Oregon’s utility-supported Energy Trust of Oregon has now helped 5,000 homeowners go solar. And while Anbu Varatharajan, Durga Nallathambi and their 4-month-old daughter didn’t win a sweepstakes for being the 5,000th homeowners to go solar with the nonprofits’ support, they’ll win in the long-run with lower energy costs and a cleaner carbon footprint. 

Two bills calling on the U.S. to create a renewable energy standard (RES) were introduced in the Senate this week. Both bills were introduced by Senate Democrats, and both call on the U.S. to source 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2025. The bills could be a boon to the solar industry and homeowners alike. The pieces of legislation gained praise from environmentalists like the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and clean energy advocates like the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

Imagine a photovoltaic cell or module that actually stores as well as produces energy, acting as a battery and producing power even after dark. New research into silicon-based supercapacitors at Vanderbilt University shows that it’s possible. 

Ikea made a big stir early this fall when it announced plans to sell flat-packed solar arrays in Great Britain. Earlier this year, however, the company announced a much more ambitious goal—to make inexpensive flat-packed, solar-powered refugee shelters. Already the master of flat-packing has shipped its Refugee Housing Units (RHUs) to Ethiopia and Syria where refugees are now living in more stable shelters than before. 

While the 377-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System is a star among the solar community, the project recently got to be a star in another way. The Denver-based rock band, The Fray, used the monolithic solar project as the background for their latest video “Love Don’t Die,” which features a kaleidoscope of swirling images as the band walks across the sparse desert land and among Ivanpah’s heliostats. The heliostats reflect the sun’s thermal energy onto the central towers of Ivanpah where the sun’s concentrated thermal energy super-heats water into steam that’s then used to produce electricity similar to a conventional steam turbine system.

The debate over solar homes and net metering is continuing to heat up, particularly in Arizona. The state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service (APS) is coming under fire for its efforts to gut net-metering. On Oct. 20, The Arizona Republic ran an article showing that the utility was approached by a lobbying firm to help shape and change the state’s regulatory body, the Arizona Corporation Commission, to make it easier for the utility to essentially do whatever it wants in terms of renewable energy. That revelation led to protests outside APS’ headquarters this week and now the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association (AriSEIA) and the Alliance for Solar Choice are calling for investigations into the utility’s lobbying efforts. 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), working with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency, has identified hundreds of thousands of acres of publicly managed land across six Southwest states in 2012 as Solar Energy Zones (SEZs). While other sites identified as Solar Energy Zones are already part of some energy projects in California, the BLM hasn’t held an auction of the sites until now. The first of these auctions took place Oct. 24 in Colorado.  

Normally when talking about a solar tariff, the discussion refers to a feed-in tariff, which benefits consumers who go solar by reimbursing them a higher rate for the electricity they sell to the utility than they otherwise get. That’s not the case with the new tariff proposal from Georgia’s utility, Georgia Power. The utility introduced a rate increase request to the state’s Public Service Commission, asking to impose an estimated $22 per month ($262 a year) solar tariff that customers with solar homes would have to pay. 

Over the past few years, the terms 'crowdfunding' or 'kickstarting' have taken off, much like the projects or startup companies that the fundraising campaigns are helping reach fruition. Now a somewhat unlikely organization has jumped into the fray, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which is aiming to install solar on schools as soon as January 2014 through a new Indiegogo campaign.

Two new reports attest to the popularity of solar among homeowners across the U.S. While the two reports come from very different sources—The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a progressive advocacy organization and Market Strategies advises 20 of the U.S.’s largest utilities—their conclusions are roughly the same: U.S. homeowners are interested in and want solar. The studies suggest that utilities, policymakers and regulators should consider this as they consider current and future net-metering and other solar incentive policies.