China will start building pilot wind and solar power projects that won’t receive national government payments as it pushes to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy and rein in subsidy bills. Shares of solar manufacturers surged in New York and Hong Kong. [...]

Renewable energy muscled out coal to become Germany’s biggest source of electricity for the first time last year, helped by a surge in solar panel installations and coal-plant closures. [...]

Unsubsidised solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest source of new bulk power in all major economies except Japan thanks to falling technology costs. [...]

In an Aug. 2 Renewable Energy World article, we reported “Achieving 100 Percent Residential Renewables in Hawaii with Solar+Multi-Storage” since April 2017, 500 hours off-grid and 220 hours grid-tied, using Tabuchi Electric hybrid solar inverter with single embedded battery (10 kWh) and an ROI of three years.  [...]

Today’s topics include the impact of section 201 tariffs on module supply and prices. Will they go up? We’ll also talk about developing the next generation solar workforce based on a new report about energy jobs in the U.S. [...]

Late last year, Renewable Energy World published articles and a video to explain the energy imbalance market to readers. This is the market that was created as a result of the fact that California often has excess solar, wind and hydropower and must “curtail” those energy sources, which means turn them off completely. Instead of curtailing them, through the energy imbalance market, those solar, wind, and hydropower plant owners can sell their power over the border to neighboring states. &nbs [...]

Vancouver, B.C.-based solar developer Solar Alliance Energy Inc. yesterday said it is moving forward with plans to create solar-powered cryptocurrency mining facilities, with the first to be built in Illinois. [...]

With financial backing from the U.S. government, an Israeli solar developer Gigawatt Global Cooperatief UA signed a deal with the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States to build $1 billion of renewable energy projects in the region. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary NV Energy is planning to invest $2 billion on solar power from six new projects in Nevada representing 1 GW of capacity. [...]

India and China are driving a rapid global expansion in large-scale, solar power developments as the cost of building new projects falls, according to an analysis by Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. [...]

A simple potassium solution could boost the efficiency of next-generation solar cells, by enabling them to convert more sunlight into electricity. An international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge found that the addition of potassium iodide 'healed' the defects and immobilised ion movement, which to date have limited the efficiency of cheap perovskite solar cells. [...]

Saudi Arabian energy company ACWA Power has started to use a blockchain currency. ACWA is utilizing SolarCoin, a crypto-currency that is rewarded to generators of solar power.  [...]

This week, we review the spectrum of backup power solutions from generators to home battery backup power systems connected to solar. I’ve been installing home battery backup power systems on and off for 20 years.  [...]

Turns out the solar eclipse, set to plunge parts of the U.S. into total darkness on Monday, will offer exactly what the power sector’s been looking for: a completely predictable stage for experiments. [...]

As the private sector increasingly takes on the task of installing solar PV in China, growth is happening quickly. Last year China installed more solar capacity than any other country in the world at 34 GW, beating the US's 14 GW and Europe's 6.9 GW. [...]

BlackRock Inc. exceeded a $1 billion fundraising target for wind and solar investments for its latest global clean energy fund, underscoring investor interest in renewable energy amid policy uncertainty in key markets. [...]

On Friday, May 26, on what was expected to be one of the hottest days of the year, solar panels in the UK generated a record amount of power, enough to meet almost 25 percent of demand. This is according to data compiled by National Grid Plc and Sheffield University. At noon London-time, 8.75 GW of power was being generated by the solar PV, breaking a previous record of 8.49 GW, overtaking nuclear power in the country.   [...]

The push to save U.S. nuclear plants for the sake of fighting climate change is threatening support for the bread and butter of clean power: wind and solar. [...]

The electricity generated by a solar photovoltaic (PV) system depends on the orientation and tilt of the PV panels, and in some cases, its ability to track the sun throughout the day. Because photovoltaic panels operate more efficiently when oriented directly at the sun, some systems use solar-tracking technology to increase electricity generation by rotating the panels along one or two axes. [...]

The price of solar power in India fell to a record low of 3.15 rupees (5 U.S. cents) a kilowatt-hour in a competitive tender where French firm Engie SA’s local arm won rights to develop 250 MW. [...]

Renewables were the biggest new source of electricity last year as the cost of building new wind and solar farms fell. Clean energy provided 55 percent of all new capacity added worldwide, the most ever, and total investment was about double the amount for generators driven by fossil fuels, according to a report published Thursday by UN Environment, the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.   [...]

A team of scientists at the University of Cambridge has developed a way of using solar power to generate hydrogen from biomass, the U.K. university said last week. [...]

NREL Director Martin Keller kicked off the first full day at Solar Power Colorado in front of a standing room-only audience. In a provocative keynote address he presented the successful history of solar research, which has been accompanied for decades by a dizzying descent in solar costs. Combine that with the way the solar industry improves environmental conditions and creates high-quality jobs – and you have an important good-news story to tell. But, said Keller, the solar industry needs [...]

Supercritical carbon dioxide power cycles have the potential to reduce the cost of concentrating solar power by substantially improving the efficiency of converting high temperature solar heat into electricity. Through three SunShot Initiative-funded projects and six years of steady progress, GE Global Research and Southwest Research Institute have taken major steps toward commercializing the technology.   [...]