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 dramatic news last Wednesday that the $3 billion U.S. solar industry bellwether First Solar was exiting subsidy-dependent markets and instead shifting focus toward utilities was a sobering indicator of what the subsidy environment will look like in the next few years. First Solar’s new strategy ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Another dark cloud is waiting for solar companies: the decline of government incentives that in the past have pumped the growth of the solar market worldwide. The United Kingdom, for example, plans to halve its subsidies for solar panels in 2012. Read more »
Germany has sprinted ahead of the U.S. when it comes to embracing clean energy and becoming the world’s largest solar market. That means Germany has learned some lessons that the U.S. could benefit from, including ways to drive down the cost of solar electricity fast. Read more »
California has led the country in solar policy and solar rooftop installations, but keeping its lead won’t be easy. The president of California Public Utilities Commission, Michael Peevey, laid out some of the challenges to promote renewable energy generation by homes, businesses, schools and government agencies. Read more »
American manufacturers, project developers and policy makers have always had a keen interest in feed-in tariffs, which guarantee premium rates for renewable electricity. The U.K. indicated Monday that it will likely cut the pricing for large-scale solar projects because it wants to promote smaller, rooftop installations. Read more »
California’s new Renewable Auction Mechanism (RAM) represents an important new move for the state into a feed-in tariff model for solar, wind and other renewable power — but with some critical twists. What are the advantages, and the potential drawbacks, of this reverse auction FiT model? ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Many solar energy advocates are enamored with the concept of a feed-in tariff for the U.S. market, but increasingly, the idea just doesn’t seem a good fit. The latest evidence of that comes from the Canadian province of Ontario. Read more »
Here are three strategies by First Solar for 2011: keeping its solar panel prices low to encourage its customers to open new markets, use its project development business to offset any drop in solar panel sales, and build new factories like mad. Read more »
The UK government unveiled major spending cuts today, taking bites out of welfare benefits and other public programs while pledging to provide £2.2 billion pounds (about $3.5 billion USD) for renewable energy and carbon capture projects and preserving a feed-in tariff for solar power. Read more »
California state regulators have spent the last few years trying to revise a program that was meant to boost small-scale renewable energy generation but wasn’t popular because it wasn’t lucrative enough to attract many takers. Now, a new proposal has emerged. Read more »
The launch of Bloom Energy’s fuel cells has refocused the energy industry on just how to get this decades-old technology to compete on a cost basis with traditional forms of energy generation. For most fuel cell makers, that means finding niche markets — data centers, perhaps, […] Read more »
It’s a question we hear all the time: Why doesn’t California have a German-style feed-in tariff for the solar industry? German utilities pay a high price for any solar electricity fed into the grid, with the cost distributed among the country’s ratepayers. The much-esteemed policy made […] Read more »
Well, this is a fine how do you do. Today Palm just kicked Sprint in the groin while improving its own outlook greatly. Sprint is now rolling around on the ground thanks to the announcement that Verizon will sell Palm’s Pre in “about six months.” Sprint […] Read more »
Playing with Auto-Tune has become a ticket to fame for artists like T-Pain and a major boon to those imitating them, but taking the audio-pitch-manipulation technology and applying it to non-musical footage is something fairly original to Michael Gregory (schmoyoho on YouTube). A Brooklyn-based musician currently […] Read more »
