Yesterday Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled Tesla Energy and the Powerwall, the poorly held secret new residential energy storage system that the company will soon offer to residents across the U.S. The lithium ion batteries will allow homeowners with solar panels to use the energy produced by their solar panels during a blackout or to help them help their electric bills where utilities have time of use charges. 

The 21st century transportation infrastructure is starting undergo major changes, as more flex fuel, natural gas and electric vehicles come online. But what about the fuel? There are some companies making biogasses but they’re still expensive. The Department of Energy is renewing its interests in one method of creating a transportation fuel from the sunlight by renewing its support of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) with $75 million in funding. 

Community solar or shared solar resources could make up nearly half of the distributed solar resources in the U.S. by 2020. That’s according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). 

Vivint Solar has partnered with SolarEdge as its inverter supplier for its residential solar installations. SolarEdge makes inverters and power optimizers, which Vivint Solar will use in its systems across the country. 

As California suffers through another crippling drought people in the U.S. are again talking about desalinating water. Some of the folks over at MIT have just won an award for a desalinization process that uses a photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis reversal (EDR) system to remove salt from water. The system pulls salt from water with electricity produced by the solar panels and uses ultraviolet rays to sterilize the water.

Tesla Motors, makers of some of sleekest electric cars in the world, will announce next week its plans to introduce two new lines of batteries—one for home energy storage (read, great for tying in with a home solar system) and one for utilities. The company could offer the next big challenge for utilities that are already trying to figure out how to operate in a world where consumers don’t need as much of the power as they used to from the electric grid. 

Today (April 22) is one of those important days, a day when people across the U.S. and hopefully the world take a second, a minute or more to reflect on the Earth and all it does for us. It’s also a chance to celebrate what what we’ve accomplished in terms of protecting our home and what we’re starting to do. In the solar industry the U.S. has gone from virtually zero solar panels when the first Earth Day occurred in 1970, to more than 20 gigawatts of solar panels today. 

Yesterday (April 21) the U.S. Department of Energy released the first Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) of the U.S. Energy Infrastructure. The review looked at the entire energy infrastructure including rail, petroleum storage, pipelines, electric grid and generation across the nation. It found that there’s a lot of work to be done. The news was welcomed by renewable energy industries. 

Today (April 20) Apple introduced its annual sustainability report updating the company’s progress on its use of renewable energy, reduced water use and reduced toxins use in its equipment and more. The news comes ahead of Earth Day, which is being celebrated this Wednesday and just after the company announced a new, 40 megawatt solar project in China, which will use SunPower modules. 

That’s according to figures from the California Independent System Operator (CaISO), which tracks and manages most of the Golden State’s electric grid. The organization reported yesterday that the state’s solar power plants generated 6 gigawatts of power on April 15.