In an interesting case of ancillary legal wrangling, DuPont has filed a declaratory judgment (DJ) action asking an Oregon federal court to declare that the company’s press release and customer letters about its patent infringement suit against Heraeus Precious Metals (Heraeus) does not violate unfair competition laws.

The DuPont DJ complaint describes a dispute arising (more…)

A Greentech Media piece picked up an interesting item: a recently filed class action lawsuit accusing residential solar provider Sunrun of making deceptive statements about the rising cost of electricity to make its solar installations more attractive to consumers.

The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, (more…)

We hear a lot about grid parity, don’t we? That’s the point at which the cost of energy generated by solar, wind, and other renewables is the same as that generated from conventional sources. The author of this article on Sharp Electronics new 43.5%-efficient solar cell writes: “Sharp shattered the efficiency record with its concentrator triple-junction compound solar cell, (more…)

PACE programs have been waiting for the FHFA to finalize their court-ordered rulemaking on residential PACE efforts (background here). Today, the court approved FHFA’s request for an extension of the deadline for issuance of the final rule to September 16, 2013. FHFA must submit a status report by June 1, 2013. The status (more…)

Solar energy company SolarCity and automaker Honda have joined forces to increase access to solar power for their customers. The partnership establishes an investment fund to finance $65 million in solar projects to assist Honda and Acura (Honda’s luxury division) customers with the initial cost of solar power installation. Millions of Honda and Acura customers (more…)

It used to be — way back in history, like 2008 — that the biggest barrier to growing solar markets was the cost of the modules. Since then, module costs have come down around 80% — to the point that hardware costs are no longer the largest part of the overall cost of a solar system. (more…)

Frequent commenter and alternative fuels expert Ben Thorp responds to my piece on electric transportation the other day, noting:

Energy efficiency … may be the largest issue if saving fossil fuel or the global environment is a major concern. The US utility energy efficiency has been (more…)

No company has done greater damage to the image of the American solar industry than Solyndra. It was therefore a source of great delight to me last week as I drove along Interstate 880 through Fremont, CA for what I didn’t see. The signs on the old factory were gone. Those persistent thorns in the side of American solar, had finally vanished, closing (more…)

IKEA has expanded its solar power portfolio with the installation of a new system at its has South Florida store in the city of Sunrise. The installation also marks the 35th completed solar project for the company in the U.S., with four installations at four more locations now in progress. (more…)

The San Francisco 49ers just announced plans for a 400 kW solar array at their new stadium. Going solar and going to the Super Bowl – coincidence? At Vote Solar we think not.

In addition to beer, brats and overpriced memorabilia, stadiums across the US are delivering fans clean (more…)