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…)

Because of shading, building ownership and structure issues, only about 22%-27% of all American rooftops are suitable for solar panel installation. This means that the majority of people will have a hard time contributing to the solar movement. Luckily things are about to change. (more…)

San Jose added more residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems last year than any other city in California, according to the latest PV Solar Report, a quarterly analysis conducted by solar company SunRun.

San Jose’s number of home solar systems in 2011 was up 45.4% from just the year before, a dramatic (more…)

Don’t look now – there’s another reason not to stare directly into the sun. If you look closely, you can possibly see the invisible miles of red tape that all-too-often connect the solar system’s largest star with the photovoltaic permitting process back here on planet Earth. (more…)

The solar industry is gaining steam in both Asia and the U.S. This week, two large deals were signed that signal strategic growth for the solar energy industry.

Suntech, the world’s largest producer of solar panels entered into an agreement with Sunborne Energy to provide Sunborne with 100 MW worth of solar panels (more…)

The residents of The Preserve in Yorba Linda in California will move into their 90-home community knowing that part of the energy they will be using is renewable. That’s because the model homes will come with pre-installed solar panels with no additional cost to homebuyers, the developers say. (more…)

If micro-inverters are the current craze in the solar industry, then I predict that solar energy monitoring systems will be the next big thing.

Micro-inverters (and other parallel technology) are given lots of attention because they can increase the efficiency of a system by up to as much as 10%-20%. Similarly, solar electricity systems that are hooked up to monitoring systems have a 10% energy production increase over systems that are not hooked up to monitoring systems, according to Will Shortt, CEO of Deck (more…)

How can companies like SunRun, Sungevity, and SolarCity provide a zero down or $1000 down solar lease while charging less per month than a utility company? Sound too good to be true? It’s not. Here’s a high level overview of how solar leases (and PPAs) work.

First, let’s briefly review how a homeowner would purchase and install a solar system without the benefit of a solar lease or PPA.  A home owner purchases (more…)

Want to devise an incentive to get a new industry really humming? Try creating a $100 million dollar fund to finance its projects. That’s what PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) and solar financing specialist SunRun Inc. have decided to do.

Working through its non-utility subsidiary, Pacific Energy Capital II, LLC, PG&E announced a $100 million tax equity agreement that will offer financing for more than 3,500 solar roof installations planned by SunRun nationally. The fund represents the largest residential (more…)

CleanTechies blogger Nat Kreamer (COO and co-founder of SunRun) had some big news this morning for us.  Hopefully the announcement of $105M in loan financing for SunRun customers by U.S. Bancorp is a sign of credit houses freeing up some of the liquidity that the department of treasury has passed along to them.

This is big news because while it indicates some thawing of the credit freeze, it also indicates some serious innovation.  This kind of financing is as sexy as any of the new technologies you see coming out of Silicon Valley.

(more…)