Big solar is winning. There are tens of millions of rooftops throughout the United States – on homes and businesses alike – where solar power could be saving electricity consumers money and reducing their carbon footprint, all the while avoiding the environmental conflicts that big solar increasingly finds itself enmeshed in. Yet projects over 1… Keep reading →
Governor Brown has the opportunity to make energy-saving upgrades possible for families and small business owners by signing Assembly Bill 1883 (Nancy Skinner- Berkeley). This bill would significantly lower the cost of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a tool which enables property owners to take advantage of energy efficiency and rooftop solar PV for their… Keep reading →
The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has recently released a report – prepared by the Brattle Group – on how Germany’s policies to support solar PV have made the country a world leader in deploying solar PV over the last decade. Most recent data from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) show… Keep reading →
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces and Iraq military personnel reportedly took control of a key dam in the northern part of the country. The dam that supplies water and 1 GW of electricity to local populations had been seized by Islamic State militants. There were still conflicting reports Monday morning about which side controlled the strategic… Keep reading →
Sunny skies have turned cloudy for utility-scale solar PV development in the United States thanks to a trade dispute that has spread from China to Taiwan, raising costs, squeezing margins and delaying and possibly threatening projects. From the moment German-owned SolarWorld’s U.S. arm initiated trade cases against Chinese companies nearly three years ago, accusing them… Keep reading →
Pick your poison, but the two widely-used terms elicit different reactions from various segments of the US population and demographic strata. “Global warming” also poses a greater sense of threat to one’s self and one’s family, especially for women, Hispanics, African-Americans, Democrats, Independents and Republicans. Actually, the report notes that “climate change appears to actually reduce issue engagement”… Keep reading →
The complex natural gas flaring issue associated with producing crude oil and other higher-value liquids from the Bakken Shale formation is back in the news as companies seek to address royalty payments owed for certain volumes of that flared gas. There appears to be some legal uncertainty regarding whether companies owe money to royalty owners… Keep reading →
After having just won the World Cup title in soccer in Brazil, Germany raked in another title – this time outside the soccer stadium – as the world’s most energy efficient economy. So both instances illustrate the significance of efficient play. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) ranked in its 2014 International Energy… Keep reading →
There’s an unlikely name among the usual suspects that populate a recently released list [PDF] of leading U.S. solar cities. There’s Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, San Jose, Honolulu, San Antonio and then … Indianapolis? Yep. And the city just got even more solar, with the official opening last week of a 9 megawatt array… Keep reading →
What are the similarities between Ace Hardware and the solar industry? Many more than you might think after the recent announcement that the nation’s only solar purchasing cooperative, Amicus Solar Cooperative, chose Locus Energy as the preferred monitoring provider for its 30 members throughout the country. Amicus, meaning “friend” in Latin, is a group of… Keep reading →
