Utilities are trying to find a better way to educate customers about the costs of incorporating different types of solar generation into the grid without sounding anti-solar. E Source recently surveyed 7,000 US utility customers about their perception of utilities’ investments in solar. It found 61 percent thought solar power reduced costs, 29 percent said it had no effect and 10 percent expressed that it increased costs. 

National Grid and United Renewable Energy have completed a community solar project on three acres of underused pasture land in the hamlet of Somerville, NY, with more than half of it already sold to customers. It’s the first community solar project National Grid has developed and connected to its transmission infrastructure in Upstate New York.

New York extended how far electric vehicles (EV) can drive in the state with the installation of an Envision Solar EV ARC charging station at the Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve near Buffalo, NY. The off-grid and portable charging carport features a 2.3-kilowatt solar panel canopy and a 21.6 kilowatt-hour battery system that produces enough energy to charge up to 225 miles of EV driving in a day. 

Dominion Virginia Power’s 2017 integrated resource plan (IRP) includes 8 potential scenarios that outline the development of between 5,200 megawatts and 5,760 megawatts of new solar generation in its Virginia and North Carolina service areas by 2042. That would be enough solar energy to power 1.3 million homes at maximum output.

Solar Spectrum, a new company backed by equity firm Northern Pacific Group, has acquired Sungevity for $50 million as part of a court-approved bankruptcy sale. The sale handed the new company Sungevity’s operations infrastructure, $800 million in assets and $189 million of debt. 

The State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) will judge 172 teams from across the US competing in the Solar in Your Community Challenge for a total of $5 million in prizes. The teams have proposed a total of 300 megawatts of shovel-ready community solar projects for underserved communities, the merits of which will be evaluated on the best demonstration of innovative and tangible business models over 18 months.

The Chemehuevi Indian Reservation, near Lake Havasu, CA, will soon have a 90-kilowatt SunPower solar carport and a 25 kW/125 kilowatt hour (kWh) Primus Power flow energy storage system. That’s thanks to a partnership with University of California Riverside, Pacific Energy and Grid Alternatives. The solar-powered microgrid, slated to come online in July 2017, will provide electricity and back-up power to the reservation’s community center, which also serves as its emergency response center.

Southern California Edison (SCE) installed 1,648 megawatts of new solar in 2016, more than double the amount any other utility added, easily making it first for overall solar installations, according to the Smart Electric Power Alliance’s (SEPA's) 10th annual Utility Survey Top 10 lists. It’s the second year in a row that SCE topped the list. Just as impressive, City of Palo Alto Utilities took the top spot for installing the most solar per-customer with 2.8 kilowatts per customer, compared to only 20.4 watts per customer in 2007, when SEPA introduced the rankings and City of Palo Alto was fifth in the category.

In 2016 Hawaiian Electric Companies (HECO) increased its total renewable energy generation to 26 percent, making strong progress toward its goal to source 100 percent of its electricity from clean energy by 2040. Looking ahead the utility plans to double the amount of commercial and rooftop solar installations in its service area by 2030 and is installing 110 megawatts of utility-scale solar that will come online in 2019. 

The solar job market is growing so fast, finding new employees is getting expensive. More than half of the US’s solar companies spend more than $10,000 per unfilled position in delayed hiring and recruitment expenses, constricting their ability to grow.