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Business model innovations have been crucial for the solar industry in recent years. Community solar — where people can buy into community…
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Business model innovations have been crucial for the solar industry in recent years. Community solar — where people can buy into community…
The solar financier and installer chaired by Elon Musk, SolarCity, has filed a lawsuit in Arizona federal court claiming that the Arizona…
Solar installer and financier SolarCity announced on Thursday that it plans to raise a $750 million fund to invest in installing solar…
A renaissance of creativity around developing innovations for energy has emerged in the wake of Silicon Valley’s cleantech bust in the U.S.…
By the end of 2014, solar installer and financier (and soon to be solar panel manufacturer) SolarCity had installed about 1 GW…
The building that once housed one of the biggest crash and burn stories in Silicon Valley — Solyndra and its tubular rooftop…
Inside a sunlit, cramped office near San Francisco’s financial district, entrepreneur and former political operative Susan Kennedy has been leading a team…
The growth rate for jobs in the solar industry last year was almost 20 times higher than the national average employment growth…
SunPower is looking to consumer web brands like Dell, as well as Uber and Amazon, to deliver better solar sales.
The solar industry is no longer dominated by the solar module price crash. Now it’s looking to innovations in energy storage and soft costs, including financing.
Solexel hopes to achieve something that has eluded so many startups: successfully launching a new solar technology using good ol’ silicon and engineering lighter cells.
Samsung’s acquisition of SmartThings is the latest move toward a more open smart home. Meanwhile batteries, fuel cells and solar panels are all making clean power a reality.
A lot of ink has been spilled on the similarities of SolarCity and Tesla’s planned factories. But there’s some major differences, too.
SolarCity has struck a deal with the state of New York to build Elon Musk’s “other” massive factory.
One day Tesla’s huge factory could be energy independent, but probably not to start.
New tools for home energy — from a solar roof to better insulation — are leading to big growth for a six-year-old startup in New England.
As SunPower moves into SolarCity’s market, SolarCity moves into SunPower’s. How a young business model upstart and a three-decade old solar maker morphed into unusual competitors.
SolarCity has jumped solidly into solar manufacturing, becoming an even more vertically integrated company.
Will solar ever be as easy as buying a TV? Well, no. But it can get a whole lot easier.
NRG Energy is kicking off its home rooftop solar plans by acquiring Roof Diagnostics Solar.
Can NRG be as effective as Google, Amazon, Apple or Facebook in the energy space?
Are the combination of solar panels and grid batteries so powerful that they’re causing utilities to block them? Or are the utilities just moving slowly?
Just how there were winners and losers in the telecom sector, there’s starting to be some truly disruptive successful startups that will make money on both sides of the coming energy transition.
SolarCity ticks off its many accomplishments in 2013 — including a pioneering move to sell notes backed by its solar projects — while it faces tougher competition from rivals who also are beefing up their financing and installation services.
SunPower had a break out year in 2013 and now is looking to see significant growth this year, including expansion of its home solar leasing program.
Introducing a drop dead simple way to see if solar panels would work — and be economical — on your rooftop.
A young startup is building a business around installing solar panels and batteries. Innovation in the energy industry isn’t just about new technologies, it’s about new business models, too.
The energy fund of private equity group Silver Lake has managed to raise $650 million for later stage energy and resource management companies. It’s been a difficult road for cleantech funding in recent years.
A direct marketing company majority-owned by Guthy-Renker — the Proactiv infomercial folks — is being acquired by solar panel installer SolarCity. It’s time for solar panels to enter the modern marketing age.
Down the road, the utility sector could be totally fracked (power joke) if they don’t embrace and enable new cleaner, distributed, and digitally-managed technologies for the grid.
Solar energy is playing a growing role in the military’s grand plan to use more clean power and rely less on local utilities to supply power to its bases.
Is there a turn around happening in the world of cleantech startups and investing? According to the latest numbers from the Cleantech Group, yes, but take that with a grain of salt.
As a boom of solar panels continues to be installed on buildings throughout the U.S., companies, groups and even every day people can make money off of funding this clean energy transition.
