Power companies in areas with a growing amount of clean power are looking at new ways to store compressed air underground. The Pacific Northwest could get some of these next-gen air technologies in the coming years. Read more »
SunPower plans to sell lithium ion batteries — or other energy storage technology — bundled with solar panels. The move follows other solar companies into the energy storage space. Read more »
Peer-to-peer car sharing startup RelayRides tells us that long-term sharing — over days, weeks and months — makes up the bulk of their sales. Is this an emerging trend for this nascent service? Read more »
SolarCity is one of the leaders when it comes to installing solar panels on home owner’s rooftops. But the company’s $31 million loss, in its latest quarter, shows the growing pains for the retail solar players. Read more »
Can quantum computing be the key to a much safer power grid? A California startup, GridCOM, plans to show just how quantum encryption could be a nearly fail-proof shield against cybersecurity breaches. Read more »
After reducing production and costs and closing a big solar panel factory, First Solar says it’s done a better job of managing its supply and has sold out of its production through nearly the end of the third quarter of this year. Read more »
SunPower is signing up residential solar leases at a nice pace in the U.S. while seeing a good demand for its highly efficient solar panels in Japan’s residential market. The company is still posting losses, though it’s doing better than in previous quarters. Read more »
A Midwest startup wins a big business plan competition by showing the promise of its technology to create a longer-lasting lithium ion battery that also can charge at a faster rate than what batteries in smart phones can deliver today. Read more »
Lost in a sea of conflicting information on solar installers, panel makers, and various subsidies? We’re here to help. Here’s 7 things you need to know about putting solar panels on your rooftop. Read more »
A stealthy Silicon Valley startup called TetraSun, which designs silicon solar cells, has been acquired by solar giant First Solar. It’ll be First Solar’s first commercial foray into highly efficient silicon panels. Read more »
Taiwan and Japan are dealing with similar energy challenges as they boost clean power production while debating the merit of nuclear power. Read more »
Cleantech investment is not dead, it just requires new approaches and a recognition that the traditional oil and gas industry may very well be the best patron for cleantech development and deployment. At least for now. Read more »
Fjord IT opens its first data center space in Oslo and is banking on a air cooling technology and cheap hydropower to attract European customers who want low-carbon cloud services. Read more »
Suntech Power once seemed unstoppable as the largest solar panel maker in the world. Now it’s facing internal turmoil and market forces that could very well lead to its demise. Read more »
Europe needs to do more to reduce wasteful energy consumption, and its policy makers are looking at how to green its data centers to help them achieve a 2020 energy efficiency goal. Read more »
Google’ vice president of data centers, Joe Kava, outlines how the search giant’s pursuit of data center designs corresponds nicely to the company’s ten governing rules. Well, almost. Read more »
First Solar, one of the largest solar panel makers in the world, says it’s breaking a record for the amount of sunlight that its cadmium-telluride solar cells can convert into electricity. The improvement promises to deliver cheaper solar electricity for consumers in the long run. Read more »
LED lighting companies are embracing new business models that go beyond just the sales of LEDs, bulbs and fixtures, and LEDs are slowing starting to occupy a spot in the widening web of Internet-dependent goods and services. Read more »
A Swiss project that is 10 years in the making aims to show that solar powered planes could one day shuttle people around the world. After carrying out demonstration flights in Europe and North Africa, Solar Impulse is coming to America this year. Read more »
Buying solar electric equipment takes a lot of time, and good information can be hard to come by. A startup in Massachusetts plan to launch a solar shopping portal that it hopes will make solar shopping far less painful. Read more »
Solar makers are getting squeezed in a difficult global solar market, but the growth of solar panel installations continues to soar. This should all make 2013 a very interesting year for solar startups. Here’s 13 solar startups to watch in 2013: Read more »
Alta Devices has spent the past year courting the military with its highly efficient solar cells, which could go into mobile chargers to help lighten a soldier’s pack. Read more »
Clean Power Finance is releasing a federally-funded survey to quantify the challenges solar installers face when they try to get all the necessary permits to construct solar electric systems and connect them to the local grid. Read more »
A Colorado startup has come up a light-weight motor for wind turbine generators that borrows the design of a printed circuit board. Boulder Wind Power is lining up its first customer that plans to give its technology a try. Read more »
GlassPoint Solar just raised $26 million in venture capital and built a pilot project to prove that its solar steam equipment could help oil companies pry loose of heavy crude and make it easier to extract. Read more »
Five months after Japan kick-started a clean power incentive program, the country is seeing a boom in solar power project installation. That’s good news for solar manufacturers who are seeing a decline in mature markets such as Germany and hungry for new territories. Read more »
Another thin film solar company stumbles. Global Solar appears to be a casualty of an imbalance of supply and demand that has persisted for two years and knocked out dozens of solar manufacturers worldwide. Read more »
The demand for lithium-ion batteries hasn’t grown as quickly as many battery developers have anticipated, and that leaves a rather bleak near-term outlook for startups who had counted on the rise of electric car, grid storage and even laptops as lucrative markets. Read more »
Rentricity sees opportunity in helping water utilities reduce their energy costs. The company’s technology makes use of the high water pressures inside pipes to produce electricity, which can then be sold to the local electric utilities. Read more »
MIT researchers are looking to make more efficient solar cells by creating a funnel-like structure in a semiconductor material in order to make use of a broader spectrum of sunlight. Read more »
A Chicago startup is ready to commercialize an electric motor that presents an alternative to the conventional motors that require the use of rare earth materials. HEVT hopes to raise money to scale up production. Read more »
India has emerged as as a potentially huge market for solar energy development. It also is experiencing the growing pains of cultivating a new type of energy development that relies heavily on government help and faces unforeseen challenges. Read more »
Another solar startup bites the dust. Venture-backed Twin Creeks Technologies, which promised to deliver low-cost components for making silicon solar cells, has sold its core assets to a major solar factory equipment developer. Read more »
Tesla was in danger of missing its delivery goals for its Model S by a wide margin earlier this year. But the company has now been able to achieve its scaled-back milestones in the third quarter. Read more »
First Solar generated profits for the third quarter as it marches into new markets and carries out cost-cutting measures to compete at a time when there is an oversupply of solar panels worldwide and many of its rivals have declared losses or gone out of business. Read more »
Solar panels have been described as commodities, but are they? A solar project investor says that is not quite true given the uneven quality of solar panels he has seen. And that begs the question: is solar really a low-risk investment? Read more »
California regulators approved some — but not all — of the power contracts that Southern California Edison wants to have with BrightSource Energy in a compromise that they say will provide the state’s residents with more affordable solar power in the run long. Read more »
A biofuel startup with some stellar investors is making some big claims about its technology and production costs. But it will have to raise some serious money to prove itself. Read more »
A company that builds mini renewable power stations in rural India just raised more money to expand its reach. You can expect to see more social entrepreneurial projects that aim to bring cleaner sources of energy to poor regions with minimal or no access to electricity. Read more »
Stem, an energy management software and service startup is growing at a time when investors are keen to invest in energy software startups, particularly those who target businesses as customers. The California startup just got a new CEO. Read more »
