residential

A pay-to-own solar system provider known as Fenix International has doubled its off-grid customer base in just 12 months of operation.

In this week's Movers & Shakers segment, PV Tech focuses mainly on executive shifts in US solar companies involved in storage, trackers, residential loans and more. The African Development Bank is also revamping its management board, with a new head of Renewables.

Canada's SunCommon partners with Sustainable Energy Developments to provide residential, commercial and community solar in New York, Silicon Ranch closes a US$55 million equity fund, and new solar projects are completed in California and Arizona.

Furniture retailer IKEA is to improve on its solar PV product range later this year after seeing its sales of sustainability products surge in 2016.

Newly-appointed CEO and president of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) Abigail “Abby” Ross Hopper will helm the US’ main solar political lobbying group as it prepares for an unprecedented time of attack under the Trump administration. She caught up with reporters last week, to discuss what her top priorities for the association were.

Mexico's energy ministry is targeting distributed generation with new guidelines to boost small-scale solar and achieve savings. Minnesota and South Carolina break solar records in 2016 and Ikea installs Washington's largest rooftop solar array, while Duke Energy is to build its third PV facility in Florida.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and FMO, the Dutch development bank have invested a collective €14.62 million (US$15.52 million) in Mobisol, a German pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar service company, in order to deliver renewable energy solutions to off-grid communities in East Africa.

Shattering all previous quarterly results, a whopping 4,143MW of solar PV were installed in Q3 2016, at a rate of one megawatt every 32 minutes, according to new analysis by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

Abu Dhabi is in the process of establishing net metering regulations for small-scale solar in the region.

Mosaic, the leading provider of solar loan financing for homeowners, announced the closing of a US$250 million warehouse facility with Deutsche Bank as the arranger and administrative agent. Along with recent upsizes to Mosaic's existing warehouse facility and a forward flow whole loan sale arrangement, this deal with provide Mosaic with US$550 million of new loan funding capacity.