Ben Willis

The need for solar to find new ways of staying competitive in the US is increasing as a the pace of hardware cost reductions slows. Ben Willis looks at efforts going on to tackle some of the persistently high soft costs involved in US solar development

California regulators are set to decide today on the future of the state’s flagship solar net metering programme.

The UK saw almost 4GW of solar installed in 2015 and a final-quarter rush ahead of planned cuts to key support regimes in early 2016.

New York is to invest US$5 billion in clean energy over the next decade under plans outlined yesterday by the state governor Andrew Cuomo.

A “narrow focus” on the initial costs of energy storage is leading to misconceptions about the true value of the technology, a report has concluded.

The US Department of Energy is to fund six projects trialling the combination of solar and energy storage.

Researchers have completed a study that seeks to pinpoint the factors behind why the price of solar systems in some areas of the US is significantly lower than others.

The first of the annual round of PV market reports of 2016 has pegged deployment last year at 51GW. The figure falls short of most 2015 forecasts and looks set to reopen the perennial debate about the big-picture market data available to the global solar industry.

Two Las Vegas residents have launched a class action lawsuit against utility NV Energy following recent moves to restrict net metering payments to solar customers in the state.

German manufacturer SolarWorld has achieved 22.04% conversion efficiency in a PERC solar cell.