Tag Archives: market
New Jersey Solar: 2013
In 2012 New Jersey was recognized as the fastest growing market for solar, beating out California, a state more than 20 times its size and traditionally the largest market for solar in the U.S. That may not happen in 2013 as purchase prices for the state’s solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) remain low and incentives [...]
SunPower Pushes International Expansion
SunPower Corp. is aggressively expanding into international markets, including China, Japan, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East. The California company announced this week that it financed 33 megawatts of solar in South Africa, a relatively new market for the high-efficiency solar panel manufacturer. As the cost of solar drops relative to the cost of [...]
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. [...]
Struggling Chinese Solar Companies: Your Goverment Is Here to Help
The Chinese government is stepping up efforts to prop up struggling domestic solar companies by helping them expand locally – with loans, subsidies and policies that stimulate in-country generating capacity. China’s $20 billion export-oriented solar industry is now looking internally for growth because of excess inventory from lower foreign demand (due to cuts in subsidies in Germany [...]
EV Charging Station Market: Ready for Liftoff
Currently electronic vehicles (EVs) only make up a small portion of transportation on the road. But as it increases so will the volume EV chargers. In fact, a new Lux Research report finds that the EV charger market will grow from $140 million in 2012 to $1.15 billion by 2020. While solar charging EV stations [...]
Solar + Wind = 4.72% of U.S. Electricity
In the excitement over the news that all new U.S. electricity generation for September 2012 came from wind and solar, as reported in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission statistics, the bigger picture went less noticed. The cumulative installed electricity generating capacity of wind is now up to 4.43 percent of the U.S. portfolio and, adding solar’s [...]
Will Suntech Power Go Bankrupt?
The travails of China’s top solar panel manufacturer do not seem to stop with its credibility being hit by a new problem each day. Suntech has made massive management blunders in the past for which it is paying heavily today. The company which is reeling under billions of dollars of debt has restructured its management [...]
The 10 Biggest U.S PV Plants
The world’s largest PV solar farm is the the massive Agua Caliente deployment in Yuma County, Arizona. First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR), the developer and panel supplier at Agua Caliente, just announced that the project has hit a peak generating capacity of 250 megawatts AC and is online and connected to the electrical grid. The project [...]
In Focus: Dupont’s Solar Quality Standards
Solar installations were removed from twenty-four San Diego Unified School District campuses after corrosion was discovered that threatened the possibility of electrical issues that could lead to fires. The 4.3-megawatt installation was built in 2005-06 by Solar Integrated Technologies (SIT). SIT was acquired by Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) (PINK:ENERQ) in 2009. ECD’s Uni-Solar manufactured the [...]
Louisiana’s Solar Boom: Just Getting Started
Louisiana’s solar market presents a baffling study of what happens when market forces come face-to-face with ideology, geography and demographics. Like most of the country, Louisiana has benefited from the more than 40% drop in average PV panel prices last year. By most accounts, this trend will continue despite the US Commerce Department’s proposed tariffs [...]
Solar + Nanotechnolgy: The Future of Energy
One of our Solar Energy World Facebook fans requested a blog post about solar power and nanotechnology. These two technologies combined could pave the way for even more efficient and cost effective solar power generation in the future. This post will give an overview of the concept of nanotechnology, and the effect that it may [...]
Even With Lower Incentives, German Solar Market Grows
A dramatic shift in the German solar market hasn’t slowed its growth. The world’s leading solar market skyrocketed because of a progressive feed-in-tariff program that paid solar system owners more for the power they produced than the retail power rate. The program has changed and the tariff has slipped below the retail rate. But home [...]