A number of financial experts—not just solar advocates—are already predicting that 2015 will be a great year for solar power in U.S. As solar power technologies continue to drop in price and more companies are familiar with them, it’s becoming increasingly popular for homes, businesses and even utilities. 

Earlier this month the National Hockey League announced that it partnered with Constellation Energy as its energy provider with a focus on reducing energy use and embracing clean energy. The news comes after at least three NHL teams in California partnered with Sungevity to promote solar to hockey fans.

In the waning hours of 2014 it’s time to celebrate solar power in the year. With states across the U.S. seeing major solar gains of all types from installations to new legislation and an anticipated 20 gigawatts of solar power online by the end of 2014—it’s been a good year for the oldest energy source, the sun. 

The Clean Energy Challenge, a clean tech startup accelerator program administered by the Clean Energy Trust, is growing. In 2015 the program will offer a total of $1 million in funds to more than 60 startups in the clean energy arena, with a focus on companies in the Midwest. The awards are available to new, innovative companies focussed on solar power, wind and other forms of clean energy. 

SunEdison’s TerraForm subsidiary is closing 2014 on a busy note. It announced yesterday (Dec. 23) that it secured $175 million to support 60 megawatts of solar projects. That follows an announcement last week (Dec. 16) of a second fund with Barclays and Citi. 

Sol-Wind Renewable Power is looking for an end-of-year stocking stuffer to support it’s growth in clean energy developments like wind and solar power. The company filed an IPO (initial public offering) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today (Dec. 23) to raise $100 million to support its purchase of more solar and wind power plants as a YieldCo. In addition to filing with the SEC, the company also filed with the New York Stock Exchange to be listed as SLWD.

Something kinda weird is happening in Arizona—utilities now want to put solar on people’s homes. This comes after years of fighting with installers and solar advocates to stop some solar policies and programs for residents. Now the state’s largest utility, APS, wants to put solar on rooftops—for free. But it’s not the  only one. TEP, another large utility in the state, also announced a pilot project to install solar on 500 to 600 homes.

In this corner we have U.S.-based solar installers, developers and some manufacturers and in this corner we have other U.S.-based solar manufacturers—both are on different sides of the U.S. Commerce Department’s final ruling on whether Chinese companies were dumping photovoltaic (PV) modules on the U.S. market. 

The next great step for solar power is upon us, energy storage. Over the past half decade or so one of the biggest problems that has plagued photovoltaic solar power is the lack of ability to store the energy produced by solar panels when they produce more energy than is used by the home, office, grid, etc. or when they can’t produce enough energy to meet those needs. Batteries, which make the issues almost obsolete, have existed, but they’ve been prohibitively expensive in the past. 

Christmas comes a bit earlier for solar and renewable energy advocates, particularly those associated with Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Institute and Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room. The two organizations have merged to pursue a number of initiatives, including bringing renewable energy to at least 10 islands the Caribbean.