Residential solar power and net metering usually cause angst for utilities, which often charge that net metering causes them to unfairly charge customers in their network for those customers who have gone solar. Now, new research from Fitch Ratings suggest that net-metering could pose potential long-term threats to the creditworthiness of investor-owned utilities. However, the company also suggests that the risk is manageable. 

Today Vivint Solar and Renovate America announced a new partnership to use property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing to support home solar installations. The financing mechanism will help lower the cost of solar power for homeowners. 

The Obama Administration introduced the Clean Energy Savings For All Initiative today (July 19), which aims to expand access to solar power and energy efficiency to low and moderate income communities throughout the country. The initiative will give lower income people and their communities access to 1 gigawatt of solar power by 2020, according to the administration. 

Solar, environmental, consumer groups and other organizations applauded the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission's decision to reject NextEra Energy’s proposed takeover of Hawaiian Electric. The groups said that NextEra’s opposition to rooftop solar and continued investment in dirty energy were among the reasons why they opposed the merger in the first place. 

Today SolarCity announced that it has raised $345 million more to finance its growing growing business. It’s expanded its debt facility by $110 million. Both of which mean the residential and commercial solar installer can continue to grow its business and its profit potential.

Solar power in the US has already created more than 200,000 jobs and as energy storage is becoming more popular it’s expected to create even more jobs. A new discussion paper from The Solar Foundation asserted that in the next five years energy storage could create an additional 27,000 jobs. 

More than 40 organizations wrote an open letter to Congress requesting that Congressional leaders pass the FAIR Energy Policy Act, which would phase out tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry. Signatories said the industry receives $4 billion an year in tax breaks. That’s money that could create more jobs in solar and wind or improve education throughout the country.

California’s Independent System Operator (ISO) recorded a new milestone for the state’s electric grid when solar power provided 8,030 megawatts of electricity to California’s homes and businesses. The state reached the record on July 12 at 1:06 p.m. and will see even higher levels of solar production in the future.

Electric producers in the US have significantly reduced emissions of key air pollutants by 15 percent between 2005 and 2014 and may have dropped another 6 percent in 2015. That’s despite a growing economy and increased electric generation. 

Over the next 10 years residential energy storage systems (RESS) across the world are expected to boom from under 95 megawatts of systems of annually deployed systems to 3.8 gigawatts of new energy storage systems in 2025 annually. The markets will be led by Australia, Germany, Japan, and the US, according to a new report from Navigate Research.