Amid last week's crowded halls at Intersolar in San Francisco, a handful of companies were noticeable by their absence. A track devoted to concentrating solar technologies such as CPV and CSP featured Areva, which carved itself a niche in steam augmentation for existing fossil plants, but failed to attract BrightSource and SolarReserve.
Intersolar attendees weren't sure whether they had been invited to a wake or a wedding yesterday as they heard the global outlook for the solar industry.
California has seen a tale of two IPOs over the past couple of months: one was aborted at the last moment; another was the second largest in US history.
As predicted in this PV Tech blog a couple of months ago, Republican presidential campaigners could not resist dragging the Solyndra saga back into the political spotlight.
In the latest round of The People versus California's Utilities, solar plaintiffs scored a resounding victory last week with a unanimous vote from the state's energy regulators.
No one loves the sun as much as the president of the United States and his energy secretary. Dr Steven Chu took up President Barack Obama's appointment as US Secretary of Energy in 2009 and has since either re-stated existing federal commitments to solar or made fresh commitments to the technology.
As with previous eras of California gold-fever, solar developers might already have exhausted the mines packed with lucrative nuggets of large-scale utility projects. The numbers speak for themselves in the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard, which last year disappointed 94% of proposals from developers.
The US military is not where you'd expect to find America's greatest climate warriors wanting to save the planet. But it's where you will find the country's staunchest allies when it comes to support for renewable energy - because it saves lives. US Department of Defense is the highest consumer of energy in the world with a thirst for 300,000 barrels of oil a day. But reducing the DoD's carbon boot print from the barracks to the battlefield has become mission critical.
Venture capital investors love to use baseball as a metaphor for their wins and losses. The technique to score a home run puts the hitter at risk of being caught out or missing the ball: swinging for the fences is an all-or-nothing strategy.
Net metering is becoming an increasingly divisive issue in the US, with a dividing line as distinct as night and day. Solar companies and their customers count their sunshine dollars earned or saved – utilities count their revenue losses.
