Potluck Energy and SunBug Solar are celebrating the completion of a 22-kilowatt subscription-based, community solar installation located on the roof of the Avid Building in downtown Somerville, MA. The first ever community solar project in the city offers customers of the local utility, Eversource, the flexibility to go solar with no obligation beyond 6 months, while receiving an average savings of 10 percent off existing retail electricity rates. 

Hasbro, the toy company that created Nerf, My Little Pony and Transformers, has purchased 25,699 megawatt-hours of renewable energy certificates (RECs) from 3Degrees to offset 99.6 percent of its 2016 global electricity consumption. Purchasing the RECs builds on the company’s commitment to 100 percent renewable energy and achieving carbon neutrality throughout its international operations.

Pick My Solar, an online solar marketplace, in partnership with Self-Reliance and the Marion Institute is making it easier for home and business owners along the southeastern coast of Massachusetts to install rooftop solar through the 2017 Mass Solar Connect program. The marketplace uses a competitive online bidding process to reduce the cost of rooftop solar systems by as much as 20 percent below market rates.

Solarize Rhode Island has partnered with RGS Energy to provide homeowners and businesses in Cranston with the chance to sign up for a community-wide solar discount program. The Solarize Rhode Island increases residential and commercial access to solar through a buy-in program that uses flexible financing, tiered pricing and volume discounts to reduce the cost of solar.

It looks like Nevada is open for rooftop solar again, thanks to the passage of Assembly Bill 405 by both bodies of the Nevada Legislature, which would reinstate net-metering policies and rates for rooftop solar customers throughout the state. With that move major solar installers, among them Sunrun and SolarCity are reentering the state, Now, Vivint Solar announced that it will, once again, open operations across Nevada, bringing 80 to 100 jobs to the state.

The remote Chitwan National Park Ranger Outpost, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Nepal, is getting outfitted with a rooftop solar array. At the same time 10 local women will be trained as solar industry entrepreneurs. 

The NBA's Washington Wizards will play under the power of the sun on their home court at the Verizon Center next season. No, their arena won’t be missing a roof, but Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE), owner of the Verizon Center, signed an agreement WGL Energy for 4.7-million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually delivered from a 3.5 megawatt WGL solar farm in Fredrick County, MD. The partnership will allow the Verizon Center to get 25 percent of its energy from solar, meeting its pledge to the Green Sports Alliance.

As part of a $1 billion investment to bring 500 megawatts of solar generation online, Virginia’s Dominion Energy is teaming up with Coronel Energy, to develop the 20 megawatt Essex Solar Center on 174-acres of land in Essex County, VA. The project will help preserve the land at the former campus of the Rappanhannock Industrial Academy (RIA), a school dedicated to educating children of freed slaves in the early 1900s. 

Powervault is teaming up with Renault to test the French automaker’s used electric vehicle (EV) batteries as smart battery storage systems for its solar installations. The partnership is expected to reduce the cost of Powervault’s G200 lithium-ion battery system by 30 percent. The companies will conduct a trial at 50 homes, public housing and schools with rooftop installed in M&S Energy’s United Kingdom service area. 

Sunrun has teamed up with Think Energy, a subsidiary of ENGIE Resources, to offer its residential solar services in Texas. The companies will offer homeowners options including purchasing, leases or other financing options for rooftop solar installation combined with a 20-year virtual net-metering agreement.