarcastic. In celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday, here is our… Keep reading →
Fifty cents a watt? Wow. That’s the module cost claim for utility-scale installations that Cogenra is making with its new T14 PV system. The emphasis on the system’s ability to deliver low-cost benefits with low-concentration photovoltaics is a bit of a shift for Cogenra, which had long sold itself as uniquely able to combine PV and… Keep reading →
SolarCity and Vivint Solar vie for personnel, funding, technology and customers in residential solar. We spoke with Brendon Merkley, the COO of Vivint Solar just last month. Vivint is the second largest solar installer in the U.S. behind SolarCity (SCTY). GTM has learned from sources close to the company that Merkley has resigned to join… Keep reading →
