Professor Murphy evaluates solar power from space and the giant hurdles such a scheme would face. On balance, he doesn’t expect to see this technology escape the realm of fantasy and find a place in our world. The expense and difficulty are incommensurate with the gains. Read more »
Clean energy will drive the next wave of economic growth, and will be the first development mechanism in the U.S. since we won the Cold War, said retired General Wesley Clark during a keynote at solar conference PV America West in San Jose Monday. Read more »
Solexant, a Silicon Valley solar thin film startup that once plotted to build its first commercial-scale factory in Oregon, has quietly raised a $30,000 round. Read more »
Utilities don’t often invest in new tech manufacturing, but then, California’s PG&E isn’t your average utility. PG&E has requested state approval to enable it to invest $9.9 million of taxpayer money into a solar engineering and manufacturing service center run by commercialization startup SVTC Technologies. Read more »
There’s a massive cleantech opportunity right now in Japan, and one small way to commemorate those who lost their lives in Fukushima is to create safe and renewable sources of energy fed into a reliable grid infrastructure. Read more »
Cutting down on silicon used in solar panels has been a hotly pursued goal for solar startups. And now a new player is entering the ring: meet Twin Creeks Technologies, which is launching a machine that will dramatically cut the use of silicon in solar cells. Read more »
The fact that two Silicon Valley-backed Bay Area companies appear to be the tech vendors behind Apple’s new pioneering clean power push at its massive data center in North Carolina shows that the greentech venture ecosystem can work — it just takes a long time. Read more »
BrightSource Energy, which builds solar power plants and plans to do an IPO, has completed about a quarter, or 25 percent, of its first project, Ivanpah, which is on schedule to come online next year, the company said in a government filing on Friday. Read more »
Alan Salzman, co-founder of VantagePoint Capital Partners, has two words of advice for investors trying to make money on their cleantech investments in a difficult year: be patient and embrace the enemy. Read more »
Solar panel projects only started to vie for California utilities’ interest in 2007, yet the tech is set to become the largest piece of renewable energy in the state in less than a decade. Check out our charts: Read more »
Solar thin film maker MiaSole is fighting for survival in a solar market that has seen many manufacturers shutter factories over the past year. The startup announced Wednesday that it’s raised $55 million to help it enter a new market and boost its sales staff. Read more »
The future of fresh fruit and vegetables could be disrupted by a new business model of distributed growing and no up front fee “produce purchase agreements.” You know, like a solar PPA with a foodie twist. Read more »
For the 1.4 billion people on the globe without access to electricity, off-the-grid solar isn’t about sticking a PV panel on a rooftop — it’s about getting electricity where there isn’t even a grid to be “off of.” And thanks to efforts from wireless carriers, startups ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For the 1.4 billion people on the globe who don’t have access to electricity, solar’s potential is less about fighting global warming than it is about accessing electricity where there isn’t even an electric grid to be “off of.” Read more »
Apple discloses in an environmental report that it plans a 20 MW solar farm and 5 MW fuel cell project for its data center in North Carolina. Those are sizable clean energy projects. Read more »
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 solar industry has begun 2012 with some trepidation, with many on the warpath to cut costs and reduce output. These moves give the market a chance to reduce inventories and get production more in sync with demand. But recovery will likely come slowly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 game. 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 »
Professor Tom Murphy dives into ocean power and looks at how abundant it is, yet potentially useless in the short term. Read more »
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 »
“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 »
If you like the sun, and you like cars, then I’m guessing you’d love to have a solar-powered car, right? This trick works well for chocolate and peanut butter, but not so well for garlic bread and strawberries. So how compatible are cars with solar energy? Read more »
Morgan Solar, a startup whose technology uses optics to boost solar cells’ power output, said Tuesday it’s lined up $9.8 million to commercialize is technology. Read more »
Concentrating solar photovoltaics use optics to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells to boost energy production. While the tech is still in an early stage, some startups are looking to ramp up, like Fremont, Calif.-based Solaria, which has raised another $30 million. Read more »
With roughly a month to go before a key U.S. solar incentive is set to expire, a familiar phenomenon emerges once again: a rush to install projects. Manufacturers expect to see a big demand, though not necessarily big profits from the boom. Read more »
Despite that Google is ending its efforts to reduce the cost of clean power below coal, we’ve actually made it there. And clean power entrepreneur Jigar Shah says to Google: Thank you for pioneering this, and it’s time to declare it a victory! Read more »
After a couple of years under development, Google has shut down its project to design its own solar mirrors for a centralized solar thermal farm. Now it’s the job of researchers and solar execs to see if there’s anything to use from Google’s solar research. Read more »
Google is officially shutting down its own in-house research initiative and equity investing focus on lowering the cost of clean power, called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, or RE
