residential

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.

Illinois utility groups Exelon/ComEd are attempting to pass a legislative energy bill that would implement a mandatory demand charge and could result in “the largest rate hike in US history”, according to Dave Lundy from the BEST Coalition.

Direct ownership of solar panels is set to overtake leasing in 2017 for the first time since 2011, according to new analysis by GTM Research.