What Changed In The Solar Energy Industry In November?

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Moving forward with our monthly What Changed … ? feature, below is a rundown of notable solar energy news — notable changes or findings in the solar industry — during the month of November.


Most importantly, of course, CleanTechnica launched a new Clean Revolution political campaign to help get cleantech leaders elected to political office.

We also launched a new series of shirts, mugs, hoodies, etc., to help spread the cleantech love. Buy those and more in our online shop!

Tesla slashed its home solar prices 10–20% thanks to cost benefits from moving sales into Tesla stores.

sonnen launched a second sonnenCommunity in the US, this time in Manatee County, Florida (which is actually the county I live in).

Sunnova brought its new solar+storage offering to its home state of Texas.

Sunnova also rolled out residential solar insurance nationwide.

Vivint Solar reached 1 gigawatt of rooftop solar power capacity in the US.

Panasonic Eco Solutions has reportedly started “aggressively building out its residential solar installer network on a national basis, seeking to compete more evenly with the likes of Tesla, Sunrun, SunPower, Vivint, and others.”

Research found that home solar loans have passed up third-party financing for rooftop solar systems in 2018. Last year, loans passed up cash to become the second most popular option to pay for home solar power systems.

China is expected to install a total of 40 gigawatts of new solar in 2018, according to fresh new reports. Further, it’s expected the red giant might increase its 2020 solar capacity target to 210 gigawatts.

Global floating solar power capacity passed 1 gigawatt.

UK renewable power capacity hit 42 gigawatts in the third quarter and passed up fossil fuel power capacity.

Nevada raised its renewable electricity standard (requirement) from 15% by 2025 to 50% by 2030.

Maryland published a report indicating that the economic value of solar power in the state over the coming decade would be a whopping $7 billion.

California utilities sped up replacements of natural gas peaker plants with large battery storage units.

California is also reportedly providing rewards for distributed, especially rooftop, solar projects that reduce the “utilities’ needs to invest in upgrading their electricity generation networks.”

The 500 MW Palen Solar Project, after one decade on the table, won federal approval.

NIPSCO, an Indiana utility, estimated that a renewable energy future will save customers $4 billion.

Incoming governors in Connecticut, Maine, Colorado, Illinois,  Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon just elected to office have all pledged to beef up their state’s renewable energy goals,

ACWA solar power plant

ACWA Power in India won a contract for a 250 megawatt solar PV power plant at an extremely low bid of 2.4¢/kWh.

India added 6 gigawatts of solar power capacity in the first half of 2018, a 46% year-over-year increase.

Victoria, an Australian state, announced it would increase its renewable energy target to 50% by 2030. Yep, that’s the same as Nevada’s new target.

Western Australia, another Australian state, started introducing a Tesla, Synergy, + Western Power “PowerBank” community storage system to residents in Meadow Springs who can take part in the trial.

Enel announced an intention to invest €10.6 billion into 11.6 gigawatts of renewable energy in the next 3 years.

Greenpeace Energy, a Germany electric utility, has “proposed a takeover bid for the lignite open-cast mines and power plants currently belonging to German electric utilities company RWE, to shut them down by 2025.” Those power plants would be replaced with wind and solar power plants.

France announced that it would “close the country’s remaining four coal-fired power plants by 2022 and 14 of the country’s 900 MW first-generation nuclear reactors by 2035.” Naturally, they’d be replaced by wind and solar power plants.

According to a new report, RE100 members increased their use of renewable energy 41% from 2016 to 2017 and the initiative keeps growing fast, with 37 new companies “bringing the total up to 155 companies creating demand for a phenomenal 188 terawatt-hours of renewable power each year.”

BNEF found that “unsubsidized solar and onshore wind [have] become the cheapest source of new bulk power in all major economies except Japan.”

Lazard published its Levelized Cost of Energy 12.0 report, showing solar power’s extreme cost competitiveness even without subsidies. (But wind power is still cheaper, on average.)

The Solar Panel Art Series made its way to North America, with a launch in NYC.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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