Tag Archives: industry
75% of New Energy Investments Are Renewable
In a striking keynote, Michael Liebreich President of BNEF spoke about the continued compound growth in renewables and the disconnect between GDP and electricity consumption. In the last 5 years, Electricity consumption in Australia and California have disconnected from GDP growth and that trend is now spreading through the developed world. Rising efficiency in motor [...]
Europe 2012: $2.35B Invested in Smart Grid
The Joint Research Centre (JRC), a Directorate-General of the European Commission that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the European Commission to support a wide range of EU policies has published an update of the 2011 report “Smart Grid projects in Europe: lessons learned and current developments,” which is the most comprehensive inventory of [...]
PV Manufacturers Ready for Good News
A new NPD Solarbuzz Marketbuzz report anticipates that photovoltaic manufacturers will start to see a rebound in profitability—if they can make it to 2017. By then the research company anticipates that the PV manufacturing market will reach $32 billion. But that’s still a couple years away, and prior to that Solarbuzz anticipates that the market [...]
How The Music Industry is Shifting to Renewables
Can an industry in an extreme state of change really go green? For years, the music industry has been fighting a battle to continue generating revenue. Unlike no other industry, the growth in online activity has presented endless challenges and the need to change. With many people no longer buying records and instead choosing to [...]
Solar Throwdown: Rooftops vs. Utilities
It’s the utilities vs. rooftop solar, and with PV becoming more accessible and installations soaring, the fight is heating up. In San Antonio, the municipally owned CPS Energy last week said it will slash the value of the credit for solar produced from rooftop installations. Its claim is a central one made by the utilities: as more people produce their own [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Energy in 2065
While many people expect the world to move largely to solar power in the next 50 years, most experts are doubtful of this possibility. While solar power will be an important component of the energy sector in the future, the future will be much more complex than most imagine. Today, with the help of the [...]
The Biggest Solar PV Projects in Latin America
As of April 1, 2013, 9.8 gigawatts of large-scale PV projects had been announced in Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently, the generating capacity of projects in operation is just 114 megawatts. Of the 9.8 gigawatts’ worth of announced projects, 731 megawatts have signed off-take agreements of some sort (power purchase agreements, feed-in tariff contracts, [...]
Industry Heavyweights Suntech and Bosch Go Down
Another solar manufacturer bites the dust. This time, it’s one of the world’s leading solar manufacturers, Suntech. Suntech the first solar firm to go public back in 2005. The Chinese solar manufacturer was compelled to file for bankruptcy after it was unable to make a payment for $541 million. Just days after the news of [...]
Shared Solar Lands in California
Solar is already a huge California success story. The Golden State is leading the nation in new installations, helping to drive costs down and reaping economic and environmental benefits as more and more of our power comes from the sun. Now momentum is building in Sacramento for a new approach that will let the state [...]
Top 7 Solar Consuming Countries
The concept of solar power has been around for some time, but it’s never been considered a practical means for satisfying the world’s energy needs. But as better methods for capturing and converting the sun’s rays into usable energy are developed, solar power is becoming widely adopted across many countries. Here’s a look at a [...]
SEIA Has California Solar’s Back
The good folks over at the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) are all too aware of the threat facing the solar industry from utility attacks and they are fighting back – with facts about the industry and its importance. Here’s our take. Nowhere is the solar industry more vital than right here in California. Indeed, [...]
The Suntech Bankruptcy and the Future of Solar
The bankruptcy of Suntech Power Holdings, one of China’s (and hence the world’s) largest solar panel manufacturers, might seem like bad news for the solar industry. It’s not. It’s just bad news for Suntech shareholders. Suntech made a huge mistake, purchasing an 80% stake in Global Solar Fund in 2008. Turns out that was not [...]