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 »
ABB plans to buy power inverter leader Power-One for around a billion dollars. The move shows the expected strong growth in solar panel installations, despite the hard times for the solar panel makers themselves. Read more »
A Swedish startup has developed a new technology that it says can boost the efficiency of standard solar panels at a minimal cost using nanowires. Is this the great bright hope for solar manufacturers who have been crippled by the difficult solar market in 2013? Read more »
Even while some of the huge solar thermal plants being built in the deserts are hitting their milestones, others are facing hurdles due to transmission line delays and cost concerns. Meanwhile solar panel farms, particularly of utility scale, reached a record in 2012. Read more »
A new solar inverter has been developed by a quiet startup called Empower Micro Systems, which could land on the market by the end of the year. The company’s CCO says the tech could disrupt the landscape. Read more »
Solar panels are breaking through into the mainstream. Last year there were a record-breaking amount of panels installed on rooftops in the U.S. making solar the fastest growing source of energy in the U.S. Read more »
Now that SolarCity is publicly-traded it’s got the quarterly numbers game to play. In its first earnings report post-IPO SolarCity’s shares drop on quarter loss. Read more »
eBay has released a trove of information about the efficiency of its data centers, and plans to do so quarterly as part of a mission to continuously track computing resources and tie them to bigger business goals. Read more »
Once hot thin film solar startup Nanosolar has done a round of layoffs — which could be substantial — following a major down round last year. So goes the trend of the once promising next-gen solar panel maker startups. Read more »
China is emerging as a massive market for solar panels, not just the world’s solar panel supplier. As of Q4 2012, China has been buying a third of the world’s solar panels. 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 »
While opportunities abound for solar installers, marketers and service companies, the companies that make solar wafers, cells and panels will face an ugly crunch in 2013. There will be 70 percent less of these firms by the end of 2013, according to a report. Read more »
In less than a day, startup Solar Mosaic says its first publicly available solar roof projects have been 100 percent funded. Can crowd-funding revolutionize solar? Read more »
Who wants to make money off of solar roofs? Startup Solar Mosaic is making that possible starting Monday morning, when California and New York residents can put money into solar projects and, the company says, earn a 4.5 percent annual return. Kind of like a mutual fund. Read more »
Can bacteria that live at the bottom of the ocean provide secrets for how to boost the efficiency of solar panels? Certain bacteria can use photosynthesis to harvest 100 percent of the trace amounts of light they encounter. Read more »
Following one of the only successful cleantech IPOs of the year, solar installer and financier SolarCity says it will grow its solar rooftops next year to 250 MW, up from 156 MW in 2012. Can it achieve profitability at the same time? Read more »
Solar panels that can be integrated right into roofs and walls could provide a bright spot in a difficult solar market over the next five years, according to a new report from Pike Research. Read more »
From low silicon and solar module prices to a rising amount of solar panels installed on rooftops, these five charts show that the future of solar is brighter than ever, despite the difficult times for solar manufacturers in 2012. Read more »
Amidst rampant solar manufacturing bankruptcies, thin film solar startup Stion has raised a $25 million equity round, of a planned $55 million round. At the same time the company is cutting costs and laid off a small amount of workers. Read more »
Selling solar panels and projects into China is notoriously tricky for American solar makers — the market is already flooded with low cost Chinese solar panels, and domestic suppliers seem to carry favor. What’s the answer? Baby steps: joint ventures and pilots seem like the way to go. Read more »
A Serbian startup called Strawberry Energy has a new design for its solar powered public chargers and recently installed its eighth “Strawberry Tree” in Serbia. In the wake of the Sandy-induced power crunch, I’d love to see some of these in a public areas in cities in the U.S. Read more »
After 4 days without power thanks to Hurricane Sandy, something arrived today that will help keep my mobile devices fully charged and connected to the web. I backed a Fenix ReadySet on Kickstarter, which is a large battery that charges with an included solar panel. Read more »
Solar startup Alta Devices, which makes thin film solar cells and is backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, says it plans to make a fast-charging solar iPad cover by the end of 2013. Read more »
Do data centers that run on clean power seem like pipe dreams? Not when companies hit the massive scales of webscale computing. Execs creating business models from green data centers say that it’s the large size of the projects that makes clean power attractive. Read more »
SolarCity publicly disclosed its documents for its planned IPO on Friday, giving us a look at some of its risk factors. Those include that the company is being investigated by the Inspector General about the Treasury Grant program. Read more »
China’s clean energy strategy is in “disarray” due to an oversupply of solar panels and a price war. That means there’s massive consolidation coming. Read more »
IKEA says it will only sell LED lighting by 2016, and will give up all other less efficient forms of lighting. The news follows IKEA phasing out incandescent lighting, getting rid of plastic bags, and putting solar panels on its rooftops. Read more »
Electric car maker Tesla has quietly built out solar-powered rapid electric car chargers at six locations around California and has plans to install many more next year. The tech, which uses a solar system from SolarCity, will be offered for free for Model S owners. Read more »
Solar startup Semprius says it will open its first factory in North Carolina next week. The company makes solar modules for solar concentrating systems, which use mirrors to focus light onto solar cells. Other startups that make this type of technology have struggled in recent months. Read more »
Here’s ABB’s side of the story, explaining why it decided to pull out of its investment with solar startup GreenVolts: the uncertainty in the solar panel market. Read more »
A TV station in North Carolina snapped these still video clips of the solar farm being built next to Apple’s data center. It looks like it’s getting close to being completed. Read more »
One less reason to hate Walmart — the retail behemoth uses the most solar panel systems out of any other company in the U.S. Collectively companies and governments in the U.S. are delivering 2.3 GW of solar power, mostly on the rooftops of their buildings. Read more »
Solar panel power projects in the U.S. are a bright spot for the solar sector, in a difficult year for solar manufacturing. Read more »
An underwater swimming solar robot FTW! Courtesy of AeroVironment. Read more »
Developers of renewable-energy projects frequently spend more time obtaining permits than the actual projects. Such delays — often unanticipated — pose serious financial risks. But several key steps will help developers navigate successfully through the thicket of nonuniform regulations, jurisdictions, and lawsuits that await them. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
First Solar is looking to double down on building solar projects, not just be a panel supplier, in India in the wake of the wide sweeping grid blackouts of the Summer. Read more »
The more sunlight a solar cell can convert into electricity, the cheaper the solar power. Companies like IBM are turning to new materials to try to break efficiency barriers for solar cells. Read more »
Silicon Valley solar startup AQT Solar is the latest thin film solar company to struggle: the company is reportedly looking to sell its assets. Just earlier this year the company raised more funding and planned to make 30 MW of its solar cells by mid year. Read more »
Startups that are developing off grid clean power devices are turning to Kickstarter to kick start production. The latest is Peppermint Energy, which has created a “utility in a box” solar device. Read more »
Data centers consume around 1.5 percent of total electricity demand, a figure that’s expected to increase significantly. To cut power and costs tech titans like Google, Apple, and Facebook are cutting electricity use by greening their data centers. But do energy-efficiency gains justify huge capital outlays? Read more at GigaOM Pro »
