The US Department of Energy (DOE) has backed teams working on 11 new solar technologies based on micro-CPV (concentrated PV), awarding funding of between just under US$1 million and US$3.5 million to each.
Until clean energy is properly valued in the US, legislation-based storage procurement mandates and solar incentives such as the ITC will remain necessary to support low-carbon technologies like solar and solar-plus-storage, a prominent energy storage industry figure has said.
Lobbyists protecting fossil fuel industry interests including the Koch brothers have been criticised openly by Barack Obama this week for “standing in the way of the future” by attempting to hamper the progress of renewables.
Enphase claims it has continued its “aggressive growth” into the Oceania region with the formation of a distribution agreement with a wholesaler, distributor and training and support company in New Zealand.
Tesla chief Elon Musk purchased US$5 million worth of SolarCity shares a few days after the head of a short-selling hedge fund ignited a war of words with SolarCity’s own CEO, Lyndon Rive.
A senior engineer at Oman’s regulator for water and electricity has recommended the introduction of a feed-in tariff (FiT) programme to foster residential PV deployment in the Sultanate, local reports have said.
A non-profit foundation started up by US installer SolarCity to tackle energy poverty has started accepting public donations for its programmes to put solar-powered lighting in schools.
The solar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) arm of Sterling & Wilson, an Indian mechanical, electrical and plumbing services company, will install its first Philippines-based PV plant.
Grid parity for solar at household level may already have been reached, an advocacy group for renewable energy in Japan has said. At the same time, the first nuclear reactor to be fired up in Japan since the Fukushima crisis went online on Tuesday.
