Renewable energy advocates always say that official incentive is key to promote the adoption of clean energy. Ukraine, in Eastern Europe, is the latest case in point.

According to a Bloomberg report, the country’s solar power capacity will double this year, thanks to the completion of Europe’s largest PV solar plant and (more…)

Google announced last week that it has agreed to make its first clean energy project investment in Europe. The company will be injecting US$5 million into a solar photovoltaic plant in Germany.

According to Google’s European Policy blog, the transaction still requires the formal approval of the German authorities (more…)

What does solar cost? Pricing on utility contracts is often opaque–and there are some good reasons for this (e.g. to promote competition). An exception to this is in Nevada, where there are legal requirements to reveal contracts. Our friends at Evolution Markets recently sent out an email that culled some publicly available data. (more…)

U.S. officials are expected to approve by this fall what would be the world’s biggest solar power plant, a 1,000-megawatt project in the California desert that developers say could power 800,000 homes. The Blythe Solar Power Project, which would use concentrated solar thermal technology, is to be built on 7,025 acres of public land in Riverside County, about 10 (more…)

U.S.-based First Solar has signed an agreement with the Chinese government to build the world’s largest photovoltaic power plant in Inner Mongolia. By 2019, the plant is expected to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity, which the company said would be sufficient to power three million Chinese homes.

The deal for the 16,000-acre plant, to be located in Ordos City, solidifies China’s position as the global leader in developing renewable energy, and further boosts the prospects of First Solar, the world’s largest photovoltaic cell manufacturer.

(more…)