Tag Archives: industry
DOE’s LBNL Study: PV Prices Continue to Fall
In it’s fifth annual “Tracking the Sun” report, the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory determined that the price of installed solar has continued to fall, largely because of price drops in the cost of photovoltaics. While the report also found falling prices in the soft costs of solar they were not nearly as [...]
The Future of the Solar Industry
Myths about the use of solar energy abound. There’s the idea that solar panels are inefficient, unreliable or hard to maintain. Another myth states that solar panels are too expensive for widespread usage. (All untrue!) Perhaps one of the most persistent fallacies about solar is that PV panels can’t provide the energy you need when [...]
Skilled Labor: Upcoming Issue for Solar Industry?
The growth of the solar industry may soon face the reality of not having enough skilled workers to satisfy demand, suggests a recent report by The Solar Foundation and the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). Despite a dragging economy overall, installed solar capacity has increased dramatically in the past few years. In [...]
285 Days of Rain A Year Hasn’t Stopped European Solar Industry
Everyone knows the United Kingdom gets a lot of rain – up to 285 days per year – but that hasn’t stopped solar panels from dotting up on rooftop after rooftop. Indeed, despite having one of the wettest climates in all of Europe, the UK has stealthily become one of the continent’s largest solar markets. [...]
Infographic: Solar’s 5 Year Climb
It’s been a wild five years for U.S. solar power. Record growth. Incredible price declines. A backdrop of economic recession. Intense global competition. Messy election politics. The growing pains of any maturing industry. Through it all, solar innovators and entrepreneurs in all 50 states kept making big inroads into one of the most entrenched industries around: energy. [...]
Emerging Markets New Priority for SunPower and First Solar
The two biggest US solar companies, First Solar and SunPower, seem to be moving in tandem these days, accelerating development in emerging markets as revenue from more mature markets slows and projects near completion. Because of the difficulties in their traditional solar panel manufacturing business, they have both diversified into solar project development, and SunPower into solar [...]
“Solar” and “Jobs” = BFF
Did you know that for every megawatt of solar power produced and installed, 30 jobs are created worldwide1? The solar industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, making it a tremendous job creator. With coal mines employing a mere 0.18 workers per megawatt2 and wind plants 17, solar energy accounts for more [...]
The Soft Costs of Solar
While module prices plummet, the soft (non-hardware) costs of installing solar systems remain a stubborn barrier to affordability. The difference between the U.S. $4.44 per watt average installed cost for a typical residential rooftop system and the $2.24 per watt figure for comparable German systems, GTM recently reported, is in soft costs like customer acquisition, [...]
In Focus: ‘Pay As You Go’ Solar
Think solar panels are too expensive? It’s a common misconception—homeowners often think solar power is something only the rich can afford. But it just isn’t true. In fact, in many locations now, you can actually get solar panels for free. No, that isn’t some kind of trick: you can get free solar up on your [...]