Renewable Energy News

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-solarcity-sues-treasury-over-1603-payments.jpg" /pIn an interesting turn of events, solar third-party ownership company SolarCity is suing the Treasury Department in Federal Claims Court, alleging that it received less than expected from the now defunct 1603 Treasury Grant Program. This follows the Treasury investigation of SolarCity over whether or not it correctly valued the solar arrays the com/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-the-economic-case-for-divesting-from-fossil-fuels.jpg" /pSecurities of fossil fuels firms, as an economic sector, may soon be on the decline./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-ontario-loses-wto-appeal-what-happens-next.jpg" /pAfter a lengthy appeal process, the WTO recently ruled in favour of Japan and the European Union in a case over Ontario's domestic content requirements (DCR) for renewable energy projects under the province's FIT Program. In light of this decision, the DCR, which mandate that project developers procure 50-60 percent of the value of their installations from equipment assembled or manufactured in Ontario, are now effectively illegal under the multilateral WTO agreement. As a result, Ontario's provincial government, which oversees the administration of the FIT Program, is now in a position in which it must make a policy choice which will likely have far reaching political and economic consequences as well as a significant impact on the province's renewable energy industry./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-solarcity-posts-loss-as-spending-on-new-systems-increases.jpg" /pSolarCity Corp. (SCTY), the second-largest U.S. solar company by market value, posted a first-quarter loss as it bore higher costs from installing rooftop solar systems at little or no charge to customers./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-out-of-the-shell-oil-giants-big-biofuels-ambitions.jpg" /pIn this era of "repeal the RFS" efforts from API, would you be surprised that Shell regards the US Renewable Fuel Standard as "one of the more effective frameworks out there"?/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-fighting-blackouts-japan-residential-pv-and-energy-storage-market-flourishing.jpg" /pIn the past, a PV system with battery storage was associated with the off-grid system — not connected to the utility grid. The battery stores the energy produced by the PV system and when the sun goes down, electricity is drawn from the battery. In Japan, the battery became attractive to store electricity from "the grid," to reduce electricity bills./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-the-future-of-solar-in-latin-america.jpg" /pClearSky Advisors has recently evaluated the attractiveness of each market in Latin America by quantifying the relevant fundamental and political factors which will drive solar installations over the next several years. Fundamental factors include solar insolation, the cost of electricity and current PV market maturity while political factors include the effectiveness of existing solar policies, new generation required and economic and investment risks./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-8-vivid-charts-8-reasons-for-a-solar-energy-standard-in-minnesota.jpg" /pA conference committee is resolving differences between House and (much weaker) Senate versions of a solar energy standard in Minnesota today. Here's eight graphic reasons why the state should go for solar as aggressively as it can.   This post originally appeared on ILSR’s Energy Self-Reliant States blog. 8 Vivid Charts – 8 Reasons for a Solar Ene/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/14/body-electricity-loss-and-theft-who-pays.jpg" /pWe fret about turning off the lights to save pennies on energy. Meanwhile, electricity worth billions of dollars gets lost or stolen on the world’s power grids every year. In industry jargon, the problem is known as ‘line loss.’ A certain amount of electricity generated by a power plant never makes it to the consumer — or at least the paying consum/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/12/body-finlands-new-energy-solutions.jpg" /pYou may not know much about Finland, but you certainly know the powerhouse technology company that became a household name across the globe and drove the nation’s economic expansion through the 1990s-2000s. Nokia generated a quarter of Finnish economic growth from 1998-2007, prompting a new term, ‘the Nokia effect’, to describe economic development/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/13/body-brief-solar-pv-manufacturer-solopower-sells-off-equipment-prepares-for-layoffs.jpg" /pSoloPower, a manufacturer of photovoltaic solar modules, sold thousands of dollars' worth of equipment from its California headquarters last week and is preparing for more layoffs, according to a report from the Oregonian./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/13/body-massachusetts-public-private-solar-development-healthy-mix-of-business-sense-environmental-awareness-and-public-engagement.jpg" /pIt's not often that I hear about renewable energy installations near my hometown in Southeastern Massachusetts – many towns in that area seem to have a vocal dose of NIMBY-ism. So when I heard that auto-auction company Manheim was unveiling a 3.5-megawatt installation in Dighton, Mass., I jumped at the chance to go take a look and was pleasantly surprised at what I found./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/13/body-springtime-for-tesla.jpg" /pIn my past couple blog posts, I've written about the electric car market and inventor Nikola Tesla , but I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to talk about Telsa Motors and the very big waves the company has been making lately. Tesla is having a very, very good May so far. Stock prices raised eyebrows on Wall Street, the company turned its first/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/10/body-energy-expert-predicts-solar-could-upend-major-utility-in-california-on-price.jpg" /pBased on the falling costs of solar and rising electric prices, Pacific Gas Electric (PGE), one of the largest utilities in the country that serves northern California, may not be able to compete with residential solar soon. That’s according to a recent piece at think tank, The Energy Collective by energy expert Douglas Short, President of Exas /p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/13/body-solar-freds-guide-to-positive-yelp-solar-installer-reviews.jpg" /pWhether you're in the solar business or any consumer-facing business, you can’t ignore Yelp today or in the foreseeable future. First of all, it won't ever go away, and it's only getting stronger. In fact, it’s even more important now in the age of “Siri,” Apple’s voice-activated concierge for the iPhone. If someone asks Siri, “Who are the best sol/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/13/body-suzlon-energy-no-longer-the-top-indian-wind-turbine-manufacture.jpg" /pSuzlon Energy Ltd. ceded its position as India's top wind-turbine supplier in the year ended March 31 for the first time in at least a decade, according to figures from an industry group./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/10/body-three-ways-to-increase-hydropower-efficiency-and-revenues.jpg" /pRecently, the Department of Energy conducted a study with the Electric Power Research Institute on quantifying the value of hydropower, based on a 3 year examination of the Western Electric Coordination Council region./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/8/body-marine-energy-breakthrough-new-technology-multiplies-potential.jpg" /pMarine energy is the 'best of the best' amongst green energy sources: it has the greatest potential (in theory, the planet's oceans could supply the entire world with renewable energy), tidal and ocean current power plants are under water and therefore completely invisible, they produce electricity from 100 percent renewable energy sources (the water in the globe's oceans will always move around, well, at least until the sun swallows the moon), they are safe, and the icing on the cake is that they actually have positive environmental effects. Positive? Yes, studies have shown that marine life thrive in marine energy parks./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/10/body-connecticut-seeks-to-literally-water-down-its-rps-could-it-happen-in-your-region.jpg" /pSince I live in New Hampshire and write about the global renewable energy industry, once in a while small local news that might appear to be of minor importance to my neighbors leaps out at me as something that could end up having a huge impact on the renewable energy industry./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/5/8/body-india-may-defer-penalties-on-1-billion-of-solar-thermal-plants.jpg" /pIndia's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is seeking to defer penalties on about $1 billion of solar-thermal power projects that are delayed by a lack of water, financing difficulties and equipment shortages./p