SunPower plans to sell lithium ion batteries — or other energy storage technology — bundled with solar panels. The move follows other solar companies into the energy storage space.
Solar financier Clean Power Finance has raised a large round of $37 million from Valley investors Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures and Claremont Creek. Solar financing and installations are one of the bright spots in the solar sector.
If NRG Energy starts offering solar leasing options to home owners and small businesses, it would represent the mainstreaming of solar roofs and also likely disrupt the current sector filled with a variety of smaller players.
Solar-as-a-service is dominating the market for home solar panel systems and the companies that pioneered these financing models are now seeing the pay back for those early moves.
SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive says the company’s IPO was so touch and go in the 11th hour that at one point the team had actually booked tickets to fly back to San Francisco from New York.
Clean Power Finance is releasing a federally-funded survey to quantify the challenges solar installers face when they try to get all the necessary permits to construct solar electric systems and connect them to the local grid.
If SolarCity does manage to debut in its expected range, it would represent one of the rare venture-backed cleantech IPOs that have emerged over the years.
Solar installer and financier SolarCity has set the terms for its planned IPO, and plans to sell 10.1 million shares at between $13 and $15 per share. At the midpoint the company would raise $141 million.
SolarCity started off as an installer of small solar electric systems on residential and commercial rooftops. It’s since moved into new lines of businesses, including the construction of solar farms for utilities.
SolarCity filed to go public in April, but we are only now getting a glimpse of its IPO plan. The company is proposing to raise roughly $201 million and join the NASDAQ family.
According to a new report out on Monday, traditionally Republican and Swing states are showing the most growth in green jobs. That’s pretty surprising if you’ve been listening to all the Solyndra and anti-green job rhetoric of the election cycles.
The path to winning over solar customers is through integrating data. San Francisco startup Genability began knitting together a collection of complex electric rates from utilities across the country, and its customers use the data to show how much could be saved by going solar.
Energy storage companies, like battery makers, and solar firms have been talking about the possible marriage of the two technologies for some time. And the union will likely be a big theme at Intersolar, one of the biggest solar energy trade shows in the U.S.
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.
Software tools are becoming more important –and attracting more investments — with the greater use of clean power gear, from solar and wind devices to batteries for energy storage. Here’s a look at 6 software opportunities, from energy forecasts to performance monitoring to marketing and sales.
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.
Investors may not be so keen to put money into solar manufacturing these days, but they are pumping quite a bit of money into the solar retail sector. Sunrun is benefitting from this investor sentiment and announced Wednesday that it’s raised a $60 million in equity.
The federal government’s decision yesterday to slap fairly hefty tariffs on Chinese solar panels has prompted worries about a big rise in costs for consumers to go solar. But the impact will not likely be as significant for two reasons.
Gen110 started out as a solar sales and marketing company in 2009, and now it plans to add other residential energy services and has lined up Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as an investor to help its expansion, Gen110 said Thursday.
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?
Electric car company Tesla and solar roof installer SolarCity have quietly been making deals that could one day lead to dozens of sales of battery projects coupled with rooftop solar systems built at both residential and commercial buildings in California.
SolarCity isn’t content with being just an installer of solar panels on rooftops. The company, which reportedly has plans to go public, has expanded beyond solar to a broader set of energy-related services, including upgrading air conditioners and insulating air ducts.
The global solar market added 27.7 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaic systems in 2011, a 70 percent increase over 2010, according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA). Europe continues to be the biggest solar market. Germany and Italy accounted for nearly 60 percent of the new installations in 2011, according to the EPIA. As the European market matures, manufacturers and developers are exploring new territories. The United States, along with China and India, are the upstarts, thanks to their solar-friendly policies.
Solar service provider Sungevity under went some serious expansion in 2011 as it began to target the East Coast and overseas, and lined up Lowe’s as an investor and partner. Now following that growth, the startup has started raising a new funding round of $40.8 million.
