The Department of Energy (DOE) recently allowed Colorado to use Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funds to install rooftop solar on low-income homes, becoming the first state allowed to do so. Now, through a partnership of the Colorado Energy Office (CEO), the Energy Resource Center (ERC) and Colorado Springs Utilities, its made the first installation, a 2 kilowatt rooftop solar array on a home in Colorado Springs.

Late last week Spain’s Solarpack won a bid in Chile for a 120 megawatt solar farm to produce 280 gigawatt hours of solar power annually at a cost of $29.10 per megawatt hour. The new bid is the lowest price ever bid for a solar project—even lower than the $29.90 cents per megawatt hour bid for a project in Dubai—and is unsubsidized, making solar power well lower than the cost of coal. 

Today (Aug. 22) Wiki-Solar announced that 2016 will likely be another record year for utility-scale solar power and could see as many as 100 gigawatts (GWs) of newly installed solar projects over 4 megawatts in size. The organization said it will likely be the sixth consecutive record year for utility-scale solar growth. 

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) just made more information from the “Global Atlas for Renewable Energy” free for download. The atlas has offered comprehensive data to support renewable energy development for people throughout the world. The new data comes from private company Vaisala, which concluded compiling its average annual data on solar irradiation and wind speeds earlier this year and now made it publicly available. 

Earlier this week NV Energy proposed retiring the Reid Gardner coal plant on Feb. 28, 2017, nearly a year earlier than the Dec. 31, 2017 date it previously planned to close the plant on. The power from the plant will instead be generated with more solar power. The news was heralded by renewable energy advocates, among them local coalition RenewNV and the Sierra Club. 

Sungevity and partners completed the first phase of a commercial microgrid that includes a 832 kilowatt solar installation. The microgrid was installed at the Ram's Hill Golf Course in Borrego Springs, CA, and is expected to save the course $300,000 annually, generating a return on investment in eight years. 

Earlier this month Colorado’s Ascent Solar Technologies debuted its newest EnerPlex thin-film solar chargers at the Outdoor Retailer show. The thin-film solar chargers are flexible and extremely light, the Kickr 7 FL (Feather-light), weighs just 5 ounces or less than half a can of soda and provides 6.5 watts of charging power. The combination earned it numerous “Best of Show” awards at the outdoor industry’s premier show for new products.

With the cost of solar coming down as efficiency levels of solar cells go up, it’s becoming more important to find more ways to the get the most out of marterials. That’s where 1366 Technologies’ latest advancement comes in. The company said its Direct Wafer process is able to grow a “three dimensional” wafer or a thin silicon wafer with a thick border, which reduces the amount of silicon required for each wafer without sacrificing strength, durability or performance.

Today (Aug. 17) Apple announced that its suppliers and manufacturers in Asia are going as green as the company is going with all of its operations. As Apple CEO Tim Cook is touring Asia the company announced that 14 of its final assembly plants are now compliant with UL’s Zero Waste to Landfill validation and plan to transition to clean energy. 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently reported that polymer solar cells, which can effectively be printed onto sheets akin to printing a newspaper from a long spool of paper, are coming closer to practicality. Such solar cells are much cheaper to produce can be placed on a variety of substrates and use less materials.