A new documentary, “Who Are My People?,” is stirring controversy around some of the giant, utility-scale solar projects that are emerging in the southwest desert. The documentary, by filmmaker Robert Lundahl, looks at these projects through the eyes of Native Americans, who have challenged numerous projects planned for California’s Mojave Desert. Some of the desert land is considered sacred to certain Native American nations. The film premiers in California on June 22 at the Joyce Beers Uptown Community Center in San Diego.

OK, the permitting process for solar projects in the U.S. kind of sucks. That’s just one of the reasons why it’s usually a good idea to work with an accredited installer to wangle the permitting process—above and beyond safety and the assurance that a system is properly installed. But across the U.S. there are literally thousands of authority having jurisdictions (AHJs), each with its own permitting and regulatory process for solar installations, that have created more than 18,000 different permitting processes across the country. 

Goal Zero’s solar chargers and battery backups have been used in some of the toughest environments on earth, places like Everest, and on Eric Larsen's recent attempt to bike across Antarctica. But they may be facing their toughest challenge yet—New York City. Goal Zero has partnered with AT&T and the design studio Pensa to develop Street Charge, a solar-powered mobile device charger that they began deploying in 25 locations in the Big Apple on June 18.

We call it the cloud and cloud computing—the use of servers distributed across the world to backup documents and data, host websites, and all manner of information. But now Google is taking WiFi sky high, actually using balloons to keep WiFi antennas aloft and solar panels to power the antennas. The Internet giant has launched a series of these prototype arial Internet stations 12 miles high in New Zealand to help connect people, primarily farmers in remote locations, to the Internet. 

It’s a new turn on concentrating photovoltaics (CPV). Cool Earth Solar’s inflated, tubular CPV system encases PV cells in a lightweight tube of thin plastic films, which concentrates the sun on them, and makes them look like a float for a pool. Cool Earth Solar partnered with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to test and deploy 100 kilowatts of the unique CPV modules at the Livermore Valley Open Campus’s Clean Energy Demonstration Field.

As the cost of distributed solar, like rooftop solar, continues to become cheaper for home and business owners, utilities are getting worried that distributed solar will hurt their bottom line. Sunrun CEO Ed Fenster says that to thrive, these utilities should take a page from telecom companies, which changed their business model from entrenched monopolies to savvy retailers as the cellphone revolution took over. 

Parity is one of the most important buzz words in solar. It’s the point at which solar becomes cost-competitive with grid-supplied electricity on a levelized cost basis. It’s also the point when solar becomes a real contender with conventional energy generation in a market—and it’s happening in an increasing number of places, like Germany, Italy, California, Hawaii, and now, apparently in New Mexico. 

In the latest sign that the global solar manufacturing industry is heating back up, Lux Research anticipates that the market for photovoltaic (PV) materials will grow to $27.2 billion by 2015. That’s a 52 percent increase over the $17.8 billion spent on PV materials in 2012. The anticipated increase in materials spending show that solar manufacturing is again increasing, and could indicate that a new period of PV innovation is coming.

Generally if a homebuilder or homebuilding company knows they want to build a home with solar, they also know they usually have to pay for it upfront—a cost they will pass on to homebuyers that can add tens of thousands of dollars to the price. Though having little to no electric bill is appealing to homebuyers, adding between $10,000 and $30,000 to the price of a home for solar can make the home less palatable. SolarCity has introduced a workaround with a new zero-down financing program for homebuilders. 

First off, solar systems aren't killers. But in certain—very unusal situations, they can be lethal. Once a photovoltaic (PV) module is connected to wiring, it's outputting electricity as soon as light strikes it. So when the array's wiring or the entire grid is compromised, PV modules can pose a shock hazard. Solar manufacturers are aware of this and are designing systems to be as resilient as possible, but thus far, there are few if any PV modules that are designed to stop operating when they detect an event. Bosch thinks it has a solution.