Solar tech companies have suffered in 2011, and a speedy recovery in 2012 doesn’t seem likely. But the market holds huge potential for growth, and this dark time shall pass. Here is our look at solar trends to watch for in 2012.
A complaint accusing Chinese solar cell and module manufacturers of flooding the U.S. market with unfairly low-priced goods cleared a hurdle to move forward Friday with a 6-0 vote by the U.S. International Trade Commission.
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 .
Solar power and electric cars are an ideal match. Both are tied to the grid, and disruptive technologies, which are in an early market stage and which are trying to reduce costs. Partnerships just make sense.
The solar market has been marked by falling profits and controversial federal government loans this year, but one bright spot is the growth of the residential and small commercial solar sector in which investors are setting up more funds to financial installations.
Car sharing continues to roar on as one of the most tangible ways in which we’re seeing an ideal of the cleantech movement—reducing resource consumption—finding market appeal. Capital flowed to peer-to-peer car sharing startup Getaround, Zipcarhit college campuses and strengthened its ties with Ford, and Hertz got further into the game.
A Department of Energy loan guarantee program that has attracted unwanted attention through its Solyndra deal is ending today, and the DOE is marking the occasion by finalizing billions of dollars of loan guarantees to First Solar (s FSLR), SunPower (s SPWRA) and Prologis (s PLD).
On Friday, the DOE announced the closing of three loan guarantees, but also said solar installer SolarCity won’t be securing a loan guarantee for a military solar housing project. SolarCity said they lost the loan guarantee partly because of an investigation into the Solyndra loan.
The largest residential rooftop in the U.S. history is coming. Energy Secretary Steve Chu announced its arrival on Wednesday with a partial guarantee of a $344 million loan to put solar panels on military housing and other buildings over the next five years.
Clean Power Finance, a solar software and financing startup, has raised $19 million from investors, according to a filing. Investors listed on the company’s filing include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Partner Ben Kortlang, and Claremont Creek’s Nat Goldhaber.
More solar panels are sprouting from the rooftops these days, along with an increasing number of equipment models and installers. Yet there is no good consumer guide to help people compare shop and avoid scams. The time has come to create one.
SolarCity, which has lined up investors such as Google to finance solar panel installations, is looking for money to run its business operations. The installer is seeking a $42 million round and has bagged about $14.8 million, according to its government filing Friday.
Google is emerging as the ultimate clean power sugar daddy. On Tuesday, Google announced it has made its largest investment in clean power to date, creating a $280 million fund for rooftop solar panel projects that will be installed by solar company SolarCity.
Big box stores have tried to market solar electric equipment and installation services for years, but they haven’t seen good results. Lowe’s is hoping to change that by offering services from Sungevity and investing in Sungevity.
Solar installer SolarCity continues its expansion plans this week with another acquisition. On Thursday, the company announced that it has acquired the residential solar installer division of groSolar, a solar installer with a large footprint on the East Coast.
Citi isn’t new to investing in solar energy projects, but the bank previously backed solar projects built for businesses and public agencies. But it has now jumped solidly into the residential solar installation market by agreeing to back $40 million in solar installations by SolarCity.
As the consumer solar market grows, so will ideas for building a solar retail empire. Solar Universe certainly has that goal in mind, and it’s announcing Tuesday a $7 million equity investment to expand its franchise network.
First Solar Chairman and former CEO Michael Ahearn is raising a $300 million venture fund, according to an SEC filing. Will the money be going to solar startups, or even cleantech?
A couple of years ago, startup Sungevity set out to provide hassle-free services for homeowners who want to install solar electric systems. Looks like its strategy has paid off: On Wednesday, the company announced it has raised another $15 million.
LG Chem has won its first deal in the utility market — it will supply lithium-ion battery packs for a Southern California Edison energy storage project.
When Walmart decides to invest in emerging green technologies it offers considerable validation. That’s certainly the intention behind Walmart’s announcement that it will pay for solar electricity from installations that use thin film solar panels from MiaSole and First Solar (s FSLR) and are installed by SolarCity.
