This is big. The Topaz Solar Farm, a 550 megawatt behemoth of a photovoltaic solar farm in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., is now fully online. It’s the largest PV plant online in the world. That’s enough energy to power roughly 180,000 Californian homes.

A new report out from the Climate Policy Initiative finds that international investment in climate change reduction technologies fell in 2013 to $331 billion from $359 billion the year before. But it’s not all bad. The report attributed roughly 80 percent of the investment decrease to the dropping cost of solar photovoltaics. However, the report cautioned that much, much more investment is needed to staunch the overwhelming clouds of climate change.

SolarCity and SunEdison signed agreements with Walmart to install up to 400 solar projects on its stores and facilities across the U.S. over the next four years. The new installations will help the world’s largest retailer move forward in its quest to become 100 percent renewably powered by 2020's end. 

Today Colorado’s Ascent Solar and Navarre, a business unit of WYNIT Distribution announced a new distribution agreement for Ascent Solar, under which its EnerPlex line of products will see expanded distribution across North America. The agreement will help the company’s line of thin-film photovoltaics and charging devices gain traction in U.S. and Canadian retail stores. 

A new report out this week from Environment America found that the U.S. could reach 10 percent solar power by 2030—and maybe even surpass that figure. The report used National Renewable Energy Laboratory data. 

Hawaii is the furthest state from the continental U.S. as such its power generation sources are more limited than in the rest of the U.S. As such solar is becoming a big player in the state, since it doesn’t require the expensive imports like oil or diesel. But it’s also becoming a test-case for how the grid can deal with more distributed solar power. 

The day of the solar microinverter may be at hand. In the past two weeks two solar companies in the U.S. SolarWorld and SunPower have both increased their interest in microinverters. SunPower bought SolarBridge outright while SolarWorld created a worldwide partnership with Enphase Energy. 

NRG Home Solar, the residential solar arm of NRG Energy, is expanding in California. The parent company, which owns electric generation across the U.S. and has utility subsidiaries, has repeatedly illustrated its goals to be one of the most renewable energy suppliers in the U.S. and has installed solar power on multiple sports stadiums and owns some of the largest photovoltaic solar farms in the world, including the 290 megawatt Agua Caliente Solar Project in Arizona. But with NRG Home Solar the company is showing that its not only looking at large-scale but also small and residential-scale solar implementations. 

As promised during Solar Power International this year Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) has launched a new website called The 51st State designed to help reimagine the U.S.’s energy infrastructure as an integrated entity where solar is more easily  integrated into the grid from all aspects from utilities to solar installers for manufacturers and customers.

Under a new agreement with SolarCity and Lincoln Military Housing Navy and Marine residences in the San Diego region could see 20 megawatts of solar installed on their roofs. The agreement is part of SolarCIty’s SolarStrong Initiative to install solar on military residences across the U.S.