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Cleantech

Developer SolarReserve announced on Thursday that it’s finished building the 510-foot solar power tower that will make up the centerpiece of its 110 MW project in Nevada. Read More »

A 1 GW solar farm in California whose fate was in limbo for a while is finally moving forward: Solar Millennium has sold it to Solarhybrid, which will change the technology for the project from concentrating solar thermal to photovoltaic panels. Read More »

 
 

The failure rate of developers to fulfill their renewable energy contract in California has historically been around 30-40 percent, but that failure rate is expected to come down now that utilities are seeing better prepared and managed projects — and more developers who are in the… Read More »

Spain once symbolized a great solar boom – and then bust – as its government lowered incentives to reign growth. That repercussion of that boom has continued, however, and on Friday the government announced a suspension of the incentive program to cut costs. Read More »

The motion of the ocean: a look at ocean power

Professor Tom Murphy dives into ocean power and looks at how abundant it is, yet potentially useless in the short term. Read More »

Warren Buffett and the true value of solar

Did the Warren Buffett investment machine see some seriously undervalued assets in solar, even as most investors have recently viewed the solar industry as a train wreck? Read More »

In the telecom and Internet worlds, it’s standard to re-route data over different lines when one path is overloaded. But not so much, when it comes to the power grid. However, a newly-emerged startup called Varentec, backed by Khosla Ventures, is looking to change all that. Read More »

First Solar has broken its own record. The company announced Tuesday that it’s able to produce a thin-film solar panel that can convert 14.4 percent of the sunlight that hits it into electricity. The new record exceeds the 13.4 percent it achieved last year. Read More »

The turning of the new year didn’t make the solar industry any easier for solar manufacturers. Power electronics maker, Satcon Technology, announced Wednesday that it’s laying off 35 percent of its workers and shutting down its factory in Canada. Read More »

Cell phones are one of the few products that have found mass success in developing countries. So why not use the model to sell other stuff, like solar power? That’s the idea behind Simpa Networks, a startup based in Bangalore, India. Read More »

A startup that makes materials that can convert heat into electricity plans to develop a solar hot water heater using its materials that could go on sale next year. The device will be the first product from GMZ Energy, which recently raised $14 million in funding. Read More »

Thin film solar startup SoloPower continues to fund-raise, amid a difficult market for next-gen solar manufacturers. According to a filing, SoloPower has just raised $20 million in debt and options that will help provide fuel for the company’s factory to mass-produce its solar panels. Read More »

More Must Reads

“It’s year one for solar in India,” says Alan Rosling, the chairman and executive director of Kiran Energy, a solar developer startup based in Mumbai. Kiran Energy has 75 MW’s worth of solar contracts; that makes it the largest solar-specific player in India. Read More »

Suggesting that the failure of Solyndra represents the end of the U.S. solar industry is as preposterous as suggesting that the fall of Friendster means the end of social media, or that the Bear Stearns bankruptcy means that the finance industry in America is finished. Read More »

As a result of the bankruptcies of Solyndra and Beacon Power, the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program is now under heavy scrutiny. But a new Bloomberg report digs into the numbers and finds the program is a lot more successful than it has seemed. Read More »

Vineeth Vijayaraghavan is the founder and editor of a site focused on cleantech in India, Panchabuta, and here’s what he’s been watching, reading, and writing about this week. Read More »

The big question for SolarCity when it didn’t secure a federal loan guarantee for an ambitious project a few months back was this: could it carry on with the plan? The answer is yes. SolarCity will get a $350 million loan from Bank of America . Read More »

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