Can the grid handle the growing flow of wind and solar that will come online in the next few years? According to California’s grid operator the answer is yes, but with a particular attention to energy storage policy.
LaCie’s cloud file storage service Wuala (which Om wrote about quite a while back when it was first launched) has announced the availability of a new feature, Wuala Sync, which allows users to automatically synchronize their files online and across multiple computers and operating systems.
Smart algorithms are the future of the energy industry. Solar installer SolarCity has bought up the assets of home energy efficiency software startup Building Solutions (one of our Green:Net 2010 launchpad startups), the companies announced this morning.
If you own a home or business out West and have been scrounging for the cash to install a solar system on…
As solar panel prices fall, installers’ valuations appear to be climbing. A report from NeXt Up Research that was released Monday on…
I’d say Dell just beat the pants off of my homebrewed Android UMPC. The Dell Streak and its lovely 5-inch multitouch display…
Ready to make that grueling San Francisco to Los Angeles roadtrip . . . in an electric vehicle? Yeah, that doesn’t sound…
It looks like financing for solar projects may be starting to pick up again. Solar installer Borrego Solar Systems is set to…
In the days when a two-guys-in-a-garage startup could morph into a massive public offering with relative ease, SharesPost might have had a…
Hidden in an obscure section of the economic stimulus plan that the U.S. House of Representatives is set to consider next week…
The economy may be giving renewable energy companies plenty to fear in the year to come, but not all the forecasts are…
SolarCity, a solar installer and financier based in Foster City, Calif., has installed one of the country’s first thin-film solar projects on…
Using Behind The Set’s new Kiwi device was a bit nostalgic for me. This small box, which lets you surf the Internet…
On Monday the city of Oakland, and its Mayor Ron Dellums, plan to officially launch the Green Collar Jobs Corps program, which, with the help of Foster City, Calif.-based solar installer startup SolarCity, will provide training and employment opportunities for program graduates.
Residential solar installer SolarCity is looking to differentiate itself from the herd of other installers serving homeowners in the West with its…
The Solar Power International Conference kicks off in San Diego tonight. Earth2Tech has a run down on 10 solar startups exhibiting at the show.
If you want to go solar you better have a good credit score. While power purchase agreements and lease programs are starting…
While we were all out watching fireworks and flipping burgers on the on our nation’s Independence Day, solar installer SolarCity quietly turned…
Perhaps the easiest way to describe EveryScape‘s business plan is “Google Street View, only more so.” When you visit one of their…
Following yesterday’s cloudy performance by solar stocks, this morning some solar players announced a deal that could help them weather the storm.…
Rarely does the tech world see companies who resemble Timex watches in their ability to take a patent lickin’ and keep on tickin’. But the U.S. headquarters of Buffalo Inc. is one such entity.
If you have a mobile phone, you’ve probably tried to type on it; finding it to be a frustrating task. This is…
There are numerous ways to open a new tab in Safari. You can right click on the tab bar, use the keyboard…
Bungee Labs is changing the landscape of utility computing and SaaS billing options by offering pricing based on compute time, bandwidth and…
I visited the Fujitsu site today and was pleasantly surprised to find that the estimated shipping date for my P1620 was moved…
Almost exactly a year ago we wrote about the launch of ClipSyndicate, a widget for spreading relevant news video around the web.…
Warner Crocker has been having InkBlot awards for a few years now and each year they get better and better. He’s made…
Today is drop-dead gorgeous in Houston, Texas. It is 72 degrees with a cloudless blue sky and perfect convertible weather. I am…
We’re written already about virtualization software company “VMWare”:http://www.vmware.com/ and it’s blockbuster IPO earlier this summer, the biggest tech stock offering since Google’s…
No really! Apparently, a prank story on a spanish language website, Canal PDA, indicated that Apple was going to set up its…
Talk about Saturday morning good news bad news. No New York Times delievered this morning, no coffee in the apartment, slight hangover,…
8X8 shares surge after distro deal VoicePulse: 20 Million Minutes Using IAX2 Packet8 VoIP Now Available At Ingram Micro, Navarre Comcast Adopting…