This is getting real, folks. California legislators voted this week to advance two different bills that open up access to solar to the 75+ percent of energy customers who can’t put it on their own roof. Here’s the skinny on the two bills and what we need you to do to make sure shared solar becomes a reality in California this legislative session. (more…)

The first solar projects from California’s Renewable Auction Mechanism (RAM) are now online. This is some of the world’s lowest-cost solar, now up and running.

For those that need a primer, the RAM is a 1.3 gigawatt program to procure renewable projects (more…)

On January 24, the California Public Utitlies Commission will vote on an important precedent for using renewables to enhance grid reliability.

Grid reliability requires that there be a certain amount of local generation–known in wonkspeak as ‘local capacity requirements’, or LCR. (more…)

California power utilities are now achieving more than 20 percent of the state’s electricity needs with renewable energy sources, state regulators say. In its latest quarterly report, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said that the state met 20.6 percent of its electricity demand with renewable sources — including wind, solar, and geothermal — (more…)

1.255 GW of solar power is now generated from more than 122,000 rooftops across California. The migration to solar by low- and middle-income homeowners is the main reason behind the popularity of solar power in the Golden State. The data is revealed in the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) 2012 California Solar Initiative (more…)

Today we’re celebrating an interim win for California rooftop solar along with our partners at SEIA, IREC and the Sierra Club. Together we have been working to encourage the utility regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to clarify the methodology being used to calculate the cap on the state’s net metering program, that billing (more…)

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week approved seven grants totaling up to $7.65 million in funding for the California Solar Initiative (CSI) Research, Development, Deployment, and Demonstration (RD&D) Program’s third grant solicitation. The latter’s primary focus is on grid integration of solar energy and a secondary focus is (more…)

Our electricity system is designed around central station, dispatchable (i.e. they turn on at the flip of a switch) generators. Transitioning to a system that is principally powered by renewable energy, many of which have variable production profiles, will require changes. (more…)

Sunny California is prime real estate for solar energy, and a number of California rebates make home solar systems highly affordable for Golden State residents. The only downside to these programs is that some have limited funding. Homeowners interested in solar panels will want to act soon to take full advantage of all the savings. (more…)

Remember that special charge that SDG&E wanted to impose only on people that invested in solar? The one that would have made it much harder to go solar? (Here was our take and here was CCSE’s)

Many parties (including Vote Solar) intervened, arguing it was not only bad for solar and bad for San (more…)