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 »
While the massive blackouts in India are focusing attention on the opportunities for clean power in India, the country already has many solar projects under way. Here are some of the most notable and promising efforts. Read more »
This is what it feels like inside Ivanpah, the world’s largest solar thermal farm under construction. We drive along the solar mirror fields, take an elevator to the top of one of the 450-foot towers, and peek inside the assembly building at. Read more »
![MiaSole_0876[1]](http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/miasole_08761-e1285007255128.jpg?w=210&h=140&crop=1)
Despite raising $500 million in funding for its thin film solar panel technology, Miasole is restructuring and laying off around 200 people, according to a report. Read more »
Walmart will be getting battery storage combined with its solar panels, courtesy of SolarCity. It’s a big deal because battery grid storage has been prohibitively expensive and is still in an early stage. Read more »
From nine stories up the 450 foot tower at the Ivanpah solar thermal farm, the tens of thousands of mirrors look like metallic chiclets, and the workers like Doozers walking amongst them. The first of its kind solar site is in a full construction boom. Read more »
In India, like in the United States, the power sector is the single largest user of water – more than agriculture. Presuming that India could solve its power problems and build more coal, they would run out of fresh water even faster. Read more »
California’s three large utilities are building out clean power, like solar, at a breakneck pace. They’ve got a mandate to hit by 2020, and it’s coming on fast. Read more »
A solar startup with a new type of technology, and funding from Kleiner Perkins and the Department of Energy, has closed its factory in Las Vegas after 14 months, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. Read more »
Why can’t there be a solar panel rooftop system that works as easily as your TV: no professional installation, no permits, just plug it in and start it up? Read more »
Apple’s new $1 billion data center — one of the highest-profile new data centers in the world — has put the town of Maiden, North Carolina (population: just over 3,000) on the tech map. But it almost didn’t get built. Read more »
As the world demands more clean energy, will North Carolina — and its power that largely comes from coal and nuclear — continue to attract these types of data center deals? Or will areas that can provide more grid-connected clean power win out? Read more »
One of the largest solar conferences in the U.S., Intersolar, kicked off on Tuesday in downtown San Francisco, and is expected to draw around 22,000 attendees in the solar and power sectors this week. Here’s photos of the latest solar gear shown across two floors. Read more »
Today in cleantech, we bring you the soft costs of solar, some awesome new research reports and content on electric cars, and the news of the day. Read more »
Zipcar tweaks its pricing (a sign of increasing competition), scientists peg the cost of climate change at $1,240 trillion, and there’s a new fuel cell outta an MIT lab that uses vanadium oxide as the anode to both generate and store energy. Today in cleantech! Read more »
You might not be James Bond, but you could be mistaken for him if you carry Vodafone’s Booster Brolly: With a dozen solar panels, the umbrella can charge a phone while also boosting cellular reception and later lighting your path with the touch of a button. Read more »
The market for solar panels might be booming in the U.S., but it’s still early days for matching battery systems with solar panel installations. But that’s not stopping battery maker Saft from looking to make batteries a natural extension of a solar panel system. Read more »
The U.S. solar market is shaping up to be larger than anticipated and could end up installing nearly 3.3 GW of solar panels in 2012, a roughly 18 percent jump from the previous forecast of 2.8 GW, according to a report released Wednesday. Read more »
Now that solar startup BrightSource Energy has ditched its IPO plans, some might think the company has dropped off the radar. But there’s actually some interesting things — some positive, some not so positive — going on with the company this week. Check out this latest news: Read more »
Solar startup Konarka’s bankruptcy, announced last week, wasn’t just the latest case of the solar industry being hit by the dropping cost of silicon, and cheap modules and panels from China. The company’s technology just “could not compete on cost, efficiency, or lifetime,” says Lux Research. Read more »
Use data, analytics and mapping to help more solar panels get installed on more rooftops — that’s the idea behind startup Geostellar, which this week closed on almost $14 million in equity funding and options. Read more »
Many of India’s solar projects are being connected to the grid to generate power for cities. But some companies are looking to build businesses off of solar for off-grid rural India, including solar developer SunEdison, which announced a new rural solar project in India on Wednesday. Read more »
California regulators on Thursday essentially increase the amount of solar power generation that could qualify for net metering, but they left unresolved a contentious issue over whether people who don’t have solar or other renewable energy systems are subsidizing those who do. Read more »
Amonix, which makes concentrating solar photovoltaic tech that uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells, will cut 76 workers across its offices in California, according to a Dow Jones Venture Wire report. Read more »
Building a startup that develops solar-powered microgrids in rural Indian villages is as hard as it sounds. Hear the lessons learned from one entrepreneur who co-founded a startup called Mera Gao Power and turned it into a real business. Read more »
Finally the worlds of big data geeks and clean energy nerds have collided. Researchers have proposed building a “GreenHadoop,” that is a version of the MapReduce programming framework that could manage a data center’s computing workload to optimize clean energy from a solar system. Read more »
A startup called GELI, lead by battery guru Ryan Wartena, has developed an operating system and software for grid batteries and plans to launch its beta software in the coming weeks. Think of it like the Android for energy. Read more »
The Kickstarter for solar, Solar Mosaic, is just about to launch the truly disruptive part of its business: this Summer the startup plans to start offering people a way to buy into rooftop solar panel projects, and make back a return on their investment over time. Read more »
Solar bellwether First Solar has two pieces of big news out of its earnings on Thursday: a new CEO with deep experience with conventional power and a new 5-year plan to transform the company into a power plant developer. Read more »
Six smart grid projects you don’t see everyday courtesy of Smart Grid News. Read more »
The story behind why solar thermal company BrightSource Energy pulled its IPO: basically because it could. Read more »
Despite the series of withdrawals of greentech IPOs this month, solar rooftop installer SolarCity announced on Monday that it is planning for an IPO. Will it fare better than the other greentech IPO hopefuls this month? Read more »
India is struggling to add more electricity capacity for the country’s rapidly growing economy, but the domestic coal industry is an absolute mess. That situation means that India could possibly be one of the most high-growth solar markets in the world. Read more »
Buried in last week’s catfight between Apple and Greenpeace over the energy sourcing for Apple’s new North Carolina data center and how clean it would be, was a surprising fact — that the conversation between Apple and Greenpeace was happening at all. Read more »
India is testing out an idea that marries solar panels with irrigation canals and conserves land and water. Read more »
It looks like the end times are near for U.S. support for cleantech, at least according to a report out from the Breakthrough Institute, the Brookings Institution and the World Resources Institute. Read more »
The Indian state of Gujarat — a hot bed of solar power development over the past year — will throw a big party on Thursday to celebrate the commissioning of 600 MW of solar energy projects over just one year. Read more »
In the wake of Solar Trust’s recent bankruptcy, conservatives were eager to brand the company’s collapse as another Solyndra. Cleantech has become highly politicized, so much so that Obama’s first reelection ad was a defense of his clean energy policy. Read more »
SunPower, whose fight for survival forced it to find a new owner and embark on a significant cost-reduction plan, said on Monday that it will stop producing cells at one of its factories to save money. Read more »
