Establishing a single national policy and regulatory standard for residential solar energy systems that grants “homeowners the right to install a standardized, under 10 kW system, using UL-listed components, following National Electrical Code standards, installed by a qualified contractor subject to a single local inspection,” should be the first step taken, SFN contends.
Now that the dust has settled on the Tesla vs. New York Times battlefield, weren’t we just saying that electric vehicles are selling quite well? That’s partly because car manufacturers are pulling out all the stops to get a foothold in the EV market before the competition really heats up. … [continued]
Crowdfunding is all the rage. Clean energy, especially solar, is about as popular as anything. Naturally, clean energy + crowdfunding = a win. We’ve written about a few clean energy crowdfunding opportunities and organizations over the past year or so (see the last section of this article), but the announcement … [continued]
Solar permitting is a b**** in the US. We’ve known that for awhile, but a new report on the matter from Clean Power Finance confirms that. The report (PDF), supported by the Department of Energy SunShot Initiative, comes to the following key findings: Permitting processes vary widely among locales and … [continued]
Other than our own stories (and have a few more of those coming shortly), here’s some top cleantech and climate news from the past day or so: Solar Power Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems Selected to Lead U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Project: “The Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable … [continued]
That light barreling down upon us from the end of the tunnel is solar power as cheap as fossil fuels. The latest breakthrough is a low-cost solar cell manufactured with the help of Gallium Arsenide, a compound of the “poor metal” gallium and arsenic. It definitely does not sound like something … [continued]
Downward pricing for solar projected to continue; soft costs made up 40-50 percent of residential and commercial PV prices in 2010 The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE)’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) jointly released two reports examining solar photovoltaic (PV) pricing in the U.S. … [continued]
Extreme customization usually goes hand in glove with award-winning architecture, but in the case of Daniel Yudchitz’s low-budget Essential House, a modest set of ready-built, plug-n-play solar panels is making all the waves. The solar-powered house has just been named a recipient of an American Institute of Architecture Honor Award, and … [continued]
As we’ve reported several times here on CleanTechnica, German solar is much cheaper than US solar. Clearly, part of that is due to simple economies of scale (Germany has 301.5 MW of solar power installed per million people; the US has 14 MW per million people). Overall, though, from … [continued]
The U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot program has just kicked off a new round in a $10 million solar power competition designed to lower the cost of solar power, pretty much down to where a small rooftop solar installation could be a reasonable investment for practically anyone in the country. If you’re thinking that means building a better solar cell, that’s not it. Instead, the Most Affordable Rooftop Solar Prize is aimed at encouraging the solar industry to figure out ways to lower the “soft costs” of solar power […]
