When it comes to lowering the costs of photovoltaics, production scale is the key driver, according to a new study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). That, not lower labor costs or government subsidies, is the key driver behind the lower-cost photovoltaics coming from China, the study found. It also found that similar results could be produced in the U.S.

Originally published: 09/09/2013

California has long been the nation’s largest market for solar. But this past quarter, the state really blew the rest of the nation away, installing 53 percent of the 976 megawatts of photovoltaics (PV) installed in the U.S. during the quarter. 

This year, the U.S. has seen an increasing battle over net-metering, which has helped make solar economically feasible for hundreds of thousands of homeowners across the nation. But since utilities are on the hook to pay (or at least credit customers) for the power they generate under state-imposed net-metering policies, they’ve been rankling at the rates at which they have to reimburse homeowners for the power they generate. Consequently, utilities have largely been fighting such net-metering policies and homeowners and solar installers are frustrated by utilities’ attempts to gut net-metering policies. 

Mosaic and its project partner Pristine Sun signed a power-purchase agreement (PPA) for a 322 kilowatt PV array with Pacific Gas & Electric under its feed-in tariff program. The PPA allows project investors to experience a 5.5 percent annual return for 10 years. 

As the U.S. Army continues to modernize, it’s showing a lot of interest in something black, shiny, metallic and non-lethal—solar. In fact each of the United State's armed forces branches, the Navy, Air Force and Army have committed to installing 1 gigawatt of renewable energy by 2025 and pledge to supply 25 percent of their energy from renewables. With the announcement on Aug. 27, the Army is soldiering ahead with its plans to lead the way. 

Since the U.S. first started subsidizing nuclear power in 1963, it has received more support in California on an annual basis than solar power has. Now, as California Edison plans to retire the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, ratepayers have already paid $3.5 billion of the estimated $4.1 billion cleanup costs. Meanwhile, since the modern era of solar and federal solar incentives began in 2007, California has received about $2.17 billion in incentives, according to a new DBL Investors white paper, “Ask Saint Onofrio: Finding What Has Been Lost in A Tale of Two Energy Sources.”

By 2025, wind and solar electric generation could be cost-competitive with new natural-fired electric generation without federal subsidies in the Western U.S., according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). That’s if renewable energy development occurs in the most productive locations and the report takes into consideration transmission and integration costs of the energy.

It was almost unimaginable a few short years ago, but last year renewable energy—largely wind and solar—accounted for nearly 50 percent of all new electric generation put on the U.S. grid in 2012. That’s according to a new Ernst & Young report United States renewable energy attractiveness indices, which found that 13.1 gigawatts of wind were added to the grid last year as was 3.3 gigawatts of PV.

GTM Research held a webinar, “Where Will PV Module Costs Bottom Out?” on Aug. 22 that discussed how low the costs of silicon-based photovoltaics (PV) will go by 2017, looking at the Chinese PV manufacturing market. The company is forecasting a base case scenario where Chinese PV modules cost 36 cents per watt to produce in 2017, down from 50 cents per watt at the end of 2012. The webinar focused on China because it is the world’s largest PV producer.