When it comes to sheer number of solar installations, Arizona comes in third among states, following California and New Jersey.

Until last December, Arizona’s incentive programs were among the best in the nation, with public utilities offering generous per-watt rebates in addition to a state rebate.

(more…)

The Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean that is threatened by rising sea levels, is turning to solar power to get its electricity.

State Electric Company Limited (STELCO) and Renewable Energy Maldives (REM) have devised a solar energy project to generate electricity for six islands of Malé atoll. Altogether, The Maldives are (more…)

People developing solar energy lights have all sorts of ideas, and sometimes they are very swell …Take the case of the LuminAID Light. It’s an inflatable nifty number, that fully charges with four to six hours of solar exposure.

The light was designed for disaster zones. (more…)

This week, New York Governor Cuomo outlined his priorities for the year ahead in his State of the State address. Among his top initiatives for a building a better New York? More solar!

Touting the state’s successful development of other renewable resources, Cuomo remarked that, (more…)

For some, December probably meant eggnogs, football, relatives, etc. For the California solar industry, it meant a record month of rooftop, behind-the-meter solar. There were over 36 MW of customer-owned installations–the highest since the California Solar Initiative’s inception, and over 130 MW worth of incentive applications. Details on the California Solar (more…)

One of the key drivers for community and residential energy storage is distributed solar photovoltaics (PV). This is because distributed PV causes fluctuations on low-voltage networks (the end of the line of the grid, essentially). In order for the residential side of the market to take off, customers need an incentive to prioritize either onsite (more…)

Fernando de Noronha is one of Brazil’s eco hot spots, famous for its breathtaking geography, surf and marine life. The archipelago lies 220 miles off Rio Grande do Norte state and is a UN World Heritage Site.

An agreement signed on December 26 will bring solar power to the island in 2012, thanks to a new (more…)

If energy cost trends remain consistent — with the price of retail electricity rising and solar power falling — solar energy could become cheaper than power from the grid in most major U.S. metropolitan areas by 2027, according to a recent projection.

In a new map published on the Energy Self-Reliant (more…)

Did you find a lot of neat little gadgets underneath the Christmas tree this week? While they present exciting new ways to stay connected, the need to keep these devices charged can create special challenges for their owners and a big drain on the energy grid.

Rather than wait until the local energy company (more…)

A recent Bloomberg survey of key energy decision-makers concluded that China shows more government support than any other country for funding renewable energy. It also shows equally high support for transformational clean technologies, like smart grids and electric cars. With the right government backing, China could address its own energy security (more…)